Due to trade retaliation, the pandemic and weather, ad hoc disaster payments to farmers ramped up in recent years. Torrey Advisory Group Executive Vice President Tara Smith says a steady, reliable farm safety net is favored over ad hoc assistance. “The bottomline is ad hoc disaster programs come after the fact; they tend to be slow in rollout; they can be somewhat inconsistent and you can’t take them to the bank because you don’t know what they’re going to look like going into a growing season.” House and Senate Agriculture Committee leaders are committed to passing the new farm bill this year. Smith says that timeline is doable. “As a former Senate Agriculture Committee staffer, I would never read against the committee so I am hopeful.”
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