May 2, 2012
www.gfb.org
Vol. 30 No. 18
FARM BILL PROPOSAL PASSES SENATE AG COMMITTEE A proposed 2012 farm bill that would end direct payments and reduce the federal deficit by $23 billion passed the Senate Agriculture Committee on April 26 without the support of the committee’s southern members. Without a new farm bill in place, Congress would be required to extend the 2008 farm bill, which expires at the end of FY 2012. The bill, titled “The Agriculture Reform, Food and Jobs act of 2012”, passed by a 16-5 vote, and four of the votes against it were from southern senators, including Georgia’s Saxby Chambliss, who objected to the bill’s “one-size-fitsall” approach to commodity programs. “I was not able to support the committee bill due to the severe inequities the bill created between regions and crops. While I support approving a new farm bill this year in advance of the expiration of the current bill, I cannot support the unbalanced policy brought before the committee today that attempts to fit most crops into a onesize-fits-all program,” Georgia Sen. Saxby Chambliss said in a release. The bill eliminates direct and countercyclical payments, the Average Crop Revenue Election (ACRE) and the Supplemental Revenue Assistance Program (SURE). The senate bill maintains peanut and cotton storage payment programs and continues existing marketing loan rates for all commodities except cotton, for which a floating rate is established to stay in compliance with World Trade Organization findings in the U.S.-Brazil cotton dispute. A manager’s amendment to the bill during markup provided price protection for peanuts and rice. The peanut portion establishes a revenue insurance program for peanuts based on a price of $530 per ton. Such a program would have to be created by the USDA’s Risk Management Agency. The manager’s amendment also included a “sod-saver” provision, reducing the crop-insurance premium subsidy by 50 percent for pasture or grassland converted into crop production and a temporary boost in milk payments until the new dairy program takes effect in 2013. For payment limitation purposes, the manager’s amendment lmits each farm to one person who can qualify for payments based solely on their providing farm management. Where practical, separate risk coverage for irrigated and non-irrigated crops was also included in the manager’s amendment, which also provided $800 million in mandatory spending on renewable energy programs over five years. The bill includes expanded provisions for specialty crops, including a 10-year increase of $142 million for Specialty Crop Block Grants, and a 10-year increase of $416 million for the Specialty Crop Research Initiative.