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Pulling back the curtains on wage-theft enforcement in MN; Trump's latest attack is on RFK, Jr; NM LGBTQ+ equality group endorses 2024 'Rock Star' candidates; Michigan's youth justice reforms: Expanded diversion, no fees.

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Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg says rebuilding Baltimore's Key Bridge will be challenging and expensive. An Alabama Democrat flips a state legislature seat and former Connecticut senator Joe Lieberman dies at 82.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

Progress on Farm Bill Stalls Along the “Fiscal Cliff”

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Wednesday, December 26, 2012   

YANKTON, S.D. - Lost in all the debate and bluster over the "fiscal cliff' is any action on a Farm Bill.

The current law expires at the end of the year, and if Congress does nothing, much of agricultural economics would be determined by the 1949 version of the Farm Bill.

Chuck Hassebrook, executive director of the Center for Rural Affairs, says this Farm Bill is a critical piece in the future of rural America.

"We have to invest in the future of family farming and rural America. When it comes time to cut, we need to look at cutting the places where we over-subsidize the rich, the powerful and the irresponsible."

Hassebrook says farmers making plans for next year should expect a crop insurance plan similar to this year's but should not plan on any direct payments. In the absence of a complete Farm Bill, he says it is essential that Congress at least extends the current bill into next year.

"We need to make sure that extension funds critical beginning-farmer programs because they are there for the future of agriculture, and every bit as important. They need to fund critical small-business development programs so our small towns can survive and people in our small towns can have the opportunity to start their businesses and contribute to the future of their communities."

Hassebrook says Congress has to include better conservation measures in the Farm Bill to protect fragile lands that some producers are plowing up.

"Right now, because we have $7 corn, we have people tearing up land, permanent grass land that should never be farmed, cannot be farmed for long because the land just isn't suitable; it's going to erode away. The government is subsidizing their crop insurance so that when it falls apart, the government is going to be standing there to bail them out for farming land, tearing up grasslands that should never have been torn up."

According to James Decker of Michigan State University Extension, the differences between the House and Senate in spending over the nearly $1 trillion Farm Bill is about 1.5 percent.


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