Minnesota farmer Harold Wolle took over as president of the National Corn Growers Association (NCGA) recently, looking to help thread the needle on Congress passing a farm bill this year. Commodity leaders such as Wolle are looking for Congress to take action to replace the farm bill that expired on Sept. 30. The next farm bill is expected to cost more than $1 trillion for the first time in history—$1.5 trillion over 10 years.
Yet, right now, the House of Representatives is in the midst of intraparty turmoil in the GOP. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA-20) became the first House Speaker in history to lose his position as a motion to vacate passed on a 210-216 vote with eight Republicans and every Democrat voting to remove McCarthy. Among their grievances, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL-01) and others who voted against McCarthy pointed to the lack of efforts to rein in spending, budget deficits and the national debt.
The path forward for work on bills, such as the farm bill, is unclear.
Wolle, the fifth-generation corn and soybean farmer from south-central Minnesota, is now front and center in trying to get a farm bill that works better for commodity producers. Talking with reporters, Wolle said his “most immediate objective” is to complete a farm bill with NCGA’s priorities included in it.
NCGA’s top priority is to protect against attacks on crop insurance as groups have reiterated calls for Congress to reduce subsidy levels in the program. From corn growers’ perspective, “We have a very good crop insurance program in place right now,” he said. Still, there are tweaks NCGA would like to see, such as bringing down the costs for farmers in parts of the country.
“There are some areas of the country where the risk is deemed so high that higher levels of cover get to be prohibitively expensive for growers,” Wolle said.
Looking at the commodity programs, Wolle said Agricultural Risk Coverage and Price Loss Coverage (ARC and PLC) “are the programs that we are most concerned about.”
Getting into the weeds of the programs, Wolle noted, “There is a push by certain folks that want to see reference prices increase.” NCGA supports raising reference prices but also wants to see increases in the reference price escalator in the PLC program. The escalator allows reference prices to increase based on a crop’s Olympic average over the past five years.
Wolle added that NCGA would also like to see changes to ARC, including the 10% payment limit and the 14% deductible under the program.
“We would like to see improvements in both of those areas for the ARC program,” Wolle said.
Yet, all those things cost money. During a recent Farm Foundation forum, Texas A&M economist Joe Outlaw said a 10% increase in reference prices, if nothing else changes, would cost about $20 billion over 10 years. A 20% increase across the commodities would cost somewhere in the $50 billion range, Outlaw said.
Extension time?
With the slow pace of the farm bill right now, even long-time farm bill veteran Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) indicated that Congress may need to pass a one- or two-year extension of the farm bill. Responding to that, Wolle said an extension is not the preferred route NCGA would like to see.
“We’ve seen examples in Congress of how they wait until the very last minute, and then they are effective, and they get their job done, so I’m not ready to give up on this farm bill just yet,” Wolle said.
Trade programs
Wolle hit on another priority for commodity groups, which is to boost funding for USDA’s trade promotion programs, the Market Access Program and Foreign Market Development Program, known as MAP and FMD. Both programs provide funds to groups such as the U.S. Grains Council, which Wolle noted also gets support from state corn growers. MAP, at $200 million, and FMD, at $34.5 million, have not seen funding increases in the farm bill going back roughly two decades.
“Those MAP and FMD funds … they’ve remained stagnant while the expenses for these groups that promote exports around the world for our growers have increased along with everyone else, so they’re feeling the effects of inflation as well,” Wolle said.
The leaders of the Senate Agriculture Committee wrote Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack last month asking him to use his own authority to increase trade promotion. Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) told DTN that Vilsack is preparing to make such an announcement, but so far that hasn’t happened.
Wolle said a boost in dollars from USDA is appreciated, but it would be “one-time funding,” and he said it’s vital that there is a long-term increase for MAP and FMD in the farm bill as well. — Chris Clayton, DTN ag policy editor
