A large and diverse group of farm organizations, including the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation (IFBF), last week asked Congressional budget leaders to resist making cuts in farm program spending when Congress writes a new farm bill.

U.S. agriculture, the farm groups said in a letter to leaders of House and Senate budget and appropriation committees, has already done its part to help reduce the nation’s deficient. The current farm bill, passed in 2014, contributed $23 billion in deficit reduction over 10 years, the letter noted.

Farm programs budget cuts, they added, don’t make sense when the country’s ag economy is struggling with low commodity prices and stubbornly high costs.

"We’ve had four consecutive years of declining net farm income,...