New Farm Bill - Early, Late Or Not At All?

[Jim Meade / Iowa City]

The ag sector pain has some in Washington speculating that there is no money or interest in a bail-out if farmers start going belly up, so maybe the next Farm Bill should be implemented a year early.  Others respond by wondering if the next Farm Bill will even come on time - maybe it will be llittle and late.

Is there any reason to assume that an early Farm Bill would be any better than the one we have?  Is there the political will for an early Farm Bill?  What would the next president gain by supporting an early Farm Bill and is the next president and Congress likely to be enough in agreement to move such a proposal forward?

I'm skeptical that a new Farm Bill will even be on time. - First, it has to survive unhooking form SNAP, which we can assume will be a debate topic when the time comes.

[BA Deere]

Farmers don`t have clout and other than a blue ribbon photo-op, do not write the farm bills.   This current...whatever it is was written by the AARP and corn was 7 bucks, okay that`s it in a nutshell.  There will be another "farm bill to end all farm bills"  and it may bail some farmers out to a certain extent because the American Banker Association may have more say in it, the Bankers and ag suppliers have more clout and if they can write a farm bill that hooks their "golden gooses" up to a taxpayer funded IV tube, that is exactly what will happen.

When the farm loan delinquency  raises goes up and when paint is sitting on dealer lots with weeds growing around the tires, that trickled up pain will lead to farm bill action.   For better or worse of course.