Compromise is rare and what is needed to pass farm legislation

The farm bill conference committee held its first meeting on Oct. 30, beginning what I hope are the final steps to a process that began nearly four years ago, when I chaired the House Agriculture Committee.

A lot has transpired between that first hearing and the Oct. 30 conference meeting. The traditionally bipartisan farm bill fell victim to election-year politics in 2012 and, this summer, political posturing by a far right that seems to have a hard time taking yes for an answer.

{mosads}While the process has been long, and my outlook has at times been pessimistic, I’ve never wavered in my support for a strong farm bill. The farm bill gives farmers and ranchers the necessary tools to provide American consumers with the safest, most abundant and most affordable food supply in the world. The bill includes farm, conservation, trade, nutrition, credit, rural development, research, forestry, energy and specialty crop programs.

With roughly 16 million American jobs tied to agriculture, the farm bill is a jobs bill. The rural economy remained strong during our nation’s financial crisis and that has continued during our recovery; this is in large part due to agriculture. And this is why the farm bill is so important.

This summer the House Agriculture Committee produced a bipartisan bill, a true compromise between commodities and regions, and urban and rural members. It wasn’t perfect. I didn’t get everything I wanted; committee Chairman Frank Lucas (R-Okla.) didn’t get everything he wanted. But that’s how the legislative process is supposed to work.

Unfortunately, the Agriculture Committee’s bill was hijacked with partisan amendments on the House floor and defeated.
Rather than going back to the Agriculture Committee, the House Republican leadership adopted a strategy advanced by outside conservative groups like the Heritage Foundation and the Club for Growth – and split the farm bill. These are organizations with no real interest in the bill; their only goal was to advance their agenda of doing away with the farm bill entirely and ending the decadeslong marriage between farm and nutrition programs.

House Republican leaders put forward two separate pieces of legislation — a “farm only” farm bill and a stand-alone nutrition bill, cutting $40 billion from food assistance programs. Despite the fact that this strategy was opposed by 532 agriculture; conservation; rural development; finance; forestry; energy and crop insurance groups, and neither effort was going anywhere in the Senate, both bills passed along party lines.

With the political gamesmanship out of the way, Republican leaders indicated that they were finally ready to get serious about the farm bill by appointing House farm bill conferees on Oct. 12.

We have our work cut out for us. The differences between the House and Senate farm bills span all titles and programs, and resolving these differences obviously poses a challenge.

With roughly 80 percent of the farm bill going to nutrition programs, it’s no wonder the differences on the nutrition title seem to draw the most interest from those outside of agriculture. Reconciling the House’s $40 billion cut to nutrition programs with the Senate bill’s $4 billion reduction is going to be a challenge, but I do believe that we can find some middle ground and make some reasonable, responsible reforms to these vital programs.

We also need to make reforms to our farm safety nets, ensuring that farmers won’t get a government subsidy for doing nothing and addressing the volatility in today’s dairy market through my Dairy Security Act.

I also believe it’s important that the conference committee be left alone and allowed to do our work. We saw the impact of outside forces during the House farm bill debate. We cannot afford to do that again, and failing to pass a new farm bill is not an option.
I was encouraged by the tone of the first conference meeting and remain positive following ongoing conversations amongst the

I was encouraged by the tone of the first conference meeting and remain positive following ongoing conversations amongst the House and Senate Agriculture Committee leaders. Compromise has been rare in Washington but we understand it’s what is needed to finally get a new farm bill signed into law.



Peterson has served Minnesota’s 7th Congressional District since 1991. He is ranking member on the Agriculture Committee.