farm bills and veg business

It looks like a congressional hearing on the new federal farm bill is coming to Saranac Lake, NY in the next few weeks.  This is significant for a couple of reasons.  First, this area of the world is generally neglected in the distribution of federal pork, because the Northeast does not have the clout in the process that midwestern states do.  Farm state senators from N. Dakota to Texas focus like lasers on the legislation, since it is a priority for many of their voters and also the big contributors to their electoral success such as Cargill and ADM.  New York and the rest of the Northeast have many more concerns and farmers are just one in the cacophony of competing voices and are far from the loudest.  The other problem is the farmers here generally are small players in the big commodity crops like corn and soybeans which may not be glamorous, but command attention by their sheer number of acres.  Declining industries like dairy farms , representing small family farms struggle to be heard.  The veg industry in the Northeast is also mostly a small family enterprise, so there is little lobbying clout there.  Hopefully the exposure generated by this congressional appearance will spark some needed debate on the federal government's role in agriculture.