The 2012 Farm Bill was swiftly making its way through Congress in early summer, passing in the U.S. Senate and making it out of the U.S. House Agriculture Committee by mid-July, only to run into a wall and prevented from being debated on the floor of the House. The Republican leadership in the House expressed concern that there were not enough votes to see the bill to passage, with some of the more liberal legislators objecting to the $16 billion in cuts from the SNAP program, also known as food stamps, while the more fiscally conservative members were looking for cuts beyond the $35 billion proposed in the House version of the bill. Furthermore, a debate that focused on cuts to food stamps was seen as an unpalatable topic for House members, all of whom are up for election next week.

However, recent statements by U.S. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA), during campaign events for Republican colleagues, suggests that the Farm Bill will be debated and voted on post-election, during the lame duck session. The current Farm Bill expired on September 30th of this year, putting future funding of programs in jeopardy, including specialty crop programs like Pest and Disease Management (Section 10201), Specialty Crop Research Initiative, Specialty Crop Block Grants, and the National Clean Plant Network. Passage of a final Farm Bill, with potentially expanded support for specialty crop programs, is in the interest of the nursery and floriculture industry and its long-term success. Once a timeframe becomes clear and the pressure points to bill passage are identified ANLA will set up an alert and facilitate messaging to the appropriate congressional members... please stay tuned.

Filed under: Farm Bill • legislation