Former House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson says the biggest challenge facing the ‘skinny’ farm bill is not policy, but politics. Peterson has reviewed Agriculture Committee Chairman Glenn ‘GT’ Thompson’s proposal and does not object to the overall direction. “I really don’t have any problem with what he’s trying to do in terms of policy,” Peterson said. “What I’d question is how you accomplish it?” He expects the bill could pass the House with Republican support, but the prospects in the Senate are far less certain. “The other thing that we need to admit is that this current farm policy program is not working,” he said. “We have had to do all these ad hoc things to try to bail people out for the last number of years. Anybody who says that what we’re doing with farm policy is working, they’re kidding themselves.” Peterson pointed to outdated base acre formulas, regional differences in production and growing reliance on supplemental payments as structural flaws that must be addressed.
