News and blog
The USDA's Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) has extended its deadline for enrollments in the Conservation Stewardship Program to January 27. An earlier deadline of January 13 had been announced.
The Conservation Stewardship Program, or CSP, provides technical and financial assistance to qualified farmers; payments are based on current conservation practices and a commitment to do more conservation in future years.
"This is good news for farmers in Illinois." said Claudia Emken, conservation policy advocate at Illinois Stewardship Alliance. "This gives them more time to apply for CSP and receive funding for the good conservation work they are already doing; We encourage farmers to contact NRCS to learn more about the program."
Self screening is available on the NRCS website and will help determine if the farm under consideration is eligible.
Illinois has nearly 1,000 participants in CSP now, covering almost 600,000 acres. Conservation Stewardship Program contracts run for five years, and nationally pay an average of $18 per acre for cropland and pastureland and $4 per acre for privately owned forestland, although payments vary significantly depending on the level of conservation.
Farmers and private forestland owners can apply to the Conservation Stewardship Program anytime by going to their local NRCS office. To be considered for funding in this ranking period, applications must be submitted prior to January 27, 2012.
On January 1st, Illinois' Cottage Food Law, that was passed by the General Assembly last spring and signed by Governor Quinn this past summer, went into effect.
The cottage food bill changes Illinois’ food safety laws to allow homemade non-potentially hazardous baked goods, jams and jellies, fruit butter, dried herbs, and dried tea blends to be sold at farmers markets provided they are properly labeled as homemade products, annual gross receipts from sales are $25,000 or less, the “cottage food operation” is registered and the person preparing and selling the food has a valid Illinois Food Service Sanitation Manager Certificate.
To make things easier for potential conttage food operations we have put together a Cottage Food Guide that describes what the law does and doesn’t allow and what you have to do to qualify to become a cottage food operation. More importantly the Illinois Department of Public Health has created a Technical Information Bulliten for local health departments and potential cottage food operators. The TIB put together by IDPH can be found here.
If you are planning on starting a cottage food operation please read and review TIB #44. In addition, it is highly recommended that you reach out to your local health department early and start a conversation about your cottage food related plans.
If you have any questions, comments, or concerns please feel free to contact me, wes@ilstewards.org or 217-528-1563.
SB 840 the bill that created Illinois Cottage Food Law was sponsored by Senator David Koehler (D-Peoria) and Representative Lisa Dugan (D-Kankakee). Both Senator Koehler and Representative Dugan deserve our thanks for all their hard work because without it, the passage of SB 840 would not have been possible.
Public policy can be a frightening topic that conjures up visions of red tape and bureaucracy. Not here at ISA. On December 1st ISA’s Grassroots Policy Advisory Committee (GPAC) held our 2nd annual state-wide meeting, and it included a lively discussion about how public policy reform can remove barriers and encourage local food system growth with an emphasis on food safety regulations and land use policies. A diversity of farmers, entrepreneurs, farmers market managers, consumers and food system advocates discussed their needs and identified key priorities for supporting the continued growth of local food systems. As a result of the meeting GPAC amended the list of priorities determined at last year’s annual GPAC meeting to include food safety regulatory concerns and land use policy. The full list of priorities are:
- Developing tiered regulations to eliminate legal and regulatory barriers burdening the local food and farm economy.
- Developing local food and farm infrastructure through technical assistance, funding streams, and regulatory reform.
- Leveraging support of citizens, legislators, organizations, and other farmers through education about policy ramifications and engagement in the policy making process.
- Increasing access to local food for low-income and underserved populations through the support of Illinois Fresh Food Fund, support programs and policies to provide SNAP/EBT Infrastructure at Farmers' Markets and other farm-direct enterprises
- Supporting appropriate food safety rules and regulations through engagement with regulatory agencies and support for appropriate legislative reforms.
- Increasing access to land and farmland preservation by supporting and developing progressive reforms in land use policy.
GPAC will be holding our first conference call of 2012 on January 19th at 10:00 a.m. If you are interested in getting more involved with GPAC and ISA’s policy advocacy efforts please contact Wes King.
Originally posted by the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition
With the demise of the Super Committee and its deficit reduction bill that never happened, attention has now turned to crafting a new farm bill as a stand alone measure in 2012. This week Senate Agriculture Committee Chair Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) said farm bill action will begin again with some hearings in late January or February, noting that the outline of the bill she and House Chair Frank Lucas (R-OK) crafted for the Super Committee would serve as the foundation for a new 2012 Farm Bill.
