The House-passed farm bill is a comprehensive piece of legislation. It includes a doubling of funding for the Market Access Program and Foreign Market Development trade promotion programs, improvements in the Conservation Reserve Program and updates for precision agriculture. Lesser-known provisions included an amendment to exempt farm equipment from the federal emissions mandate. There’s a checkoff transparency amendment where information that is already available online would be featured on a separate USDA website. Despite huge opposition from the animal rights community, the House farm bill also includes a fix to California’s Prop 12 animal housing regulations.
