OKLAHOMA CITY — The chairs and ranking members of the House and Senate agriculture committees all want to finish a farm bill this year, but they are also focused on providing certainty to farmers in other ways, a panel of congressional aides told the National Farmers Union here on Monday. 

Brad Weddelman, the chief economist for the Republican majority on the Senate Agriculture Committee, said that Sen. John Boozman, R-Ark., the chairman of the committee, is committed to finishing a farm bill this year, but that the committee must also hold confirmation hearings for President Trump’s nominees to the Agriculture Department and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. 

Weddelman also noted that Boozman and his staff are monitoring the Agriculture Department’s release of the $10 billion in economic disaster aid, which has a March 21 deadline, and the $21 billion in weather-related disaster aid that is expected to be released later in the year. 

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Mike Schmidt, an aide to Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., the new ranking member on the committee, said Klobuchar is monitoring the release of the disaster aid, but is also focused on the many uncertainties caused by the Trump administration’s freeze on payments to farmers and the termination of USDA employees.

The loss of federal employees at both the national and local levels raises questions about whether USDA will be able to get the disaster payments out on time and whether there will be staff in local offices for farmers to sign up. 

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Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins does not seem to be the official pushing these policies, which means there could be “pushback” Schmidt said. 

Schmidt added that members who are interested in bipartisanship “gravitate” to the committee, which means there is hope for a farm bill. 

Reconciliation sometimes means adding resources, but this year it seems more likely to reduce resources for agriculture, he added. 

Harlea Hoelscher, an aide to House Agriculture Committee Chairman Glenn “GT” Thompson, R-Pa., said that the farm bill passed by the committee last year “represents a good starting point” for farm bill negotiations this year, and praised Rep. Angie Craig, D-Minn., the ranking member on the committee, for traveling to Thompson’s district for an event only 24 hours after the Democratic Caucus selected her as ranking member. 

Emily Pliscott, an aide to Craig, confirmed that her boss wants to pass a bipartisan farm bill, but said that the House budget calling for $230 billion in cuts to programs under the committee’s jurisdiction in reconciliation makes it “really tough” to write a farm bill.

Hoelscher said that the committee does not yet have “full instructions” for reconciliation. 

Asked by Mike Stranz, the NFU official who moderated the panel, about a permanent disaster program in the farm bill, Schmidt noted that there are disaster programs for livestock and trees now in the farm bill, and that they could be models for a standing disaster program. 

Pliscott said she believes there could be changes to the crop insurance programs, “but I don’t think we are going to have the perfect solution.” Weddelman also said Boozman wants to improve crop insurance. 

Schmidt told the NFU members they should be concerned about cuts to nutrition programs, which could lead to “breaking the tie to nutrition” that has been responsible for passing farm bills. 

Pliscott said Craig is concerned about cuts to USDA staff who administer programs

She noted that USDA has fired people, rehired them and then told them that their positions may be reconsidered in 45 days, raising the question of why someone would want to work at the department under these circumstances. 

USDA needs people “to stick around,” Pliscott said, a remark that generated the only spontaneous applause from the NFU members during the session.