Bipartisan Bill Extends Farm Bill Until WTO Negotiation Completion
Sens. Jim Talent and Blanche Lincoln lead effort to give farmers certainty of trade agreement before next farm bill is finalized.
Compiled by staff
Published: May 4, 2006
Sens. Jim Talent, R-Mo., and Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., introduced legislation to extend the current farm bill until the World Trade Organization negotiations are complete. Talent and Lincoln, both members of the Senate Agriculture Committee, support extending the bill until global trading rules are in place before writing the next farm bill. The current farm bill, passed in 2002, is scheduled to expire in 2007.
"A farm bill extension, pending a fair agreement at the WTO, sends a signal to our trading partners," says Talent, Chairman of the Agriculture Subcommittee on Marketing, Inspection and Product Promotion. "We will not unilaterally disarm farmers and ranchers in Missouri without assurances that we will get real and meaningful reforms from them in return. We must maintain the current framework until we know the rules of the game."
"In order to compete in a global marketplace, our farmers must have the certainty of a level playing field," Lincoln adds. "Until our trading partners in the WTO have at least matched our commitment to level disparities in global agriculture trade, our farmers will be operating at a severe disadvantage. It is in our country's best interest - both economically and from a national security standpoint - that we extend our current agriculture policy until these trade laws can be finalized."
Charlie Kruse, president of Missouri Farm Bureau says he believes extending the 2002 farm bill puts the most pressure on the Europeans to come to the table and discuss meaningful trade reform in the WTO. In addition, "the current farm bill and the safety net it provides are critically important to production agriculture, especially at a time when farmers continue to be hammered by increased energy and fertilizer costs," Kruse notes.
The Talent-Lincoln legislation is cosponsored by Sens. Kit Bond, R-Mo., Norm Coleman, R-Minn., Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., Mary Landrieu, D-La., Mark Pryor, D-Ark., and David Vitter, R-La.
The legislation would allow the 2002 farm bill to remain in effect while the Doha negotiations continue. The bill will also keep the current farm bill in place for at least one crop year after Congress has approved legislation to implement any eventual Doha agreement.
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