News: Ag negotiators under ad hoc pressure

Monday, September 23, 2024

Ag negotiators under ad hoc pressure

Sep 23, 2024

With help from Doug Palmer

Sens. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) and John Boozman (R-Ark.).

Interest in some sort of emergency assistance package along with a farm bill extension to support farmers is growing among top farm bill negotiators. | Francis Chung/POLITICO

QUICK FIX

— Interest is growing among Capitol Hill’s top farm bill negotiators in passing an emergency assistance package along with another extension.

— The National WIC Association’s yearly report highlights the need for modernizing the program and exploring the option of mandatory federal funding for WIC.

— Negotiators representing major agricultural exporters and African nations are seeking to develop proposals for an agricultural agreement before the World Trade Organization’s next ministerial conference.

IT’S MONDAY, SEPT. 23. Welcome to Morning Agriculture. I’m your host Grace Yarrow. Send tips to gyarrow@politico.com and follow us at @Morning_Ag.

Want to receive this newsletter every weekday? Subscribe to POLITICO Pro. You’ll also receive daily policy news and other intelligence you need to act on the day’s biggest stories

Driving the day

FARM BILL VIBE CHECK: With farm bill talks still stalled and the deadline quickly approaching, commodity groups are pressing for lawmakers to either finalize a new farm bill or pass another extension with an ad hoc assistance package this fall to address disasters and concerns about the farm economy.

Interest in some sort of emergency assistance package along with a farm bill extension to support farmers is growing among top farm bill negotiators. House Ag Chair G.T. Thompson (R-Pa.) told MA there’s a “lot of interest” from groups and constituents in emergency help from Capitol Hill along with any farm bill extension.

House Ag ranking member David Scott (D-Ga.) appeared to acknowledge pressure on vulnerable members in a recent letter saying that an ad hoc package is an option if lawmakers can’t clinch a new bill.

But Senate Ag Chair Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) isn’t ready to settle on an extension and ad hoc pair, and is still emphasizing Plan A — a new farm bill — to be finalized before the end of the calendar year.

“We'll just see. We want a farm bill,” Stabenow said in a brief interview with MA. “This is all going to depend on how things go at the end of the year.”

Senate Ag ranking member John Boozman (R-Ark.), who pitched the ad hoc plan on the Senate floor, said last week that a priority for October will be “getting all the facts together” to have a forecast of how badly farmers need emergency assistance.

“There’s no discussion about details, but there's a lot of discussion about need,” Boozman said.

Rank-and-file POVs: Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) said last week farmers are “past due for relief” in some kind of interim package before the new farm bill is finalized.

“What I'd like to see is disaster relief while we're waiting on the farm bill,” he told MA. “It doesn’t matter to me what the vehicle is.”

Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), who said he’d be “happy” if leaders put a farm bill extension in a must-pass vehicle or found another solution sooner than the lame duck. And Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) told us lawmakers “should consider” emergency aid for farmers “if the Democrats continue to turn their back” on negotiations.

Frustration mounting in the House: Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), a senior House Ag member, told MA details on the path forward unclear.

“I haven’t heard anything, quite frankly. I think we ought to pass a yearlong extension,” he said, adding that he’s not sure how House members will reconcile “huge” policy disagreements and that there’s “nothing that’s been done in the Senate.”

“We could make believe that it’s moving swimmingly, but it's not,” McGovern said.

A reminder: The current farm bill extension expires on Sept. 30. But negotiators are eyeing the lame duck session after the election to work on a path forward for the ag package, despite some pushing from congressional leadership to just put an extension into a stopgap bill.

Vilsack weighs in: Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack told reporters on a call last week that USDA will continue to look for ways to support farmers until the new legislation is negotiated. He hinted that lawmakers either need to tweak their plans or look to spend more to get a deal done.

“That’s frankly going to require either a very practical look at the level of increases in reference prices that can be awarded within the existing budget … or [recognizing] they don't have enough money in that framework and that they need to add additional resources to be able to get reference prices to the point where folks are satisfied.”

Spending questions: Negotiators may only be able to reach a deal for a new reauthorization if lawmakers override CBO spending projections for the bill, to boost both commodity and nutrition funding, in what would be a tricky process. Thompson, whose farm bill passed out of committee in May but hasn’t had a full chamber vote, told MA he refuses to bypass the spending plans.

“That’s not on the table,” Thompson said. “Senator Stabenow is really weighing in on the pay-fors. So I'm really excited and optimistic about where we're going to be here in lame duck session.”

