Make Sure Your Congressional Representatives Know Where You Stand on Farm Bill Provisions

House and Senate members who will serve on the "conference committee" to resolve differences between the House and Senate-passed farm bills have now been officially appointed, but no real action has yet occurred. The staff of these members began to meet last week, but official meetings of the conferees can't get underway until they settle a minor dispute over whose turn it is to chair the conference. Typically, the House and Senate Agriculture Committee Chairmen alternate this responsibility. But, while the Senate chairman handled the last farm bill conference, House Chairman Combest (R-TX) chaired the more recent conference held last year on new crop insurance reforms.

It is important to take advantage of this time to make sure that your representatives in the House and Senate are aware of the impacts that will flow from decisions made in this farm bill conference on you, your company and your employees in their local district or state. If your local representatives aren't part of the conference committee, they can still weigh in with their colleagues.

On February 28, IDFA sent a letter to all conferees urging that dairy provisions be rejected if they discriminate between regions or farm sizes or would encourage overproduction or otherwise distort milk markets. The letter reiterated the unified support by the processor organizations and the National Milk Producers Federation for a simple continuation of the dairy price support program at $9.90 per hundredweight.

The Coalition for Fair Milk Prices also communicated with conferees recently to express strong opposition to any deal that would include interstate dairy compacts. Click here to read the two letters.

Posted March 4, 2002

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