Bob Wise: “This is truly a great Texas piece of legislation, but it is very, very important for West Virginia. Let me just say that…”

“This is truly a great Texas piece of legislation, but it is very, very important for West Virginia. Let me just say that I appreciate also the full committee chair of both the Committee on Agriculture and the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight for their efforts as well. Mr. Speaker, this is a very important bill, particularly for rural States, rural areas, and particularly for States that have farming of the type that West Virginia does. If this piece of legislation did not go through, West Virginia will be the most seriously affected State of any State in the Nation in terms of losing its definition of family farm and losing a lot of farms that presently benefit from that definition. West Virginia presently has over 17,000 farms that are defined as farms by the Department of Census, that is, they have sales in excess of $1,000. Raising that to $10,000 would cause 78 percent of our farms in the State to lose that definition. What that means then is that we would be greatly impacted, farmers would not be able to receive certain tax, favorable tax treatment, the distribution of research funds for farms would be altered and also for college agricultural programs as well as the allocation of soil conservation efforts.”