Farm Bill Talks Start Up Again Next Week [Oct. 30]

Oct 25, 2013

By Amanda Brodhagen, Farms.com

Negotiations on the nation’s five-year farm bill are expected to resume next week. Members of the House and Senate agriculture committees are expected to reconcile the differences between the two competing versions of the proposed legislation.

The 1,000-page legislation covers food and farm policies. Progress on reaching a new farm bill has been stalled due to partisan divides over cuts to the food stamp program. Lawmakers from the two chambers will reconvene Wednesday, Oct. 30 to begin negotiating the bill.

While the two bills propose similar reforms to the farm program portion of the bill, such as eliminating direct payments, there are a number of obstacles that need to be overcome. Perhaps the biggest difference is cuts to the food stamp program. The Republican-controlled House has proposed a $40 billion cut to the nutrition program over 10 years, while the Democrat-led Senate propose a $4.5 billion cut.

Congress has until Jan. 1 to pass a new farm bill, otherwise parts of the policy will revert back to the 1940s law.

Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.