Vilsack: Livestock sign-up to be test on farm bill

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said on March 10, that he is pleased with the USDA staff’s efforts to implement the farm bill in the first 30 days since President Barack Obama signed it, but his view of the process will depend on whether farmers and ranchers can sign up for disaster assistance programs on April 15, as he and Obama have promised.

“The folks who have been through farm bills before, they have indicated to me it is the best organized [implementation] has been,” Vilsack told The Hagstrom Report in an interview after his speech to the National Farmers Union convention here.

But he added that because livestock producers who experienced losses last year when livestock disaster assistance had expired he has ordered that those applications be ready on April 15 — “and they sure as hell better be.”

–The Hagstrom Report