By KEVIN WALKER

Michigan Correspondent

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Michigan Farm Bureau (MFB) continued its legislative push last week in Washington, D.C., in hopes of getting its priorities placed in the 2018 farm bill and other legislation.

Representatives from the farm group talked immigration reform, ag labor, trade and the farm bill with Michigan legislators in the nation’s capital as part of its Washington Legislative Seminar and Presidents’ Capitol Summit. The events followed a trip to Washington the previous week led by county-level MFB members, who met with legislators, also to talk about the farm bill and meet with the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF).

The MFB is supporting the inclusion of the Goodlatte ag guest worker bill as part of the discussion around Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) immigrants. “We need leadership to continue working with Farm Bureau to make improvements to the bill as it gets to the House floor and to the Senate. We need to keep the process moving,” stated an MFB press release.

The statement also said Farm Bureau needs the Senate to move legislation that “addresses agriculture’s unique labor needs for both the short and long term.”

Also, from the Farm Bureau’s perspective, free trade as currently iterated has been a winner for agriculture. Farmers should be concerned that the foreign governments affected by the steel and aluminum tariffs will retaliate by increasing import tariffs on U.S. ag goods, the statement noted.

“We must maintain a unified farm bill, which includes nutrition and farm programs in the same bill,” MFB stated. “Canada is Michigan’s No. 1 trading partner, Mexico is No. 3.”

The MFB’s Greg Shooks of Antrim County was a member of the group attending meetings with lawmakers and staff earlier in the month. He is a cherry grower in northwestern Michigan. He said a unified farm bill – i.e., one that keeps the food assistance program together with farm programs – is important to increase the chances that a farm bill will actually pass.

“Legislative staff wants to have floor discussions on the farm bill within the next few weeks,” Shooks said. “The farm bill is usually pretty bipartisan.”

SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, brings in lawmakers from urban areas and helps to make the farm bill bipartisan, Shooks added. Every time the farm bill comes up, there is talk of separating SNAP from the rest of the legislation and that is the case this time as well, he said.

“Most of the trip was focused on the dairy and cotton programs,” he said. “The last farm bill was not that favorable to dairy. Dairy is not exactly doing that well. There seems to be more attention that’s being paid to dairy this time and that means more money, I’d assume.”

Shooks and about a half-dozen other members of the MFB met with Sen. Debbie Stabenow and other members of Michigan’s legislative delegation, as well as members of the House and Senate ag committees.

As a cherry grower, he was personally interested in making sure that the specialty crops title remains in the farm bill, along with the associated funding. Stabenow was instrumental in getting a specialty crops title put into the last farm bill, he said.

As a member of the AFBF’s pest and invasive species committee, Shooks met with other members of the national group to discuss crop pests of concern to his state. Right now, he said, the spotted wing drosophila is of special concern to fruit growers. Not much is or can be done to eradicate or control the pest right now, he explained.

He and other members of AFBF met with EPA officials who, he said, were sympathetic and understanding. The agency shared that comments on proposed rules and regulations put forward by EPA should be relatable and real, not cookie-cutter statements.

“I left with a really positive feeling that it was a productive meeting,” Shooks said.