The draft bill aimed at Super Committee consideration has not been released, nor has an accurate detailed summary of its contents. It appears that will remain the case. We summarized some of the key ingredients in the draft bill for our readers last week.
There continues to be speculation about the possibility of attaching a farm bill, either the draft 2011 Stabenow-Lucas measure or a variation on it, to a resuscitated government-wide deficit-reduction measure or as an offset to another spending or tax cut measure, as an alternative to proceeding to a stand alone farm bill under a more regular legislative process. The verdict for now is to head into the new year looking at a more normal farm bill process as the default setting but at the same time keeping options open as Congress grapples with larger spending, stimulus, tax, and deficit reduction measures.
Some policymakers have suggested starting all over next year from a clean slate. That seems highly unlikely. To the extent that sentiment is more than rhetoric, however, it appears to be aimed primarily at the commodity title of the bill, and there is little doubt that it was the most problematic aspect of the bill and will likely remain so. There may be some hope that a return to more regular order, with the prospect of the amendment process in committee and on the floor, will tamp down some of the wilder elements in the draft commodity title. For starters, perhaps, interest groups and Members will possibly think twice about provisions that would have distorted planting decisions and increased payment limits, knowing the difficulties they would face defending such propositions on the floor.
Another big area for changes, albeit one that has received little attention, are all the titles that were not at all fleshed out other than simple date-changing re-authorizations in the rush to complete a bill in time for Super Committee consideration. These include among others the credit, rural development, research, and trade titles. There are both funding issues and policy issues to be faced in all of these titles. Though they do not generally receive the same attention as the big money titles (nutrition, crop insurance, commodities, and conservation), there is major policy work to be done that by and large was not attended to in the hurry-up 2011 draft bill. Even in some of the big money titles there is more work to be done on the policy front than there was time for in 2011.
The new fiscal reality facing the 2012 Farm Bill is the automatic cuts to government spending that will trigger in January 2013 as a result of the Super Committee’s inaction. There continues to be lots of talk about possible ways sequestration, as the automatic cuts are know, might be un-triggered, either yet this year in some mega-negotiation over the remaining FY 2012 government funding bills and big ticket items like payroll tax cuts, alternative minimum tax rules, and Medicare payments to doctors, or next year as part of a new try at a deficit reduction deal. As of now, however, the betting line would still favor sequestration hitting in 2013.
If that betting line holds, any farm bill written next year will have to assume sequestration will in fact take effect. The biggest loser in that scenario is the crop insurance program, the largest of the farm subsidies. It is also one of the more perplexing items in the farm bill-sequestration interface. Crop insurance policy changes to meet the sequestration budget cut target will be determined by the Administration and will be formulated at the same time that the Agriculture Committees will be trying to write crop insurance provisions for the new farm bill. That dual and possibly conflicting process might in turn lead to some intriguing negotiations.
As we discussed in an earlier blog, there are many possible scenarios under which a farm bill gets finished next year and others in which it is not completed until 2013. It may be months yet before the ultimate path to the new farm bill becomes clear. Our position will remain to work for a new farm bill that addresses the pressing needs for programs and policies that promote a more sustainable farm and food system and to get that new bill completed on schedule in 2012.
The deadline for one of the most comprehensive conservation programs offered by the USDA's Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) has been set for January 13, 2012. The Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) provides technical and financial assistance to qualified farmers; payments are based on current conservation practices and a commitment to do more conservation in future years. Applications for CSP that are submitted before January 13 will be considered for funding in this first ranking period which was announced last week by NRCS, .
"We are urging all farmers to consider enrolling in CSP," said Claudia Emken, conservation policy advocate at Illinois Stewardship Alliance. "Applying for the program now will put farmers in a position to receive funding for the good conservation work they are already doing and NRCS will help them decide what additional conservation work they can do to solve resource issues on their farm."
Self screening is available on the NRCS website and will help determine if the farm under consideration is eligible. "We encourage producers interested in learning more about CSP to contact their local NRCS office," said Ron Ziehm, NRCS Assistant State Conservationist for Area 1 (23 counties in Southern Illinois). "NRCS staff will help the producer complete a resource inventory for their farm that will identify existing and possible new conservation activities for their farm."
