Several members of Congress and U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, speaking separately at the Farm Progress Show in Boone on Wednesday, offered different outlooks on the likelihood of getting a new Farm Bill passed this year.

The current, five-year Farm Bill was passed in 2018 and given a one-year extension last year. Without further action, it will expire at the end of September. The U.S. House of Representatives has approved its version, but far less action has been seen in the Senate, according to House members taking part in a congressional roundtable at the show, which draws an estimated 160,000 farmers and ag business people during its three-day run at the Central Iowa Expo grounds.

“I share G.T.’s optimism, but yet we need to be realistic,” Vilsack said, referring to U.S. Rep G.T. Thompson, R- Pennsylvania, who is the chairman of the House Agriculture Committee.

Thompson spoke earlier in the day with a group of fellow Republican representatives.

-Messenger photo by Lori Berglund
U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack spoke to a packed house in the Hospitality Tent at Wednesday’s Farm Progress Show in Boone. The former Iowa governor spoke for about a half hour and then took questions from the media under the hot sun.

Vilsack voiced his concern over geographic disparities in regards to support for different commodities. A rice farmer in the southern part of the nation, he noted, might fare far better than an Iowa soybean farmer with current proposals.

“We need to be practical and address those concerns,” Vilsack said.

Thompson, joined by three of Iowa’s four congressional representatives, said he wants to see the Farm Bill passed and signed by the current president and executed next year by the new president. He urged the public to press Washington for action on the Farm Bill, officially known as the Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2024.

“We are going to get this done because you need it,” Thompson told the crowd. “The bottom line is that we need the Senate to move ahead. They have 90 pages of ideas, some good, some not good.”

He said the Senate has yet to take any real action to advance the bill.

Thompson noted that 80 percent of the funds in the $1.5 trillion Farm, Food, and National Security Act does not go to farmers at all, but to recipients of the nation’s food programs, such as SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), which many still refer to simply as “food stamps.”

While some would like to see the actual farming elements of the Farm Bill separated from the food assistance programs, Thompson was completely opposed to that idea.

“Absolutely not,” Thompson said. “We don’t want to split that out of the Farm Bill.”

Iowa’s 4th Congressional District served by Rep. Randy Feenstra, R- Hull, is the second largest ag district in the nation, but there are very few districts like it across the nation as a whole. Without the food assistance elements in the Farm Bill, support for it in more urban areas could easily disappear.

“We need that coalition,” to build support for the Farm Bill, according to Thompson. He made the case that food assistance programs reflect the character of the American farmer, both in the past and today.

“We take great pride in rural values,” he said.“In rural America, neighbors support neighbors in need. That’s what this is; that’s why we call it the Food, Farm, and National Security Act.”

Vilsack would like to see the support for actual farmers distributed more evenly to small and medium size farms.

“The top 10 percent of producers receive 60 percent of the benefits,” Vilsack said.

That leaves the vast majority of farmers sharing less than half of the dollars that go to support farmers. But it’s not just about support. Rather, Vilsack said farmers would benefit greatly from more and greater markets. He also touted the expansion of processing facilities in the last three years and an increased focus on higher blends of renewable fuels as initiatives to grow farm income.

“We want to help make sure every operation is profitable,” Vilsack said.

Saving the bacon

Leveling the playing field for interstate commerce was another concern voiced from members of Congress on Wednesday. Notably, California Proposition 12, which restricts the sale of meat from certain confinement operations, is a huge concern for many producers.

“We have to have interstate commerce, rather than one state making rules,” that have dramatic effects on the rest of the nation, Feenstra said.

U.S. Rep. Ashley Hinson, R-Marion., talked about the EATS (Exposing Agriculture Trade Suppression) Act, which seeks to address the problems caused when one state makes laws that hamper business in other states. Hinson was vilified in Washington, D.C., when she introduced the act earlier this year, with her photo plastered on a bus travelling the streets of D.C., alongside pictures of Chinese Communist leaders.

Thompson said California’s action has resulted in residents there purchasing bacon, not by the slab, but by the strip, one piece at a time. “Save our bacon,” is a refrain he touted during the discussion.

All of the representatives praised farmers and producers for being good caretakers of both the land and animals in their charge.

“Producers do a great job of taking care of the land and filling the American breadbasket,” Feenstra said.

Vaccine trials to begin on avian flu

Vilsack offered encouraging news in regards to research on H5N1, commonly referred to as avian influenza, or simply “bird flu.” With H5N1 making an unexpected jump to dairy cows in multiple states within the last year, research has been underway to develop a vaccine to protect those larger animals.

“We’ve had a number of companies working on a vaccine,” Vilsack said. “Now we have the first one approved for research trials in dairy cattle.”

Millions of birds have been put down in recent years due to H5N1. If the virus is successful in transmitting to larger animals, such as beef cattle or hogs, the cost would be far more devastating, both in terms of the food supply and disposal of diseased animals. Vilsack made the case to invest more in animal health research across the board.

First detected in Texas dairy cows, even the barn cats began to die after drinking raw milk when H5N1 made the dramatic leap from poultry to dairy earlier this year.

“We need more publicly-funded research,” Vilsack said.

Through public funding, he said, the results of research would be more readily available to all. The secretary sought to draw a vital link between animal health and public health.

“We need a better understanding of the connection between animal health and the health of people,” Vilsack said.

Feenstra also made a pitch to support greater funding for animal health research as critical to both producers and consumers.

“We lost 21 million birds in the last year to avian flu,” Feenstra said. “What would happen if it went to hogs?”

In support for greater funding for animal health research, officials from both sides of the aisle were in agreement.

“We need to work to prevent,” any further spread to other animal species, and have a plan ready just in case that leap is made, Feenstra concluded.