(Radio Iowa) – The two Iowans who serve on the House Agriculture Committee say farmers need congress to complete action on Farm Bill provisions as soon as possible. Republican Randy Feenstra of Hull represents Iowa’s fourth congressional district. It’s considered the second-most ag-intensive district in the U.S. House with nearly 30-thousand farms and other businesses that generated over 22 billion dollars worth of ag sales in 2023.

“We’re hoping that late December, early January we can finish the Farm Bill,” Feenstra said. “Now just remember when we did the Big Beautiful Bill, 85% of that Farm Bill was in that Big Beautiful Bill, so we’ve got a small percentage of conservative and research dollars that we’ve got to get passed.” Unresolved elements of the last Farm Bill, passed in 2018, were extended in this month’s funding package that reopened the federal government. However, Feenstra says some key trade promotion elements were included in this summer’s legislation.

“If we want to grow our export market, we have to make sure we have refrigeration in some of these new developing countries and there’s a lot of dollars in there to do that,” Feenstra said. “That’ll really help our poultry, our hogs, our cattle and our dairy if we can create more refrigeration around the world.” Republican Zach Nunn of Bondurant, Iowa’s third district congressman, says while congress delivered over 60 billion dollars for critical Farm Bill programs this summer, Iowa farmers need certainty and he’s pushing G-O-P leaders to move a full, five-year Farm Bill.