Farmers across the South are celebrating the passage of a highway bill which restores $3 billion in funding to the country’s crop insurance program.
“The cut to crop insurance was a deal breaker for soybean farmers and we’re relieved to see these cuts reversed,” said Wade Cowan, president of the American Soybean Association (ASA). “Soybean farmers across the country rely on crop insurance in times of extreme weather to ensure they can stay in business to farm in the coming year. An ill-advised $3 billion in cuts would have severely hobbled the program and we’re happy to see them reversed.”
Cowan, who has a master’s degree in finance from Texas Tech University, farms 1500 acres near Brownfield, Texas.
The ASA, though, said it views this funding restoration as a stop-gap measure and not a long-term victory.
“ASA will continue our opposition to any attempt to cut the Farm Bill programs in the budgeting process,” Cowan said. “These programs seem to be low-hanging fruit to lawmakers who don’t understand how important they are to the nation’s food producers, and we will continue to fight to make sure they stay whole.”
