LANSING, Mich. — Last week Sen. Debbie Stabenow, chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee, expressed hope the next farm bill will be developed in an amicable, positive way between Democrats and Republicans.

“We have a lot of work to do in the next few months,” she said in a speech at last week’s winter conference of the Michigan Agri-Business Assoc. (MABA). “And it’s certainly not going to be easy – not when the House has already voted to cut $187 billion from farm bill programs.

“But I hope that our experience last year – when Democrats and Republicans from the House and Senate agriculture committees were the only ones working together in a bipartisan way – will help us get the farm bill done.”

Stabenow, a Democrat, said when she was asked to come up with cuts to agriculture that would help meet the goals of the “Super Committee” formed last year to make major cuts, agriculture was the only area where Democrats and Republicans came together in a nonpartisan way, recommending cuts equal to the cost of agriculture in the entire federal budget, or 2 percent. The recommended cuts came to $23 billion.

“If every other committee had done what we did in agriculture, our budget situation would be in a much better position today,” she said.

Stabenow said the 2012 farm bill will be unveiled within a couple of weeks. Her top priority is preservation of crop insurance. At farm bill hearings in Michigan and Kansas in 2011, she heard “over and over again” that crop insurance is the foundation of the farm safety net.

“It’s absolutely the most important risk management tool for farmers,” she said. “So, as we worked on the Super Committee recommendations, we made crop insurance the centerpiece of the risk management system. We need to protect crop insurance from cuts, strengthen the program and make it more effective and expand crop insurance so producers from all regions and all crops can get adequate protection.”

Stabenow and others in Congress made a “significant agreement” to move away from direct payments.

She also noted that risk management tools for milk producers need to be looked at closely.

“This is one area where the current policies haven’t worked as well as they should. We developed some positive recommendations for the Super Committee, and with dairy as our top agricultural commodity in Michigan, this is an area where I will continue to be very involved,” she said.

Another area needing changes, she said, was conservation. Congressional players in agriculture came together to make significant cuts to those programs. “I’m very happy to say that we were able to consolidate 23 conservation programs down to 13 and we created five areas of focus for conservation, while continuing and building on the strength of what those programs were doing,” she said.

“For the first time, we did what everybody always talks about. We reduced complexity, cut paperwork and increased efficiency and flexibility in these critical conservation programs.”

Stabenow highlighted the Conservation Stewardship Program (CRP) and Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP).

“EQIP has been absolutely critical to us in the fight again bovine TB (tuberculosis),” she said. “This is something I’ve been engaged with since I came to the Senate and I’m very happy that we’ve seen so much progress this year. USDA has dedicated an additional $1.5 million through EQIP to help farmers in Michigan better manage feeding operations, to prevent the transfer of the disease from wildlife into cattle populations.”

Stabenow also touted her work on the farm bill with regard to specialty crops, noting in the last farm bill, specialty crops received their own title for the first time. She stated this distinction enabled aid to Michigan farmers to fight the stink bug and other pests, and to receive additional research dollars to investigate new crop varieties ranging from dry beans to potatoes and carrots.

“We also created the Specialty Crop Block Grant Program, which helped create new opportunities for Michigan cherry and blueberry growers, among others,” she said.