Chambliss Not Interested In Working On The New Farm Bill

Georgia Sen. Saxby Chambliss is said to be ready to give up his status as ranking member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, for a similar position on the Senate Intelligence Committee. This move would remove Chambliss from negotiations over the next farm bill in 2012.

“I did the last farm bill — carried the ball on it. And it’s probably time for somebody with other ideas to lead that process in 2012,” Chambliss recently said.

Chambliss is quoted as saying, “This is going to be the most difficult farm bill to write…we’re not going to have the funding that we have had in the past.” Chambliss predicts the real fight will be over direct payments.

Kansas State University Ag Economist Barry Flinchbaugh told Brownfield Ag News that he believes ag will have to settle for the current baseline of $10 billion to $12 billion available for the farm bill.

“The point that needs to be made is that in the year 2000 we spent $32 billion on commodity programs; we’re now down to roughly $10 billion,” Flinchbaugh told Brownfield. “If that happened across the board in the government we would be talking about what to do with our surplus.” ◆