House Ag Committee Meets

House Ag Committee Meets

Maura Bennett
Maura Bennett
The House Agriculture committee has met for the first time under new Chairman Collin Peterson, D-Minn..

Peterson said he wants the committee which just completed a long hard slog on the new Farm Bill to continue its tradition of bipartisanship. He congratulated the now ranking member Congressman Mike Conaway of Texas for leading the committee through the arduous process, announced new additions to the committee staff and laid out a few priorities.

Peterson says they have a great opportunity now to see the new Farm Bill gets implemented as fast as it can, the way they intended it to be implemented.

"We still have struggling farmers out there as you all know, especially our dairy farmers and the stuff that was in this bill for dairy, I think is going to be very helpful but we;'ve got to get bill implemented and get it into place before we lose anymore of our farmers. We have oversight to do. We're going to spend a lot of time getting members up to speed. We've got a lot of new members. This ag committee stuff is complicated stuff that you don't just learn overnight. So we're going to use the subcommittees to try to help get people up to speed on what's going on. Whoever wants to take on the challenge of - I'm looking for someone who can become an expert on dairy policy and federal milk marketing orders."

Meanwhile the National Farmers union Public Policy lead Rob Larew issued a statement following the president's State of Union address saying President Trump's speech ignored the reality that most American farmers and ranchers face on a daily basis. "The reality is that the downward trend in the farm economy has only worsened over the last two years, leaving many farmers and ranchers in significant financial stress,"

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