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Members of the House Agriculture Committee in Washington D.C. passed a bi-partisan Farm Bill.

The bill calls for $35 billion in mandatory cuts, the repeal or consolidation of more than 100 programs and an end to direct farm subsidies.

Supporters said the 5-year-bill targets waste, fraud and abuse.

MU Agricultural Economics Professor Pat Westhoff was part of a congressional panel that discussed the Farm Bill this past week.

Westhoff said, “The economist intelligence unit just unveiled a new food security index to look at all of the various factors that can affect the ability of people around the world to get the food that they need at the prices they can afford.  This will be a way of spotlighting the problems of world hunger.”

Westhoff said the Farm Bill must go through a long process before it becomes law.