For Ohio farmers, it is not the fiscal cliff that’s made them nervous, but the farm bill held hostage to fiscal cliff wrangling, said Adam Sharp, vice president of public policy for the Ohio Farm Bureau Federation. Policy Matters Ohio, a Cleveland-based think-tank, estimates Ohio could lose more than $18.5 million in aid.

The farm bill has serious implications for a giant share of the economy since there’s funding for farm conservation, research, price safety nets and insurance.

If Congress does not pass a farm bill to replace one that expired in September, analysts also predict price hikes for grocery store items, including losing the 1949 milk law that could lead to doubling the price of a gallon of milk to $7.

“The farm bill is to a degree held hostage to the cliff,” said Sharp, who has a 500-acre farm in Fairfield County. “It’s part of the fiscal cliff.”

Without some certainty about the structure and details of federal farm risk management and insurance, bank lenders are in a difficult position to make operating loans to farmers for feed, seed, fertilizer and equipment in 2013.

“They will ask how you manage your risk, but I have a gap here, because I don’t know what the government will do,” Sharp said. “You are flying blind on purchasing crop insurance.”

Erica Hawkins, spokeswoman for the Ohio Department of Agriculture, said they do not know what will be the ultimate impact since most department funding is from state sources. “We do rely on some federal dollars, and the reality is we don’t know how we will be affected,” she said.

Read more about those in jeopardy in Ohio:

Fiscal cliff effect on local:   Agriculture  |  Health care  |  National security  | Local/state governments  |  Jobless benefits  |  Financial markets  |  K-12 education  | Colleges and universities

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