BY TAMMIE SLOUP
During a recent visit to the nation’s capital, a delegation of Illinois Farm Bureau leaders and staff spent equal time staying up to date on budget reconciliation negotiations and advocating for the organization’s priority issues.
Even with Senate marathon hearings on the reconciliation bill, IFB leaders were able to sit down with Illinois’ congressional delegation and staff to punctuate their support for the ag provisions included in the proposed reconciliation legislation, as well as extension of the tax provisions that benefit farmers.
“But we also wanted to reiterate this doesn’t finish the job on a full five-year farm bill,” IFB President Brian Duncan said. “As this bill makes its way through the process, we were also playing defense a little bit, defending things like the research lab at the University of Illinois and defending some of the conservation program payments and technical assistance.”
USDA continues to announce cuts, including funding for the Soybean Innovation Lab at the U of I and conservation and climate-smart programs, which directly impact farmers’ bottom lines and essential crop research.
Considering the divide between Democrats and Republicans on proposed USDA funding, including nutrition funding, it’s difficult to predict whether a comprehensive farm bill could be passed this year after being extended the past two years, Duncan noted.
“I came away with a mixed level of optimism,” Duncan said. “I think we’ve got to work on what’s right in front of us right now, and that’s why we really honed in on the ag portion of tax provisions of the bill and the (Make America Healthy Again) MAHA report.”
Duncan was joined by IFB District 1 Director Mark Tuttle and IFB Young Leader Chair Stephen Riskedal, along with IFB staff as part of the American Farm Bureau Federation Fly-In event.
Top of ag leaders’ minds was the MAHA report.
“Our message was production agriculture needed a seat at that table,” Duncan said. “The science perhaps wasn’t as sound as it could have been, and that’s putting it kindly. We want to be part of that next discussion.”
The IFB group also touched on the need for legal, affordable and reliable labor for farms and processors as well as immigration reform for ag labor, with biofuels and trade rounding out some of the meetings with U.S. Reps. Eric Sorensen, D-Moline; Delia Ramirez, D-Chicago; Sean Casten, D-Downers Grove; Mary Miller, R-Oakland; Darin LaHood, R-Dunlap; Lauren Underwood, D-Naperville; Jonathan Jackson, D-Chicago; as well as Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Springfield; and Tammy Duckworth, D-Hoffman Estates.
Riskedal, who made his first trip to Washington, D.C. since he was in the Boy Scouts, advocated for policies to support young and beginning farmers, specifically with the FSA loan program and the lack of pre-approval processes, which hampers young farmers’ competitiveness.
“It was an excellent experience,” the LaSalle County farmer said, noting the FSA young farmer loan program issues are personal for him as his county Farm Bureau proposed what is now a state resolution in support of a pre-approval process for young farmer loan programs.
“For someone like me to go to, let’s say, a land auction, I don’t know if I’m going to have the financing to be at the lower rate, which would help me be more competitive at an auction,” Riskedal said. “They won’t do a pre-approval as of now, until you have a contract for sale, and then I’ve been told it’ll be six months to a year to get it through. So we’re trying to talk to legislators about how we can fix this problem because we have a great program they put together. But it’s got this huge stumbling block to really make it usable for everybody.”
The “whirlwind” visit, as Duncan dubbed it, was another opportunity to build on relationships with legislators and drive home IFB’s priority issues.
In separate press releases, both Durbin and Duckworth said they appreciated the opportunity to meet with IFB and pledged to continue to work with farmers across Illinois.
IFB’s work in Washington, D.C. will continue this summer with members of the IFB Resolutions Committee heading to the capital in a couple weeks and Duncan returning in July.
“We are upping our presence in Washington, D.C. as these very important issues move forward,” Duncan said. “We’ll continue to talk about a trade agenda and what that looks like and means for agriculture and we found some common ground on perhaps some interest in doing some true immigration reform, as far as meeting the labor needs for agriculture.”
Content for this story was provided by FarmWeekNow.com.