In a little while

Robert Guenther of United Fresh Produce Association reports that a meeting with House Agriculture Committee Chair Peterson today revealed that Peterson expects to latch on to a budget figure for the farm bill (in consultation with the White House and the Senate) within a day or two. After that, the House will appoint the members of its conference committee and full scale work on hashing out the farm bill will begin. He noted that some in the House would like to see a 10 year farm bill for budget purposes, but interests in the Senate may not agree.

In any case, Guenther notes United wants as much mandatory funding for industry priorities as possible. As it stands now, the House farm bill funded specialty crop industry priorities at about $1.7 billion and the Senate provided about $2.2 billion. From the reports about today's meeting between Peterson and about 75 Washington based lobbyists, the farm bill still has a fighting chance to be completed by Easter.