House Agriculture Committee chairman Glenn "GT" Thompson says he is confident a new US farm bill will reach the president's desk before the end of the calendar year, even after another deadline passed without a final package, American Ag Network reports. He spoke to Farm and Ranch Media's Susan Littlefield at World Dairy Expo in Madison, Wisconsin.
Thompson said the Senate's work closely tracks the House bill: "11 of the 12 titles, what the Senate is passing is really, with a few modifications, what we sent them." Nutrition remains the sticking point. He expects agreement once the election is over and did not think the House would have to accept major concessions.
At a round table with dairy farmers at the Expo, fuel costs came up first and most often. "Cost of diesel, which I understand, it's awful," Thompson said, adding that high diesel prices reach consumers because everything farms produce is trucked through the food chain.
Labour was the other main theme. Dairy needs workers year-round for long days, Thompson said, because "these cows have no off and on switch". He said farm labour has to be reliable, legal and affordable, and pointed to the bipartisan Securing Agricultural Workforce Act (SAWA), which he said would make jobs in meatpacking "from the kill floor back" eligible for the H-2A visa programme, though not food manufacturing or processing jobs.
Asked about immigration raids on farms and plants, including recent enforcement in Kansas, Thompson said he supported removing criminals but disagreed with some actions by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, saying people whose temporary protected status was ended overnight were being picked up. He said he had raised this with the Secretary of Homeland Security and advised employers whose workers' status has expired to pursue another legal status for them.
Photo: United States Congress / Wikimedia Commons (Public domain)
Source: American Ag Network
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