Ron Kind: “I truly do appreciate the hard work my colleagues here today on the Agriculture Committee have been doing to try to…”

“I truly do appreciate the hard work my colleagues here today on the Agriculture Committee have been doing to try to craft a farm bill that can get accomplished yet this year. It is one of the most difficult things that Members are asked to do in any Congress, is to piece together the parochial and the different interests that span this great country to find an acceptable farm bill that can get signed into law. But we still have a little ways to go. And I say to my friend from Pennsylvania, as far as the feed factor with dairy production, there is no question that fixed costs are going up right now in agricultural production driven by a variety of factors, not the least of which is the energy debacle that we find ourselves in right now. But I think once we start going down to that feed route, we are going to get a lot of other groups now chiming in saying: What about us? What about us? How come dairy is being taken care of? What about poultry? What about beef? What about the others that are experiencing the same type of cost increases? And then you are really talking about blowing the lid off of some of these other programs.”