At the National Agri-Marketing Association (NAMA) convention held this week in St. Louis, ASA CEO Steve Censky was part of a panel discussion entitled, "Will We Ever Get a Farm Bill?"  As part of his remarks, Censky outlined the numerous reasons that Congress needs to do its job and pass a final farm bill, and detailed soybean farmers' frustrations with the failed attempts thus far to get a farm bill over the finish line.  He also outlined soybean farmer priorities for the farm bill, including protecting and enhancing crop insurance as a risk management tool and ensuring that farm programs don't distort farmer planting decisions.

On the topic of farm programs, Censky outlined how the House farm bill has the potential to distort planting decisions by "recoupling" target prices to farmers' current-year planting decisions.  Such recoupling not only would reverse 20 years of farm policy that has benefited farmers by ensuring they are responding to the market rather than government programs, but also make U.S. farm programs much more vulnerable to WTO challenges.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, National Association of Manufacturers and other business groups this week released independent analysis that concluded the recoupling included in the House farm bill would make U.S. farmers and farm programs more likely targets for WTO challenges by other countries, and would put both agricultural and non-agricultural exports at risk in the event that other countries retaliated after winning WTO cases.  The analysis pointed to the successful WTO challenge by Brazil of the U.S. cotton program as an example and precedent of what could happen to other commodities under the programs contained in the House version. Censky concluded by noting that recoupling not only was bad ag policy, but also was bad trade policy that would put farmers at risk.