Iowa Agribusiness Radio Network
Michael Torrey shares his take on the upcoming midterm elections.
“The Senate is split equally between Republicans and Democrats at 50-50 and a House of Representatives where Democrats hold a four-vote majority. So, what’s going to be decided in this next election is who is going to be chairing those committees, whether it’s going to be a Republican or Democrat, because those agendas will be slightly different based on who is in those spots.”
“And keep in mind, normally a farm bill was based on farm programs, right? But it’s becoming a lot more than that now. And so, when these folks move into writing the farm bill, they’re going to have money issues to deal with. For example, hunger and feeding programs are significantly more as far as the farm bill goes in terms of spending dollars. And so, working to find a balance between the left and the right, they’re not going to be able to pass a farm bill with Republican votes only or Democrat votes only. So, it’s going to have to be a bill that passed where they’re working together.”
“And just extending a farm bill is not easy in this environment. So, they’re going to be working very hard to get the job done. But, if you take a look at the makeup of the House Ag Committee since the 2018 farm bill, and not including this election, on that committee there’s 27 new members of the House Ag Committee that have never done a farm bill. And on the Senate, it’s seven new Senators, and those numbers are going to be higher. So, the question is, we have all these new faces, we have a short period of time to tell our story.”
