Sheep at the Iowa State Fair. (Photo by Jared Strong/Iowa Capital Dispatch)
Rep. Mike Sexton, chair of the Iowa House agriculture committee said his early priorities for the upcoming legislative session include a grain indemnity bill, an elimination of the wool checkoff program and preparations for foreign diseases that would impact livestock.
A grain indemnity bill that would have nearly doubled a fund protecting corn and soybean farmers when their buyers go bankrupt originated in the Senate last year, but didn’t make it across the finish line in the House. Sexton said in an interview with Iowa Capital Dispatch, “we think we’ve kind of got an answer” to the dividing point from last year, whether or not to extend to grain indemnity funds to credit-sale contractors.
Sexton said Rep. Norlin Mommsen, R-DeWitt, will lead the bill from the House.
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Sexton said he has attended multiple meetings with state veterinarians and economists over the past several months and said foreign diseases infecting Iowa livestock is a “huge concern.”
Diseases like foot and mouth disease or African swine fever are active in other countries— the latter is active as close by as Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
“If we get one of those (diseases) it will be devastating to the livestock industry in Iowa, and it’ll be very devastating to our economy,” Sexton said.
Sexton said he’s not sure if there will be legislation on the issue this session but he wants to bring in some of the same experts he has spoken with to get it on the minds of other legislators in the committee.
Sexton said one of his biggest concerns with the disease is to make sure a law is in place if any “anti livestock group” decided to “maliciously” spread the disease to other farms. Sexton said this is not something that has happened in the past but something he said is worth being prepared for.
“I’m not saying that there’s individuals that would want to do that, but we both know in this world, there are people that want to do bad things, and I think we have to be ready for people that want to do bad things,” Sexton said.
Sexton, who also operates a sheep farm with his wife in Calhoun County, said there’s a bill being drafted in collaboration with the Iowa Sheep Industry Association to remove the wool checkoff, which Sexton said “ends up being a tax” on sheep producers due to the low value of wool.
The committee chair said he does not expect to see any bills pertaining to pipeline and eminent domain ordinances in the ag committee.
“If the speaker sent a pipeline bill that was pro-property rights to the ag committee, I would be interested in moving it forward,” Sexton said.
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