The House Agriculture Committee has scheduled a two-day markup of the budget reconciliation process. The hearing will begin on Tuesday night and amendments will be made on Wednesday. Randy Russell, who leads The Russell Group, describes this process as a big jigsaw puzzle. “I think there will be changes to the SNAP program and I do think that Chairman (Glenn) Thompson and the Republicans in the House Agriculture Committee and Senate (John) Bozeman will include increases in reference prices, probably close to what was in Chairman Thompson’s farm bill last year; I think there’ll be some changes in crop insurance; I think there’ll be some investments in trade promotion programs and God knows we need it with a $50 billion ag trade deficit,” said Russell. “I do think I feel pretty confident that those will be included in the reconciliation bill that the House Ag Committee reports out.” Congress can address mandatory programs, such as reference prices and crop insurance, in reconciliation. However, the other titles of the farm bill will need to be done on a separate track. In an interview with RRFN, Russell touched on the current trade environment. “This is trade negotiations on steroids,” said Russell. “Frankly, we don’t even have an ag trade ambassador; we have one nominated with Doug Hoelscher, but he probably won’t get confirmed until summer.” Click here for the full Randy Russell interview.
