Washington, D.C. – Rep. Kristi Noem today spoke on the House floor to highlight the critical importance of livestock disaster programs to South Dakota producers. These programs expired in September of 2011, leaving producers uncovered during this year’s drought. Rep. Noem successfully inserted a reauthorization of the Livestock Indemnity Program (LIP), the Livestock Forage Program (LFP) and the Emergency Livestock Assistance Program (ELAP) into the House Agriculture Committee-passed Farm Bill. The programs would also be retroactive to cover producers in this drought year. Rep. Noem called for action on a Farm Bill and to ensure livestock producers had these disaster programs available to them.

Transcript:

Thank you Mr. Speaker.

I wanted to bring up a subject today that is on the minds of people all across this country, and this is the drought that is hitting so many people and our economy.

I was recently in the Northwest corner of South Dakota and had the chance to drive all the way across the state and visit with producers that have been hit so hard. I’ll tell you the facts are clear: we have feed shortages, stock dams are going dry and escalating feed costs are hitting our producers every single day.

Our livestock producers undeniably take a great risk. They don’t have the crop insurance programs that many of our commodity producers do have and that protects them and gives them a safety net. That’s why our livestock disaster programs are so important.

I was proud of the fact that I introduced legislation that reauthorized those programs earlier this year, and that they were included in the Committee-version of the Farm Bill that came through the House Agriculture Committee earlier.

That’s why it’s so important that we get our Farm Bill work done. That we bring it to the House floor and have a vote so that our livestock producers truly can have a safety net that our commodity producers already enjoy.

With that Mr. Speaker, I yield back.