Today's post is by Timothy Male, a senior ecologist at Environmental Defense.

A lot of stories have focused on the fact that the current Farm Bill expires on September 30th. What if Congress doesn’t pass a new Farm Bill by then? Will there be panic in the streets? Will agriculture end as we know it? Does Congress have to pass an emergency “extension” of the current farm bill – perhaps one as long as two years — as many commodity groups have argued?

The simple answer is ‘no.’

There may be a few readers out there who will be surprised by this –- but Congress has actually failed to pass legislation on time before.

In the case of the Farm Bill, Congress has missed the deadline many times before as this report [PDF] from the Congressional Research Service makes clear.

It happened in 1981, 1985, 1990, and 1995 — in fact, the only time Congress turned in its homework on time since the early days of the Carter Administration was in 2002. Usually Congress only missed the deadline by a couple of months, but in 1995, more than 6 months passed before a new bill was signed into law.

If the current farm bill expires before Congress completes work on the 2007 Farm Bill, things will pretty much go on as usual. As the CRS report points out, the current farm bill’s commodity programs will continue to cover the 2007 crops, even if they are harvested and marketed later this year.

Farmers planting winter wheat may want to see the policies that will cover the 2008 crop finalized sooner than growers of other commodities, but this ruminant sees no reason to reason to hurry home from pasture.

Congress still has plenty of time to get the details right and pass a 2007 Farm Bill that serves American agriculture, consumers and the environment more equitably.