Congress should take the best of current commodity policy and add in the best ideas from the Risk Management Agency to build a more efficient farm bill, Bruce Babcock told a U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee on September 21. Babcock, director of the Center for Agricultural and Rural Development (CARD) and a professor of economics at Iowa State, was invited to testify about current and future farm policy before the House Committee on Agriculture, Subcommittee on General Farm Commodities and Risk Management, which is chaired by Jerry Moran of Kansas. Babcock's statement is available on the CARD Web site. The subcommittee invited Babcock to talk about the effects of the 2002 farm legislation and what should go into the 2007 farm bill. Babcock provided some preliminary estimates of the costs of a more efficient agriculture safety net relative to the current program. Babcock and other analysts at CARD conduct analysis on commodity and risk management policy, and he has written and presented extensively on these topics.