NFU Prepared For A Busy 2018

The National Farmers Union says 2017 was a busy year on the Ag front, and they expect much of the same in 2018.  NFU President Roger Johnson called 2017 a tough year in Ag policy thanks to the chaos in Washington, D.C.  He said that made policy victories hard to come by.

“If there’s a victory that one could trumpet here, its that the appropriations bills that were just passed, just before Christmas, kind of repudiated this deep onerous budget cuts that the Trump Administration had proposed.  So that’s a good thing.”

Johnson said Republicans feel the recently-passed tax reform bill a victory but the Farmers Union sees it differently.  When it comes to the future, Johnson says there are portions of the 2018 Farm Bill that must be fixed, but the biggest question, is how much money will be available?

“We need to have a Farm Bill that’s going to have more spending in the safety net, not less.  We need to rejigger some of the reference prices in the PLC program to make them something that more closly approximates cost of production, but moving them up.  ARC needs to be fixed both of those things take money,” Johnson added.

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