Stories

The good news? Farmers who have suffered damages from flooding will be eligible for help from a new federal disaster program.

The bad news? Payments from the program won’t arrive until late 2009.

Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, called on congressional leadership Wednesday to step in and resolve the disputes that have stalled the progress of the farm bill.

As the houses of Congress continue to negotiate a final budget for the new Farm Bill, serious discussion of policy reforms has been put on the back burner.
But controversial issues in the Farm Bill — such as farm program payment limits — have not completely faded away. Once the arguments about funding are settled, it'll [...]

A White House veto threat is strengthening the hand of those who would lower payment limits in federal farm programs.
As urban millionaire landowners continued to cash fat checks from federal commodity programs, calls for reform were left largely unanswered last year as the House of Representatives and Senate hammered out their versions of the [...]

Some Iowa political heavy-hitters joined forces in Washington, D.C., Wednesday to push for passage of the renewable fuels provisions in the 2007 Farm Bill.
Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, was joined by Iowa Republican colleague Sen. Chuck Grassley and Iowa Gov. Chet Culver for a press conference in which they highlighted the importance of [...]

It's a simple situation with serious consequences: powerful meatpackers have been raising their own livestock so they don't need to purchase on an open market.
But packer ownership of livestock may soon be brought to an end.
The Senate Agriculture Committee's 2007 Farm Bill, if passed in its current form, will ban packer ownership of livestock. [...]

Two Midwestern Senators are not happy with a lack of commodity payment reform in the 2007 Farm Bill, and announced Monday that they would lead a charge to change the bill when it reaches the full Senate floor.
Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., held a press conference Tuesday to explain the details [...]

As the 2007 Farm Bill continues to slowly slog its way through the Senate, some farmers and agribusiness operators are becoming anxious to know what kind of federal farm programs they’re going to be dealing with next year.

The bill, which covers a wide variety of federal initiatives from commodity and rural development programs to the [...]

There aren't very many African-American farmers in Iowa.
Nonetheless, Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley is leading a call to help thousands of them in southern states who for years were discriminated against as they tried to participate in federal agriculture loan programs. And Grassley, a Republican, has a key Democratic senator as an ally in his efforts: [...]

Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley is looking forward to pushing some of his priorities in the 2007 Farm Bill.
Grassley, a Republican who serves on the Senate Agriculture Committee, said this week his top priority for the farm bill is to significantly lower the amount that individuals can receive in federal farm program payments. He hopes the [...]