Robin Carnahan: “a few week ago, the Department of Agriculture announced that commodity prices had taken their biggest 1- month drop in…”

“a few week ago, the Department of Agriculture announced that commodity prices had taken their biggest 1- month drop in more than 90 years. It has been 5 years since Congress last passed a farm bill. Every year since then, we have needed an expensive bailout bill. These bailouts are usually referred to as emergency disaster assistance. But the real disaster has been our farm policy itself. The 1996 farm bill provided farmers with flexibility in deciding what, when, and where to plant. But it left them utterly without a safety net. When floods came, the farm bill gave them nothing. When droughts cut their output in half, the farm bill gave them nothing. When the bottom fell out of prices, when the cost of fuel skyrocketed, when armyworms destroyed an entire crop, the farm bill gave them nothing. Only when Congress passed emergency spending bills did farmers get any relief. That is a raw deal for the people who feed our Nation--and the world. How can farmers and ranchers plan for the next year's crop not knowing what programs will be in place? It is time for Congress to act on a new farm bill--one that promoted competitiveness and consumer choice, while providing adequate income to farmers. This fall, I wrote to Chairman Harkin outlining my priorities for the farm bill. I shared with him the recommendations I have heard from farmers across Missouri. I am pleased so many of these ideas were included in the bill reported by the committee.…”