The U.S. Senate Agriculture Committee
The 110th United States Congress started work on January 2, 2007, and committee assignments in the Senate were recently finalized. The Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee will have a significant impact on the shape of the next Farm Bill, as will the Senate Budget Committee and the House counterparts. The overall shape of the bill will be crafted in the Agriculture committees — subsidy programs, conservation programs, and so forth — before it goes onto the floor of the Senate for debate and a vote. Also, because the Farm Bill authorizes expenditures of billions of dollars, the Budget Committee in each house will have a major influence on the legislation.
The Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee Members
| Democrats | Republicans |
| Sen. Tom Harkin (IA) | Sen. Saxby Chambliss (GA) |
| Sen. Patrick Leahy (VT) | Sen. Richard Lugar (IN) |
| Sen. Ken Conrad (ND) | Sen. Thad Cochran (MS) |
| Sen. Max Baucus (MT) | Sen. Mitch McConnell (KY) |
| Sen. Blanche Lincoln (AR) | Sen. Pat Roberts (KS) |
| Sen. Debbie Stabenow (MI) | Sen. Lindsey Graham (SC) |
| Sen. E. Benjamin Nelson (NE) | Sen. Norm Coleman (MN) |
| Sen. Ken Salazar (CO) | Sen. Mike Crapo (ID) |
| Sen. Sherrod Brown (OH) | Sen. John Thune (SD) |
| Sen. Bob Casey (PA) | Sen. Charles Grassley (IA) |
| Sen. Amy Klobuchar (MN) | |
If you think that the current agricultural system in the United States is seriously flawed and needs reform, write a letter or two to your members of Congress, especially if he or she is on the Agriculture Committee, urging a new type of Farm Bill. For fastest delivery, send the letter to one of their regional offices, because mail to the U.S. Capitol requires a lengthy screening process. As the debate heats up, the news media will be filled with proposals for the Farm Bill. Already, quite a few good proposals have appeared, including a superb op ed in the New York Times by by Dan Barber, the chef and co-owner of Blue Hill at Stone Barns and the creative director of the Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture (I especially liked this image: “…because a carrot that comes to New York from California gets singed with petroleum as it travels cross-country…”
One other item of note: Newly elected Senator Jon Tester of Montana is an organic farmer of wheat, barley, lentils, peas, millet, buckwheat, alfalfa and hay near Big Sandy, Montana.
Their Home States
Here’s a map showing the home states of the committee members. Blue states have a Democratic member, red states have a Republican member, and purple states have a member from each party.
The heartland is heavily represented, but where are the representatives from the agricultural powerhouses of California, Texas and North Carolina? These states ranked first, second and eighth in market value of agricultural products sold in the 2002 Census of Agriculture. Perhaps the Senators from those states had different priorities — my Senators (California) are on the Commerce, Environment and Public Works (chair), Foreign Relations, Appropriations, Judiciary, Rules (chair), and Intelligence committees, for example. Or perhaps, when they entered the Senate many years ago, the Farm Bill was a quiet negotiation between lawmakers from Nebraska, Kansas, Illinois and other grain states.
The membership of the House Agriculture Committee has not been announced, but I know that it will be chaired by Rep. Collin Peterson of Minnesota.
Image Credit: The map is from the Map Maker Utility at the Texas Agricultural Extension Service
