ST. PAUL, Minn. – The top priority of the Senate Agriculture Committee is to write a bipartisan farm bill, but if agreement cannot be reached between the Democrats and Republicans on the committee, Senate Agriculture Committee Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., may have to write a Democratic version of the bill, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., said here on Monday.

In response to a question from The Hagstrom Report, after a rural development meeting here, Klobuchar said “the No. 1 way to handle the farm bill” is for the full Agriculture Committee to reach consensus, but there’s “always a chance that Sen. Stabenow will have to do her own bill.”

Klobuchar made the statement after she, Sen. Tina Smith, D-Minn., and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said it is important to keep money set aside for conservation in conservation programs and not divert it to other uses when the farm bill is negotiated.

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Klobuchar and Smith both sit on the Senate Agriculture Committee. Klobuchar noted during an earlier discussion that she is in line to chair the Senate Agriculture Committee after Stabenow retires at the end of this Congress.

After Klobuchar made her statement, Smith said that the committee should not take money from the climate-related conservation programs “to solve a math problem in other parts of the farm bill.” That was a reference to Republican demands that the farm bill raise the reference prices that trigger farm subsidy payments to bring them in line with higher commodity prices and higher input costs.

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Rep. Betty McCollum, D-Minn., who also attended the event and participated in the short news conference with reporters, said that Democrats in the House are looking to the Senate to help pass both the agriculture appropriations bill and the next farm bill.

McCollum called the Freedom Caucus, the Republican group that wants deep cuts in government spending, “the chaos caucus” and said there should not be a government shutdown when the current fiscal year ends on Sept. 30.