Daschle said the bill passed by the Senate Agriculture Committee will provide a better safety net for producers in South Dakota and across the country than provided in the House bill. The legislation would provide a target price level of support of $2.35 for corn, $5.75 for soybeans, and $3.45 for wheat on 100% of production rather than the 85 percent provided for in the House bill. Additionally, producers in South Dakota will have the option of updating their bases and yields for all program commodities.

"The rural economy has lagged behind the overall economy for two decades," Daschle said. "Just last week USDA announced that prices have taken their biggest one-month drop since USDA has been keeping records – over 90 years. This Farm Bill is long overdue, and we must now move this process forward. In many ways, this farm bill is South Dakota's rural stimulus package."

Daschle said he was also pleased that the committee reconsidered and included Senator Tim Johnson's country-of-origin labeling provision in the Farm Bill. The legislation was stripped by minority members of the Committee during an earlier debate. Daschle said that while he is pleased that the process of rewriting the Farm Bill is moving forward, he will continue to fight to include a competition title to strengthen USDA's ability to protect all producers from anti-competitive practices and restore fairness to agricultural markets by increasing the bargaining power of smaller independent producers.

"Daschle also supported was a committee amendment that would have further boosted farm income by significantly raising loan rates based on 80 percent of cost of production. Under that proposal the corn loan rate would have increased from $1.85 to $2.42. Unfortunately, that amendment was defeated.

"This Farm Bill isn't everything we wanted, but it gets South Dakota farmers a step closer to better farm policy. I'll be working with Tim Johnson and others colleagues to improve the bill on the floor," Daschle said.