Farmers at risk as House fails to act

The House Republican leadership is about to take America’s farmers and ranchers back to a time before computers, GPS and modern farm equipment. In less than a month, they are going to reset the clocks in rural America — back to 1949.

On Sept. 30, the current farm bill expires. If it’s not renewed, the law reverts to Depression-era policies — an antiquated patchwork of federal controls on how many acres you can plant, with costly subsidies and price controls based in part on prices from before World War I. This would create a tremendous amount of uncertainty for farming families, and over the coming months could cause major disruption in the markets.