Earlier this month, the US House of Representatives failed to pass a new farm bill.

Raccoon Valley Radio did a recent interview with Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig and he talks about his reaction when the bill failed to be passed out of the House.

“Now we’re talking again about uncertainty that’s really unneeded. We’d like to see a farm bill completed before the current farm bill expires. So I think it’s unfortunate that it did not pass and it appears that it did not pass because of some unrelated legislation that folks were trying to leverage.”

The bill is being proposed at $867 billion which includes components like crop insurance and welfare programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Naig describes what he would like to see be included in the bill for Iowa farmers.

“We want to make sure that crop insurance is well funded. That’s one of the things that I hear (that’s) top of mind for folks. The second thing that I would like to see and am hopeful is that we will see an investment in this farm bill related to foot-and-mouth disease and vaccine bank and some preparedness dollars that can come to the states and help us better prepare. And obviously we’re thinking a lot about water quality and soil conservation. So well funded conservation title with flexibility.”

The US Senate is slated to vote on their version next month.