Illinois has nearly 1,000 participants in CSP now, covering almost 600,000 acres "As an organic farmer I enrolled in CSP to enhance field borders and improve nitrogen levels through cover crops. I encourage all farmers to look at CSP to enhance their operations," said Harold Wilken, a farmer from Danforth, who enrolled in CSP in 2010.
Conservation Stewardship Program contracts run for five years, and nationally pay an average of $18 per acre for cropland and pastureland and $4 per acre for privately owned forestland, although payments vary significantly depending on the level of conservation. Farmers and private forestland owners can apply to the Conservation Stewardship Program anytime by going to their local NRCS office. To be considered for funding in this ranking period, applications must be submitted prior to January 13, 2012.
Originally posted by the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition
In part one of this post, we discuss what might be next for the ongoing congressional budget debate and in turn for the new farm bill. In part two we turn to details about what was in the short-lived and now dead 2011 Farm Bill deal.
What We Know About the Farm Bill that Did Not Happen – The Basic Outline
The basic cost-cutting outline of the farm bill deal did not change in gross terms from the time the Agriculture Committee leaders signaled to the Super Committee that they would aim to cut a net of $23 billion over the next decade. The final deal tracked the original numbers – a $15 billion net cut in commodity programs, a little over $6 billion net cut in conservation programs, and a $4 billion slice from the largest of all farm bill programs, the SNAP or food stamp program. About $2 billion was thereby freed up to help fund farm bill programs that lacked secured budget baseline after the current farm bill expires in 2012 and to fund new programs.
In round numbers, the combined commodity and crop insurance subsidy programs would therefore be cut by 10 percent, the conservation programs by 10 percent, and the food stamp program by a small fraction of one percent. The conservation cut, however, would be considerably larger if the “changes to farm bill mandatory spending programs” in the agricultural appropriations bills are added, bringing the total to 15 percent, and much more than that if the appropriations bill continues in the same direction as this year.
Based on the best information available to us, the following should be a fairly accurate summary of some key provisions in the new proposed farm bill. We stress, however, that without access to the bill itself or even an up-to-date detailed summary, we cannot be absolutely sure about each and every detail.
What We Know About the Farm Bill that Did Not Happen – Some Highlights
Local Food and Nutrition — The proposed bill adopted the policy provision contained in the Local Farms, Food, and Jobs Act (LFFJA) for a competitive grants program that combined direct marketing promotion (formerly Farmers Market Promotion Program) and scaling up of local food systems for larger scale retail and institutional markets. Called the Farmers Market and Local Food Promotion Program (FMLFPP), the proposed bill would have funded the program at $100 million in mandatory money over five years. The LFFJA advocates for $30 million a year, or $150 million over five years.
The Community Food Projects, a competitive grants program that aims to fight food insecurity by supporting the development of community-based food projects in low-income communities, would have received an increase in funding from $5 million a year to $10 million a year. The LFFJA also includes this policy provision.
The proposed bill would have created a new nutrition incentives program, called Hunger Free Communities Incentive Grants. Advocated for by the Fair Food Network, Wholesome Wave, and others, and modeled after already-existing state and regional examples, this new program was slated in the proposed bill to receive $100 million in mandatory funding over five years and would have incentivize purchases of fresh produce by SNAP participants at farmers markets and other direct marketing outlets.
Beginning Farmers — The Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program (BFRDP) provides grants to institutions and organizations that offer education, training and outreach to beginning farmers and ranchers. This program was slated to receive $50 million over the next five years, which is a significant decrease from its current mandatory funding levels of $75 million, and far less than the $125 million included in the Beginning Farmer and Rancher Opportunity Act and advocated by NSAC. However, BFRDP has no baseline after fiscal year 2012, so although funding is less than current levels, it nonetheless represented $50 million in new money over the next five years.
Organic Agriculture — The Organic Agriculture Research and Extension Initiative (OREI), which provides competitive grants to fund public research on organic production systems, was slated to receive renewed mandatory funding of $80 million over five years, with an authorization for an additional $25 million in annual appropriations. This is a slight increase in funding from its current mandatory funding of $78 million during the life of the 2008 Farm Bill. However, per year funding levels would have decreased slightly from $20 million to $16 million, since OREI was funded at lower levels in fiscal year 2008.
The Organic Data Initiative (ODI), which facilitates USDA data collection efforts for the organic sector, would have also received a renewed $5 million in mandatory funding, plus an authorization for annual appropriations, in the proposed bill.
