On the recordDecember 20, 2013
while the days are limited before the end of 2013, the Farm Bill Conference Committee presses on, working together in a bipartisan fashion to resolve differences and to take the steps necessary to enact a comprehensive and balanced farm bill. Under the leadership of Chairwoman Stabenow and Chairman Lucas, it now appears we are on target to complete our work on this bill early in the New Year. Nonetheless, it has now been more than 440 days since the farm bill first expired. Farms are businesses, and farmers in Vermont and across the country are desperate to have a new farm bill enacted to give them the much-needed certainty for their planting and other farm decisions. Since the 2008 farm bill expired last year, we have seen parts of the country ravaged by blizzards that wiped out cattle herds while commodity prices slump. More than 20 programs, including the Organic Certification Cost Share Program, the Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Grant Program, livestock disaster, renewable energy programs, and assistance for rural small business owners have been stranded without updated charters, and the USDA has had to press the pause button since these programs are stuck with no authorized funding. Those who participate in these programs are left hanging. That is as unwise as it is unfair. Last week the House of Representatives quickly took up and passed a short-term extension of the farm bill with very little debate and has asked the Senate to do the same.…
