| Both big ag and sustainable ag groups around the country are gearing up for the 2012 farm bill debate... but it might not happen. That's because the whole thing could be over and done with in 2011, as Tom Laskawy points out in his piece Quick and dirty: Congress may rewrite the Farm Bill in two weeks. It all has to do with the supercommittee nonsense that Congress is up to. The supercommittee is charged with cutting the budget by a certain amount and having their cuts passed by an up or down vote in both houses of Congress. If they fail, then mandatory cuts take place across the board, with a few exceptions (hunger programs won't be cut, for example).
Since the supercommittee would essentially make all of the farm bill's big decisions for it - i.e. where the money goes - that means the actual 2012 farm bill might be anticlimactic. So what will the Ag Committee do about that? As Laskawy points out:
Earlier this week, according to the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, the House and Senate Ag Committees suddenly announced that they would write the entire 2012 Farm Bill in the next two weeks.
Umm, what? Even the big commodity groups are only just now coming out with their own proposals for what they want in the farm bill. The thought of having the whole shebang over and done in two weeks is somewhat unimaginable, and a real assault on democracy as well. |
