SID SALTER: Farm bill’s passage reflects Cochran’s experience
Mississippi’s agriculture and forestry industries are a $7.3 billion business, employing almost one-third of Mississippi workers on 30 million acres.
Those farmers and timber growers now have the certainty of a new federal farm bill for the next five years thanks, in great measure, to Mississippi U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran. The fact that the farm bill balances the interests of Southern farmers with those of Midwestern farmers is a direct tribute to Cochran’s legislative skill, his personal tenacity and the esteem in which Cochran is held among his Senate colleagues.
Cochran had to win two major battles over the last two years to get the 2014 Farm Bill out of the morass of Capitol Hill gridlock and onto President Barack Obama’s desk awaiting his signature.
First, Cochran had to stave off challengers for his seat as the ranking Republican on the Senate Agriculture Committee even to be in position to use his vast experience to protect Mississippi farmers, landowners and timber growers.
That seat won, Cochran’s next challenge was navigating a changing political landscape. Cochran has served on the Senate Agriculture committee since 1978 – literally the whole of his career in the Senate. He chaired the committee from 2003 to 2005. During that time, Cochran has fought at least three farm bill battles that sought to walk the tightrope between fiscal responsibility on federal nutrition policy and practical policies that gave the nations farmers a fighting chance to make a profit.
The internal Senate politics on cobbling together a new farm bill were difficult. The process involved a pitched battle to determine whether U.S. farm policy shifted finally away from direct cash payments of commodity crop subsidies and price supports to new forms of subsidized crop insurance.
Daily Journal
2/5/14
Magnolia Tribune
