A new farm bill might finally be on the horizon after the House of Represenatives officially appointed its representatives to the farm bill conference committee on Saturday, allowing official negotiations to begin towards completing a new bill.

Republicansnamed Rep. Steve Southerland (Florida) as a conferee to represent GOP leadership, according to areport by Pete Kasperowicz and Erik Wasson in The Hill. Republicans also named 12 members of the House Agriculture Committee and two members from the House Foreign Affairs and Ways and Means Committees, including:

Chairman Frank Lucas (Oklahoma), Reps. Steve King (Iowa), Mike Rogers (Alabama), Michael Conaway (Texas), Randy Neugebauer (Texas), Rick Crawford (Arkansas), Glenn Thompson (Pennsylvania), Austin Scott (Gorgia), Martha Roby (Alabama), Kristi Noem (South Dakota), Jeff Denham (California) and Rodney Davis (Illinois).

House Democratic conferees include Reps. Collin Peterson (Minnesota), Mike McIntyre (North Carolina),Jim Costa (California),Gloria Negrete McLeod (California),Kurt Schrader (Oregon),Jim McGovern (Massachusetts),Tim Walz (Minnesota), Suzan DelBene (Washington), Filemon Vela (Texas), Eliot Engel (New York), Sandy Levin (Michigan) and Marsha Fudge (Ohio).

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Jim Mulhern, chief operating officer for The National Milk Producers Federation, commended the House on appointing the conferees.

“We commend the leadership of the House of Representatives for taking the next crucial step towards completing a new farm bill, and creating a new and better safety net for dairy farmers,” Mulhern said in a prepared statement, noting the organization supports the dairy title language in the Senate farm bill. “With the naming of these House members, negotiations with the Senate can now proceed on a final farm bill package. …

“The Senate’s bipartisan Dairy Security Act is the only program designed to both help farmers when they need it most, while also limiting taxpayers’ liability through its market stabilization mechanism. Without the market stabilization program, farmers will continue to suffer prolonged periods of poor margins, while taxpayers will subsidize artificially-low milk prices.” PD

—Summarized by PD staff from cited sources