The "Farm Bill" is wide-ranging federal legislation covering farm income support, nutrition, food stamps, conservation, ag trade, ag promotion, farm credit, rural development, and agricultural research and education and extension. Therefore Farm Bills are important to Extension staff and to many of the people we serve.

Farm bills come around once every four to six years, and the next Farm Bill is being compiled now by the ag committees in the House of Representatives and in the Senate.

Representative Larry Combest of Texas, chairman of the House Ag Committee, plans to have a comprehensive farm bill ready to report out of committee by August 3. The goal is to have a Farm Bill this fall that will lock in the $79 billion increase in the agriculture budget baseline agreed to in the Congressional Budget Resolution this past March.

The change in majority in the Senate resulting from the switch on May 24 of Senator Jeffords from Republic to Independent means that Senator Harkin (D-Iowa) will become the new chairman of the Senate Ag Committee. While the power shift in the Senate will not directly affect the schedule in the House Ag Committee, it is an open question whether the Senate will have a comprehensive farm bill to consider this fall.

If both the House and the Senate pass farm bills this fall, then a conference committee of members from both houses will negotiate a compromise version that if approved by both houses can then be sent to the president for signature or veto. However, if the Senate passes no comprehensive bill this fall, then further action on the new Farm Bill will roll over into the next session. In that case, it will also likely roll over into the next budget cycle, and the $79 billion increase in agriculture baseline will be vulnerable to re-negotiation in preparing the Congressional Budget Resolution in March 2002.

The focus of the bill will be the replacement for the Agricultural Market Transition Act from the 1996 Farm Bill. Legislators are considering different options for supporting farmer income. The options are limited by available money and by restrictions in global trade treaties on market-distorting payments by governments to farmers.

Sections or "titles" for food stamps, ag trade, conservation, research and extension are also projected to be included in the Farm Bill.