Dusty Johnson on Farm Bill “A marathon to run”

RAPID CITY, S.D. (KEVN) - Earlier in the week we spoke to a farmer and Senator Mike Rounds about what impacts the proposed Farm Bill a specific provision would mean for South Dakotans.

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Friday, we spoke with South Dakota Representative Dusty Johnson who worked on drafting the bill in the House Agriculture Committee about the progress the bill has made and what still needs to be done.

Last week, the Farm Bill advanced out of the House Agriculture Committee in a 33 to 21 vote. The bill, which is supposed to be renewed every five years is now on its sixth year nearing seven which has caused issues for food assistance programs and farmers nationwide

As one of the new bill’s draftees, Johnson spoke about the importance of passing the bill in the House for South Dakota.

“It makes sure we have risk management tools available for producers. We’re going to have much faster rural broadband. We’re going to open up some of those foreign markets for American agricultural products and we’re putting more competition into the meat packing space. Those are big wins for South Dakota, Johnson said.”

Johnson did note that although the bill passed in the House, there is still a lot of work to do to get this bill finalized by the end of the year.

“We’re going to need both sides to bring forth a farm bill before we can sit down and figure out what are the differences and how do we smooth out some of those most jagged differences. We’re going to get a farm bill done by the end of the year. There’s a real marathon to be run between now and then,” Johnson said.

For more on the farm bill click here.

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