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Oversight, vaccine bank, crop insurance priorities for House Ag Committee in ‘22
A member of the House Ag Committee says lawmakers have a lot of work ahead of them in 2022 to address industry concerns.
Don Bacon, a Republican from Nebraska, tells Brownfield committee members need more research on crop insurance to ensure it’s being optimized by farmers and ranchers. “You always hear from farmers that the number 1 thing is crop insurance. But we also need to study it to see how we make it better. How we do we tailor it better for the needs of today.”
Bacon says a Foot and Mouth Disease vaccine bank should launch this year and he wants to make sure “it’s up and running and doing it’s job. If we had a Foot and Mouth Disease outbreak, our exports whether it’s pork or beef would be shut down for about five years. That’s unacceptable so we need to have a plan,” Bacon says.
Bacon is the ranking member on the Subcommittee on Nutrition, Oversight & Department Operations.
He says he wants to eliminate the ‘cliff effect’ for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). “There’s a lot of folks who feel trapped. And, if they get a promotion or a full-time job that they lose more benefits then they gain in a pay raise,” he says. “We need to find ways to taper of SNAP instead of pulling the plug.”
And, he says he wants a better dialogue between the committee and USDA by hearing from the agency’s personnel.