The National Organic Program (NOP), which administers the USDA organic certification program, was slated to receive first-time ever $5 million in mandatory funding, plus authorization for appropriations up to $15 million per year.
Specialty Crops — The Specialty Crop Block Grant (SCBG) program provides grants annually to assist State Departments of Agriculture in enhancing the competitiveness of specialty crops (fruits, vegetables, tree nuts, and nursery crops). The program would have received an increase in mandatory funding from $55 million a year to $70 million a year. On the negative side, though, the policy provisions for this program contained in the Local Farms, Food, and Jobs Act (LFFJA) were not included. LFFJA includes set-asides of program funds for local and regional specialty crop market development and research and includes a more equitable division of program funds across the specialty crop sector.
The Specialty Crop Research Initiative (SCRI), which funds research on fruits, vegetables, and other non-commodity crops, was slated to receive renewed funding at $40 million per year, over ten years – a slight decrease from its current annual funding levels of $50 million. The SCRI has no baseline for funding beyond fiscal year 2012, so this would have represented $400 million in new money over the next ten years and ensured funding would be available for this program in the following farm bill.
Crop Insurance — The proposed bill’s crop insurance title included a provision in the Local Farms, Food, and Jobs Act (LFFJA) that would have authorized the Risk Management Agency (RMA) to develop a whole farm revenue insurance product for diversified operations, including specialty crops and mixed grain/livestock or dairy operations. As in the LFFJA, the proposed bill would have set the coverage level at 85 percent, provided a bonus for diversification, and classified costs necessary to get products to market (e.g. the cost of packing materials) as allowable costs. Unlike the LFFJA, in the proposed bill, RMA would have had the option of contracting out the development of the new product if it decided not to do it in-house.
The proposed bill would also have increased the incentive for private consulting firms to develop new risk management products for specialty crops, and would have returned to RMA the general authority to develop products in-house.
Renewable Energy — As far as we know, only one program within the Energy Title of the proposed bill was slated to receive renewed mandatory funding. The Rural Energy for America Program (REAP), which has been funded in the current farm bill cycle partly by mandatory funds and partly by appropriated funds, would have continued down that path, though with a very significant reduction in mandatory funds.
The mandatory funding for the controversial Biomass Crop Assistance Program (BCAP) would have been allowed to expire in the proposed bill, but the program would be authorized to receive up to $75 million in annual appropriations for projects and for collection, harvest, storage, and transportation.
What We Know About the Farm Bill that Did Not Happen – Conservation Title
If the proposed farm bill had become law, the total cut to the Conservation Title would be $6.3 billion over ten years. Roughly 60 percent of the cut to conservation ($3.8 billion) would come from the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP). The program’s total acreage cap would be ratcheted down over 3 years from its current level of 32 million acres to 25 million acres. To a significant degree, this reduction would track changes in CRP enrollment expected as a result of market forces, though with the declining cap the opportunity for new general sign-ups would be small.
Related to CRP, $25 million in renewed funding would have been retained for the CRP-Transition Incentives Program (CRP-TIP), which offers a special incentive of two years of extra CRP rental payments to owners of land that is currently in the CRP but returning to production, who rent or sell to beginning or socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers who will use sustainable grazing practices, resource-conserving cropping systems, or transition to organic production. The bill would not have expanded CRP-TIP to cover intra-family deals under certain circumstances, as had been proposed in the Beginning Farmer and Rancher Opportunity Act (BFROA).
The proposed bill would have cut the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) by $2 billion, or approximately 10 percent. The average payment rate would have remained at $18 per acre, however the acreage cap would be reduced to 10.34 million acres a year from 12.769. The proposed farm bill also included a number of positive substantive changes to CSP beyond the numbers.
The proposed bill would have combined the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) and the Wildlife Habitat Incentives Program (WHIP) into a single program and cut total funding by $1.865 billion, or approximately 10 percent. As has always been the case for EQIP, 60 percent of the consolidated program’s funding would go to livestock operations. The program would have also included a 5 percent set aside for wildlife in lieu of WHIP. The statutory language that led to creation of the EQIP Organic Initiative would not change. Both the Beginning Farmer and Rancher and Socially Disadvantaged Farmer and Rancher set asides within EQIP would have been retained at 5 percent. The advanced EQIP cost share for Beginning, Socially Disadvantaged, and Limited Resource Farmers and Ranchers would have also been retained at 30 percent, as opposed to 50 percent proposed by the Beginning Farmer and Rancher Opportunity Act.
