Agriculture is all hands on deck getting the new Congress up to speed on what farmers and food processors are looking for in the 2023 Farm Bill. CHS, Inc. is one of those organizations lobbying on Capitol Hill.
CHS is the largest cooperative in America, owned by nearly 600,000 farmers and ranchers and headquartered in the Upper Midwest. Will Stafford is the Washington Representative for CHS. He says there’s excitement for Farm Bill policy, but the challenges is that more and more people in Congress are unfamiliar with farm legislation.
“A big part of our job is education for especially new members as they come in in this next Congress, new staff, and that’s going to be a heavy lift for, not just CHS, but the industry as a whole,” he says.
Stafford tells Mid-West Farm Report that “education” includes bringing members of Congress out to member farms in their respective districts or sitting down with staff and explaining, for example, what cooperatives are or why crop insurance is important to CHS member owners.
The deadline for the 2023 Farm Bill is September, unless it’s extended. Stafford says the top issues he’s hearing in D.C. regarding the farm legislation are: crop insurance, farm safety net programs, input costs, trade negotiations and climate change.
A primary focus for the Biden administration so far has been around conservation and Climate Smart policy. Stafford says CHS is in support of incentive-based and voluntary climate policy. What agriculture has not seen from the administration is a focus on trade. Stafford says CHS is pushing for lowering of tariffs to allow American farmers to more easily sell their products overseas.
“I do think that the current leadership under Chairwoman Stabenow in the Senate and incoming Chairman GT Thompson in the House … is there to get it done. They’ve done these bills before, and I think that they will get a bill done,” he says. “But again, just getting people to understand our concerns in Congress is always a hurdle. Every election, we’re seeing less and less rural representation in Congress.”
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