The Scoop Podcast: Certainty Is The Most Important Commodity In Ag

After several weeks of chaos and uncertainty in Washington DC, the ARA policy team say certainty is the most important commodity for agriculture. 

With Mike Johnson as new speaker of the house, both Richard Gupton and Hunter Carpenter say the priority now is funding the government by the Nov. 17 deadline. 

“They will likely have to pass another continuing resolution, at least for the end of the year, early January,” Gupton says. “Because not only you have all the dynamics in the house going on to try to keep some unity and get the bills passed, but you also have the Senate controlled by the Democrats and Chuck Schumer as the leader there, and so they see things differently as far as the role of some of these agencies in the spending levels. So there's going to be a challenge to bridge that gap.” 

The EPA Interior Appropriations Bill did pass. 

“There were some major cuts to the EPA going back to kind of back to the ‘90 levels. But the good thing is the funding supports the EPA office of pesticide programs. They kept the funding levels for that fiscal year 2023 levels,” Gupton says. 

He is optimistic the CFATS program will get funded and restored as a program at the Department of Homeland Security. 

“It's a good program to make sure these high risk facilities are doing what they need to do to adequately protect themselves,” Gupton says. “We will continue to work with a coalition of ag and non-ag groups that have regulated facilities to continue to push to get it part of a funding bill.” 

Both policy pros explain more in The Scoop Podcast: 

On the Farm Bill, Hunter Carpenter says everyone is working toward some sort of certainty.

“One of the biggest commodities for the farm community is certainty or some semblance of understanding what is coming when,” Carpenter says. 

As the committees work toward a long term extension in the near-term future, Carpenter says after that many will be focused on reference prices for the next Farm Bill. 

Another newsworthy update came from the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals overturning the EPA decision to effectively prohibit the use of chlorpyrifos. 

“The court reaffirmed that EPA in doing these cancellations, they were not following their own science,” Gupton says. “I don't know what's going to happen the long term because of registrants you don't have to make decisions based on previous EPA is decisions. But it is a big win, and hopefully it’ll have a long lasting impact on future decisions by agencies that are knee jerk reactions.” 

The ARA Conference will feature a pre-conference workshop: EPA Herbicide Strategy

Online conference registration closes Nov. 17

The ARA team shares more updates including on regulation of treated seed. 

You can hear more on The Scoop Podcast.