There are going to be more challenges to the writing of the 2012 Farm Bill than agriculture has ever seen, said the American Farm Bureau Federation Senior Director of Congressional Relations Mary Kay Thatcher, during a recent interview with the National Association of Farm Broadcasting that ran nationally.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t have as much money to write the Farm Bill as we did in 2008,\u201d noted Thatcher, who added that another challenge is the large number of urban members of Congress who believe that farmers are getting rich off of strong crop prices this year.<\/p>\n
Thatcher explained that good prices come and go and inclement weather can strike at any time, which is why it is important to remember that Farm Bills cover a number of years and that crop insurance is a very important component of the legislation. \u201cIt\u2019s just a real good risk management tool. We\u2019re able to have famers pay part of the premium and government pay part of the premium to make it affordable,\u201d she explained.<\/p>\n
Thatcher pointed out that crop insurance ensures that if we have tough weather like \u201cwildfires in Texas and flooding in the Midwest, that farmers are able to indeed get enough assistance that they can farm for another year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Thatcher urged all areas of agriculture to come together during the upcoming debate, using all of our voices to push for as much political influence as possible. \u201cWe don\u2019t just compete with the farmers down the road, we compete with the farmers of the world,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There are going to be more challenges to the writing of the 2012 Farm Bill than agriculture has ever seen, said the American Farm Bureau Federation Senior Director of Congressional […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31,1],"tags":[46],"class_list":["post-7199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-farm-bill","category-news","tag-farm-bill-2"],"yoast_head":"\n