Congressman Derek Schmidt discussing Farm Bill passing the House - USDA staffing issues

The U-S was supposed to have passed a five year plan for the farmers three years ago.  

Finally the House has passed a Farm Bill.

Southeast Kansas Congressman Derek Schmidt told Newstalk KZRG:

“There are reasons that they hadn't passed a Farm Bill that was three years overdue, but we overcame those.  We got it.  Moving along.  The Senate will now take it up.  I'm pretty hopeful they're going to pass it, get the president to sign it this year.”  

Schmidt went on to say:  “And our producers, in a time of great uncertainty and risk in the marketplace and sort of the world economy, they can have at least the comfort of knowing that the things Congress can control in terms of federal public policy, it's controlling, it's given uncertainty, they can plan.”

To work with the farming community, the USDA has an office in each county in every state.

According to Southeast Kansas Congressman Derek Schmidt, staffing can be a problem:

“That's the principal point of contact for our agriculture producers in that county to go in, be face to face with a representative of USDA, work through what different services programs are available, look at the farmer's operation, make a decision about we're going to do this, we're not going to do that.  I mean, that is how our ag producers access USDA services.”

Schmidt stated:  “So you got to have somebody there to do the job.  And in a lot of these small counties, there are literally one or two people.  That's the entire staff of the USDA local office.  Well, if you cut one person out of it or two, you're literally left with an office that can't function.  You either cut the staff by 50% or you've eliminated it.  In some cases, there's nobody there to do the work.”