The proposed bill would also have combined the Cooperative Conservation Partnership Initiative (CCPI), Agricultural Water Enhancement Program (AWEP), Chesapeake Bay Watershed Initiative (CBWI), and Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (GLRI) to create a single regional partnership program. While the CBWI and AWEP had a combined baseline of $1.1 billion through 2012, the new regional partnership program would have had a $1 billion baseline, equating to a $100 million or slightly less than 10 percent cut. Like the current CCPI, 6 percent of EQIP and CSP funds would be reserved for the regional partnership program. However, unlike the current CCPI statute, which splits funding authority between the states (90 percent) and national (10 percent), the new bill would have split the authority between national (50 percent), states (25 percent), and “critical areas” (25 percent), which would include the Chesapeake Bay, Puget Sound, Ogallala Aquifer, Red River, Great Lakes, Everglades and other areas determined by the Secretary. The regional partnership program would also have had an easement option through existing programs, such as the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program (CREP).
On the easement side of the Title, three programs–the Wetlands Reserve Program (WRP), Grasslands Reserve Program (GRP), and Farm and Ranch Lands Protection Program (FRPP)–would have been combined into a single easement program with two branches. The first branch would combine FRPP and GRP into an ‘agricultural lands easement program.’ The second branch would consist of wetlands easement program very similar to the WRP. Nationally, the split between wetland easements and agricultural land easements would be 60/40, respectively; however, each state conservationist would be able to request an adjustment to that split to better reflect the needs of their state. Perhaps most importantly, the easement program would have had a 10-year baseline of $3.2 billion. The WRP and GRP have been funded one farm bill at a time, so while the funding available, especially for WRP, would be lower, the tradeoff was to create a permanent, more secure baseline.
The bill would have made no changes to the Agricultural Management Assistance (AMA) program. It would have funded the Voluntary Public Access (VPA) program at $30 million and the Watershed Rehabilitation Program at $150 million over the course of the farm bill. The VPA program and Water Rehabilitation Program previously had $50 million and $100 million, respectively, and both lack baseline funding after 2012 if not renewed.
Finally, under the proposal, all conservation programs would now be “no year funding” programs, which means that unused money in a given year does not revert back to the general treasury. Under current law, if a conservation contract is broken, for example, because a contract holder dies or just decides not to go through with a conservation project, that money must be sent back to the treasury. A significant amount of mandatory conservation money is lost from the Conservation Title through this process. Instead, under a situation like the one described above, the money would be retained within the Conservation Title.
What We Know About the Farm Bill that Did Not Happen – Some Lowlights
Commodity Payments – The commodity title of the proposed farm bill would have replaced direct payments (payments based on historical base acres and paid each year regardless of market price or farm income conditions) with a “grab bag” of commodity support options. Producers would be able to decide which program to enroll in.
One option included a farm-level shallow loss program to pay commodity crop producers when they experience small but long-term losses in revenue. Payments would cover losses between 13 and 25 percent, would be triggered by revenue circumstances at the individual farm level, and would be made on 60 percent of planted and prevented planted acres. It was expected that many corn, soy, and wheat producers would choose this option, though likely a considerably smaller percentage than if it were the only option available.
A second option was substantially higher target prices with ongoing receipt of counter cyclical payments when prices fall below the target, expected to be of most interest to rice, peanut, and sorghum producers, but perhaps many corn, soy, and especially wheat producers as well.
A third option was a special revenue insurance program for cotton (only) known as the Stacked Income Protection Plan or STAX. The movement of cotton’s share of commodity title funding to the crop insurance side of the ledger, via STAX, would have moved cotton out of adjusted gross income eligibility standards, payment limitations, and conservation requirements.
Due to the proposed termination of direct payments, saving nearly $5 billion a year, and to the relatively rosy projections of future commodity prices over the next decade, all of these commodity options could be put in the bill and estimated to result in a $15 billion savings over the next decade, or about $1.5 billion a year. If, however, a substantial price drop occurred outside the predicted range, the taxpayer exposure could be very high, easily wiping out any savings.
Payment Limits and Adjusted Gross Income (AGI) — The new payment limitation for the shallow-loss revenue program option and counter-cyclical program option would have been $210,000 for a married couple. This is significantly higher than the current $130,000 payment limit for counter-cyclical and revenue insurance payments. The new higher payment limit is the result of adding the current $80,000 payment limit for direct payments to the total. This outcome is baffling, given that direct payments were being proposed for elimination.
