House Ag holds California hearing

This week, the House Agriculture Committee held a hearing in Tulare, California. Commenters had specific requests of the Committee concerning the needs of producers of food crops in the Central Valley that they would like addressed in the next Farm Bill.

Jacob DeBoer, American AgCredit: “As you look at the intersection of agriculture and the environment, our ask is that any program provide for voluntary incentive based tools for farmers and forest owners, promote private sector solutions, and third, not require any decision on agriculture lending be based on farmers adopting certain conservation practices. So voluntary and incentive based, please.”

Aubrey Bettencourt, Almond Alliance: “Specialty crop producers face unique challenges with the application of AGI limitations compared to Title I Commodity Crops and most farm bill programs. Current implementation of API limitations disproportionately prohibit specialty crop producers from participating in certain USDA programs in a meaningful way.”

Jamie Johansson, California Farm Bureau: “This farm bill should prioritize development of new crop insurance tools for uncovered producers, as well as improvements to existing tools. In a practical, affordable way regardless of commodity and farm size. In California, less than a quarter of our 400 commodities are covered by existing crop insurance programs.”

Lynne McBride, California Dairy Campaign: “On the dairy side, for more than four years, we've joined with dairy farmers from around the country, including those from Pennsylvania, Mr. Chairman, to call for a nationwide dairy growth management plan so that we can manage our national milk supply to be more responsive to profitable market demand. There was a well-known study that was conducted conducted by the University of Wisconsin and Cornell that showed that a system of managed growth and again, this would be incentive based production growth, would have a positive impact on the dairy economy.”

Manuel Cunha, NISEI Farmers League: “Farmers across the country depend on their families, but their family includes farm workers. And after 30 years, these workers are still in the lurch, not getting work authorization. They were here for COVID. They worked with the farmers. They made things happen. I would hope that the House ag committee will have some influence on immigration, of keeping families together in immigration, but getting them done once and for all.”

For Market to Market, I'm Peter Tubbs.