With milk prices low and feed costs high, the folks at Greenbacker Dairy Farm in Durham have found themselves receiving some financial assistance over the past several months, along with dairies across the country, in the form of a federal farm subsidy.
It's not all that much, "but it helps," said Joe Greenbacker, who, with his family, runs the expansive farm on Route 68 – and whose ancestors have farmed in the region for centuries.
Yet the farm is about to receive its last payment, because the program that provides the subsidy expired Oct. 1, along with several other agriculture-related programs under the federal farm law.
A new five-year farm bill has been stuck for months in partisan gridlock in the U.S. House after being passed in the House Agriculture Committee and the U.S. Senate.
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