Farmers relay need for crop insurance as heart Farm Bill [The Hutchinson News, Kan.]

April 20--DODGE CITY -- In an area hit hard by drought last year, plains farmers echoed to three members of the House Agricultural Committee on Friday what many in the Farm Belt have relayed -- make sure the new Farm Bill has crop insurance as its backbone.

"In today's business environment, we cannot afford to stumble," testified fourth-generation Little River farmer Kendall Hodgson. "Our first priority should be to maintain a viable crop insurance program that covers not only single-year losses such as last year's disastrous drought but also multiple years of low production."

Hodgson was among 10 farmers -- half from Kansas -- who testified during a Farm Bill field hearing in Dodge City on Friday morning. It is the final field hearing before Chairman Frank Lucas, R-Okla., and his committee begin their work in Washington.

The Farm Bill expires Sept. 30.

Besides crop insurance, Kansas farmers lobbied for various programs, including continuation of an energy title, a strengthened conservation title and more emphasis on research.

Rep. Tim Huelskamp, R-Kansas, who serves on the ag committee and one of a dozen farmers in Congress, noted he grew up working on his family's farm just down the road near Fowler. Huelskamp, who is having a town hall forum this afternoon in Dodge City to address burdensome farm regulations, said his 10-year-old son was in attendance.

He asked Zack Hunnicut, a fifth-generation farmer from Nebraska, how a change in child labor laws would affect his operation.

Proposed Department of Labor rules would prohibit most children under age 16 from driving tractors, using power equipment and working with livestock in certain circumstances, along with other farm chores that are being targeted.

Preparing the fields for corn planting this spring, Hunnicut said he had his 4-year-old son with him in the tractor.

"He is up on a big tractor in a closed cab and he is safer there than in a vehicle," Hunnicut said, but noted he wouldn't be able to spend that time with his son if the regulations passed.

"My Social Security statement goes back to 5 years old -- walking the soybeans fields," he said, adding that the DOL's plan "is a sledgehammer to kill a mosquito."

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