Worth noting: A farm bill extension was left out of a stopgap funding bill released Sunday that the House is expected to pass mid-week, followed by Senate action ahead of the Sept. 30 government shutdown deadline, in line with ag lawmakers' push to save final decisions until after the election.

NUTRITION PROGRAMS

WIC URGING MODERNIZATION, STEADY FUNDING: The National WIC Association published its yearly report on the state of the key nutrition program, urging Congress to pass legislation that would modernize WIC technology, maintain sustainable funding and boost participation in the program.

Those modernizing efforts, including using technology to make WIC more accessible and “meet modern consumer standards” is key, said National WIC Association President and CEO Georgia Machell.

“We know that flexibility is something that is really important to WIC participants, as it is to most parents, and so anything that we can do to make sure that we're providing flexible ways to make participation more straightforward is something that we're going to be focused on moving forward,” Machell said in an interview with MA.

As appropriations discussions continue on the Hill, Machell said the group is “feeling much better than we were this time last year,” when they warned appropriators that funding proposals wouldn’t be sufficient for the number of low-income mothers and babies that rely on the program.

But the report still highlights the importance of sustained federal support of WIC and exploring the option of having mandatory funding for the program, something Machell signaled she was open to when she took the role over in July.

“Previously, we've been able to rely on bipartisan support for appropriations. That just hasn't been the experience in recent years. And so it feels like there's risk in not exploring other options,” she said.

Agriculture and Trade

WTO AG TALK UPDATE: Two negotiating groups, one representing African nations and the other major agricultural exporters, are working together to develop joint proposals to help forge an agricultural agreement by the WTO’s next ministerial conference in late 2025 or early 2026.

Following the August break, the African Group and the Cairns Group of agricultural exporting countries have resumed weekly technical level discussions aimed at finding common ground and “draft modalities” — WTO jargon for how farm subsidy or tariffs cuts would be made.

Turkish Ambassador Alparslan Acarsoy, the chair of the WTO’s Agriculture Committee, told members last week he detected a widespread desire to resume negotiations as soon as possible. Efforts to launch comprehensive farm trade talks at the WTO’s 13th ministerial conference earlier this year in Abu Dhabi failed, largely because of India’s insistence that its top issue — public stockholding — be resolved first.

Acarsoy, at an informal meeting of the Ag Committee, said members stressed the importance of working on modalities, rather than wasting time on a more conceptual “work program” that failed to produce results at MC13. However, some members, such as Russia, object to the modalities approach as premature, according to a Geneva-based trade official.

Future plans: The chair outlined two suggestions for moving forward. One would be to establish informal small groups of members to work on various topics, with each group led by key proponents of reform. The second would be for Acarsoy to appoint facilitators to lead negotiations on specific issues, including domestic support, public stockholding and the special safeguard mechanism, export restrictions and competition, and market access.

Acarsoy said cotton could either be incorporated into domestic support discussions or remain under the cotton “quad-plus” negotiation framework. The latter is a forum to address concerns raised by four African countries about the trade-distorting effect of foreign cotton subsidy programs. It also includes Australia, Brazil, China, the EU, India, Pakistan and the U.S.

Other recommendations for the ag trade talks include setting milestones in the lead-up to MC14, adopting a comprehensive approach, and considering the relevance of past mandates when defining priorities, the Geneva-based trade official said.

CHINA WINE BOTTLES DODGE BULLET: The U.S. International Trade Commission on Friday voted 4-0 against imposing countervailing duties on glass wine bottles from China. That was a blow for the two petitioners — Ardagh Glass Inc., based in Indianapolis, and the United Steelworkers union, which also represents glass workers.

The Commerce Department determined in August that Chinese producers benefited from subsidies ranging from 21 percent to more than 200 percent. However, the ITC determined U.S. producers were “not materially injured or threatened with material injury” by the imports.

Row Crops

— Sens. Peter Welch (D-Vt.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Cory Booker (D-N.J.) introduced a bill to update the Federal Meat Inspection Act to clarify its “personal-use exemption” to reflect that on-farm livestock slaughter for non-farmer consumers is legal.

— Are you paying too much for chicken? (The Wall Street Journal)

THAT’S ALL FOR MA! Drop us a line and send us your agriculture job announcements or events: gyarrow@politico.com, meredithlee@politico.com, marciabrown@politico.com, abehsudi@politico.com and ecadei@politico.com.