Rep. Ron Kind
Congressman Ron Kind stopped at the WRJC studios near Mauston Friday morning. Kind talked about the effects of sequestration on the workers at Fort McCoy and the Farm Service Agency in Mauston. “The other concern I have,” Kind said, “is production agriculture. It is still the #1 industry in Wisconsin and employs more people directly or indirectly. We have a Farm Bill that’s stuck right now in the House of Representatives. Leadership hasn’t brought it to the floor. I say, bring it up. Let’s have a discussion. Let’s have a debate about what direction we need to go with farm policy, the help that our family farmers need. But let’s also reform some of these wasteful subsidy programs that benefit a few, but very large agribusinesses. That’s not helping our family farmers. It’s not helping production agriculture in places like Wisconsin or other areas of the country. So I’m hoping and I’ve been asking the Leadership to bring the Farm Bill up. I mean, our farmers need a 5-year bill. They need to know how to plan for the next 5-years. We’re looking at a potential drought situation again this year, which is very difficult for them. For us, we’re going to have very high commodity prices and therefore, what I’ve seen in this area, especially the further west you go, there’s a lot of land being brought back into production that really shouldn’t be. It’s fallow, it’s highly sensitive, highly erodible, but because of where corn and beans are, that fallow land is being brought back again. So I believe there are ways we can deal with that, but we need a Farm Bill to discuss and certain reforms that we can also use for cost savings for deficit reductions.”