Farmers Union President Talks Farm Bill

It took two separate presidential veto over-rides by Congress to pass the 2008 Farm Bill into law Now national farm groups are saying the Bush Administration is trying to manipulate programs inside the Farm Bill as the programs are implemented National Farmers Union President Tom Buis says U-S Department of Agriculture is in the process of writing the rules for the programs that were approved and passed by Congress He says the programs like permanent disaster aid country of origin labeling for meat and the price base for crop revenues are being undercut with slanted rules Buis says it s taking away from what Congress intended and what farmers and ranchers need Tom Buis National Farmers Union President We re not going to give up on any of these issues because it s too important to the livelihood You know not too far from here you had a lot of crop failure in the permanent disaster program All around here you have livestock producers that are proud of the products they produce and they want their name on that produce And you look at that acre program because of budget consideration we couldn t up the loan rates and target prices so you basically have an old safety net based on two dollars Corn and four dollar wheat Buis was traveling the state today talking with ag producers about the new farm programs He s urging all farmers and ranchers to contact their congressman to push for proper implementation of the new Farm Bill