Congressional lawmakers will try again to pass a farm bill in 2024, and some have already made out their New Year’s wish list of what to include. Conservative Republicans Chip Roy of Texas and Iowa’s Chuck Grassley stressed in a recent letter to House and Senate leaders the need to pass in the new year an updated and improved farm bill.
Grassley told farm reporters that reducing SNAP payments to pre-pandemic levels, something most Democrats oppose, is still key to finding savings for farm programs. He says, “Now the pandemic’s over, SNAP should go back to its pre-pandemic levels, plus inflation. Then, the second thing would be ensuring that farm payments go to farmers with dirt under their fingernails and actively engaged.”
And Grassley says the next farm bill needs to rein in what he and other Republicans consider abuse of the Commodity Credit Corporation or CCC fund. Grassley; “And that’s just not a ‘hit’ on the Biden Administration, although they have used it contrary to Congressional intent. But don’t forget, Trump did the same thing.”
Grassley argues the CCC’s become a “slush fund.” Meantime, Grassley says, “Food security is national security”. Grassley says, “So, we’re working to make sure China and Russia, who like to buy thousands of acres of American soil and put our nation at risk, to keep them from doing that.”
Especially with their recent land buys near sensitive military sites. Grassley and Wisconsin Democrat Tammy Baldwin have introduced the Fertilizer Research Act to direct USDA to report on why fertilizer prices now make up more than one-third of farm input costs.