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a nutrition title; Congress should not repeal permanent law; and the U.S. House must name conferees to work out compromises on the farm bill.
• "The Senate is ready to move forward," Johnson said. "Our leadership has already selected members for the conference committee to work out our differences with the House bill. Unfortunately, the House, with its unwillingness to compromise has been dragging its feet and has refused to even send anyone to negotiate with the Senate about a final bill. The House needs to follow the Senate's lead, drop the partisanship and act quickly. Let's move forward, let us work out our differences and let's get a farm bill."
• Leaders from groups involved in the Back the Farm Bill Coalition also spoke at Saturday's rally, urging members of Congress to pass the farm bill before the current extension expires on Sept. 30.
• "We're all one today for one main reason, to get a farm bill passed," said South Dakota Farmers Union President Doug Sombke. "Another extension is not the answer, we're only moving backward if we do that. The farm bill needs a nutrition title because we have to support those who eat the food we produce, and permanent law is what makes Congress act. House conferees need to be named so we can move forward and get a bill passed."
• "It is the largest deficit reduction, bipartisan bill in Congress. It saves between $23 billion and $40 billion," said Lisa Richardson, executive director of the South Dakota Corn Growers Association. "I don't understand why the largest deficit-reducing bill that affects agriculture, South Dakota's number one industry, is not passing Congress."
• The South Dakota Corn Growers Association joined the coalition to show a united voice, even though every group doesn't agree on every detail of the farm bill.
• "Collectively we don't agree on everything, but we have to get a farm bill done or we all lose. Every South Dakotan loses," she said.
• Tom Hitchcock, the CEO of ethanol producer Redfield Energy LLC, said ethanol producers rely on the hard work of the state's corn producers and he believes that a farm bill is vital to the ethanol industry. South Dakota's 15 ethanol producing facilities that produce one billion gallons of ethanol each year.
• "That's more than twice the amount of gasoline that is sold every year in the state of South Dakota; that's a lot of fuel," he said. "South Dakota plants crush 360 million bushels of corn a year, that's a lot of corn folks. Nearly one-third of that corn comes back as a high quality, high protein cattle and poultry feed."
• One of the most unique groups to join the coalition was Feeding South Dakota, the state's largest network of charitable food banks. The group's executive director Matt Gassen said they rely on the work of agricultural producers to feed the hungry

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