Congress Extends Farm Bill, Avoiding Dust-Bowl Era Fallback Legislation

This week leaders of the House and Senate agriculture committees have come to an agreement to extend the 2018 Farm Bill until September 30, 2024.

San Luis Obispo’s Farm Bureau Executive Director, Brent Burchett, joins us.

“We expect an extension this calendar year that would hopefully give us a little bit of urgency to start work on that early 2024, but at least we would have the full year to get that going in Congress and it won't be easy. I think a lot of these programs are food safety oriented, a lot of research programs. That's a big deal for our fruit and vegetable producers, but also these disaster programs…there's some forecast of additional rainfall and heavy rainfall this winter and we could see these same problems again.”

This comes as a great relief for many, who were concerned that if an extension wasn’t passed before the new year, some farm policy would revert to controls on production and costly price supports adopted in the 1940’s.

“I believe the term is milk-ageddon, where it reverts to the old permanent agricultural legislation, like the first farm bill.”

The first farm bill, the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933, was a part of the New Deal.