As the Farm Bill 2.0 markup was to begin on Tuesday afternoon, optimism about getting a new five-year bill can be hard to find. Duane Stateler, about to finish his term as president of the National Pork Producers Council, said time spent on Capitol Hill talking about a new farm bill that fixes California’s Proposition 12 didn’t go well.
“I used to think that it was a possibility, but in my conversations over the past six months, we’ve brought in the food programs to get buy-in from communities — cities that we have a lot of representatives from — to give them something to offer to help, so it could be a bipartisan effort. My last conversation, especially on the Democratic side of the House Ag Committee, was not a good meeting, and it might be very difficult to get a farm bill in the near future. I hope things change between now and when five years would come again to try to do it. But I have to say, I am not very optimistic.”
Proposition 12 remains the number one priority for the NPPC to ensure long-term producer profitability. In fact, there are concerns that a version of Proposition 12 could be coming to Oklahoma, where urban voters greatly outnumber rural voters.
“Yes, Oklahoma is another one that’s coming in there. They’ve taken great lengths to try to prevent that from getting on the ballot, but it looks like it’s going to be on the ballot, so that will be a big issue. And this takes place in places where — in Ohio, I’m very familiar with this — the three Cs can outvote the rest of the state, and Oklahoma has that same problem. Oklahoma City and Tulsa have more population than all the rural people put together, and that creates a problem when you’re going on a ballot initiative. So, we’ll keep trudging along to see if we can get something done.”