The Specialty Crop Farm Bill Alliance, a national coalition of more than 200 specialty crop organizations, has released its recommendation for the 2023 Farm Bill.
One of the Alliance Co-Chairs is National Potato Council CEO Kam Quarles, who says the group was put together in order to deliver a unified message from the specialty crop industry.
“If you roll the clock back 20 years, specialty crops, fruit and vegetables, even though it’s almost half of farm gate value in the United States, it was basically unrepresented and unrecognized by the farm bill.”
Quarles says the changing markets made it necessary. “I remember what it was like before a Farm Bill Alliance, and I think the reality was that the competitive market, the global competitive marketplace, was just changing out from under us.”
The recommendations are a necessary part of the process.
“These recommendations today reflect the reality that we’re in a farm bill year. We’ve gone through, actually, a year-long process to come up with these recommendations. Now, Congress is going to start writing what we hope is a 2023 Farm Bill in earnest, and we want to be part of those conversations, so we had to have our recommendations before them.”
For more information, go to farmbillalliance.com.
