The South Dakota congressional delegation is celebrating the passage of the 2019 Farm Bill.
For U.S. Senator John Thune, it’s the fourth Farm Bill he’s worked on.
Thune says the legislation is important, given a sluggish ag economy.
But some farm officials say the bill doesn’t do enough to address that lag.
The 2019 Farm Bill increases the conservation reserve program by three million acres. It also allows producers to apply for those acres on a short-term basis.
It also legalizes industrial hemp production and expands the definition of farming managers that qualify for commodity subsidies.
The legislation came to a vote after months of talks between a conference committee of members of the U.S. House and Senate.
South Dakota U.S. Senator John Thune says he’s happy with this Farm Bill.
“Like any Farm Bill it ends up being a lot of give and take, a lot of tradeoffs you have to make, but it ends up being a concensous bill and I think we ended up in a good place,” Thune says. “We’re excited to see it soon reach the finish line and hopefully it’ll be soon signed into law and give the farmers and ranchers across South Dakota and across the country the certainty they need as they start making decisions about this next crop year.”
The bill does not include additional work requirements that House Republicans approved earlier in the year.
Doug Sombke is the president of the South Dakota Farmers Union. He says the Farmers Union is glad to finally know the landscape of the farm bill. However, he says it doesn’t address systemic issues in agriculture.
“Unfortunately, the bill doesn’t do much to address the challenges in agriculture with the over supply of production and the low cost of the product we sell today,” Sombke says. “Which has caused a huge burden of debt to our agriculture industry. On top of that, retaliatory tariff’s placed on farmers.”
The five year farm bill passed by congress is expected to cost $867 billion. The bipartisan legislation is on it’s way to President Donald Trump’s desk.