Washington, D.C. |

Each and every day, farmers and producers continue to struggle as input prices, regulatory burdens, and overall costs of production continue to rise. Couple that with uncertain weather and markets, and it’s no doubt been a challenging time for producers across the country. That’s of course why a new Farm Bill passage is so imperative. The good news is that there has been movement on a bill, but the process of getting it to the President’s desk will most certainly be a challenge as the majority of the more than one trillion-dollar bill isn’t designated for production ag.

“One of the challenges with getting the farm bill adopted is that SNAP and other nutritional benefits now consume, no pun intended, over eighty percent of total farm bill spending, which means that less than ten percent of what we call the farm bill is going into ARC, PLC, and the other risk mitigation tools that our farmers depend on. So, as we write the bill, we have a total dollar figure that we can spend on the bill, and as the snap portion, the food portion of the bill has become larger and larger over time, that has driven down what is available for production agriculture,” says Representative Austin Scott, from Georgia’s 8th District.

However, for Scott, that’s why getting updated reference prices is a priority, as he says producers have a high risk due to the increased costs associated with production, which constitutes better protections.

“Without that increase in reference prices and loan values, our farmers simply would not have the risk mitigation tools that they need to cover their operations if you have a commodity price collapse. So that’s one of our big concerns for the bill and as we push it forward, making sure that with the increased cost of production, our farmers have those stop losses in place, that keep them growing the crops next year. So we’re focused very much on the production ag, the commercial production ag, the tons of food that we need in this country, so that we’re able to walk in the grocery store and buy the food that candidly, we’ve become a little bit spoiled with in this country,” says Scott.

Another major issue producers are facing are increases in farm labor, as hourly wages and fees associated with guest worker programs have risen year after year, something Scott says is a big burden as producers can’t prepare for such drastic, unexpected increases in costs and is something that needs addressing at the congressional level.

“People expect reasonable increases in the rates, but when they come back with twenty percent and then tag it with another twenty percent, those aren’t the exact percentages, but you understand what I’m getting at, you can’t make those adjustments in your business. So on one hand, the USDA and other government agencies complain that while the size of the farm is getting larger and larger and larger, and on the other hand, they continue to adopt policies that drive the small farmer out of business. So, I think you will see um, the wage rate addressed,” says Scott.

By: John Holcomb