Klobuchar calls for Farm Bill to be included in deficit reduction

U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar today called for the Farm Bill to be included in any end of the year deal on deficit reduction. In a bipartisan letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Klobuchar and 32 other senators said that any deal on the fiscal cliff should include the Farm Bill, which reduces the debt by $23 billion and provides support to farmers and ranchers in Minnesota and across the country.

Klobuchar is a member of the Senate Agriculture Committee and worked to craft the five-year, 2012 Farm Bill which passed the Senate in June with bipartisan support but has not received a vote in the House.

“Our country’s farmers and ranchers produce the highest quality, lowest cost food supply in the world, and they need strong farm policies to ensure they can continue providing our nation with a safe and reliable food source,” the letter said. “These are some of the hardest workers in the United States, and it is our turn to show them Washington is fighting for rural America. Accordingly, we urge you to consider folding in the Senate’s strong bipartisan bill in any end-of-year package.”

The 2012 Farm Bill that passed the Senate in June strengthens the crop insurance program and also reauthorizes critical livestock disaster programs such as the Livestock Indemnity Program, which compensates ranchers at a rate of 75% of market value for livestock mortality caused by a disaster, and the Emergency Disaster Loan Program, which provides producers with low interest loans when a county has been declared a federal disaster area. The Farm Bill also includes four of Klobuchar’s provisions supporting farmers and ranchers, including provisions to help beginning farmers and ranchers gain better access to the critical crop insurance program as well as land for grazing cattle, as well as a provision requiring a feasibility study for insuring swine producers against catastrophic losses.

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