(Note: The proposal to the Super Committee from Senators Grassley (R-IA) and Johnson (D-SD), which had NSAC’s support, would have established a $100,000 per farm annual limit on revenue and counter-cyclical payments. In June, Grassley and Johnson introduced the Rural America Preservation Act of 2011 to lower the per farm cap on farm commodity program payments, simplify eligibility, and ensure that payments flow to working farmers. Visit our blog on the bill to read more about their effort to build a reasonable payment limit into the new farm bill.)
The proposed bill would have done nothing to close the biggest legal loophole that has been built into the support system over the last two decades, a loophole that allows individual farming interests to secure nearly unlimited taxpayer support. The loophole — allowing people to dodge the requirement to be “actively engaged in farming” to be eligible for support — allows mega farms to capture multiples of the nominal payment limit. These taxpayer-provided funds in turn can be used to bid land away from young, beginning farmers trying to get a start in farming. Unlimited payments over-inflate land values, increasing the land carrying costs for all farmers.
The proposed bill included no limit at all on marketing loan gains or loan deficiency payments, no limit at all on STAX subsidies, and no limit at all on highly subsidized crop insurance premiums. For each of those, the sky was the limit.
Finally, the adjusted gross income (AGI) limit for eligibility for commodity and conservation program payments was proposed to be $950,000, including both farm and non-farm adjusted income (generally multiplied times two if married). This is down $50,000 from the $1 million limit that was included in the FY 2012 agriculture appropriations bill that became law last week. The AGI test excludes from income all regular business expenses including the costs of renting or purchasing additional land or equipment; hence the AGI test encourages farm expansion by anyone who receives commodity subsidies and makes more than a million dollars a year, or a couple of million in the case of married persons.
For more information on payment limits, visit NSAC’s commodity program payment limitations and adjusted gross income limitations page.
Conservation Compliance — Despite the call of 56 national farmer and conservation organizations, including NSAC, to maintain and strengthen conservation compliance provisions in the farm bill, the bill would neither reattach conservation compliance to crop insurance nor establish a nationwide Sodsaver provision. Conservation compliance helps ensure that producers do not farm the most environmentally sensitive land, primarily highly erodible land and wetlands. In 1985, conservation compliance requirements have applied to commodity, crop insurance, and conservation program payments, but since 1996 it has not applied to receipt of crop insurance subsidies.
With direct payments gone, the proposed new farm bill would have only applied this minimum standard of environmental protection to counter-cyclical payments and the shallow-loss revenue insurance program. There would be no conservation compliance requirements for those who choose to receive STAX benefits or those who receive crop insurance subsidies only. NSAC has consistently advocated that crop insurance, which is the single largest farm subsidy, should be part of the same social contract that applies to commodity, credit, and conservation programs.
The agreement also did not include a nationwide “Sodsaver” provision. Sodsaver would have strengthened existing compliance rules by prohibiting all commodity and insurance subsidies on all native prairie and permanent grasslands and other remaining native land that does not have a cropping history if such land were to be cropped. In doing so, it would have protected prairie, critical habitat and biodiversity, reduced the cost of subsidy programs, and taken the pressure off of already over-subscribed conservation incentive programs. This Sodsaver provision was included in the last farm bill, but only as a voluntary pilot project that never got off the ground.
The bottomline is the proposed bill’s commodity and crop insurance titles would have encouraged and subsidized farm consolidation and diminish economic opportunity for young and beginning farmers. It would have created a “too big to fail” protection that could have left the taxpayer with a huge new exposure should the market tumble. Despite an ongoing economic crisis and need to spur rural job growth, the bill would have maximized payments and insurance subsidies to the nation’s largest farms while putting almost no money into rural economic development. There would have also been no improvements at all to the existing weak set of conservation conditions required as a condition of being eligible for production subsidies, and no re-linkage to crop insurance subsidies. These are all very major failings that need to be addressed when farm bill consideration resumes.
Rural Development –The Rural Development business programs did not fare well in the bill from a funding standpoint. The Value-Added Producer Grant (VAPG) program, which provides competitive grants to create or develop value-added producer-owned businesses, would have been the only rural development program to receive farm bill funding. The VAPG program, however, would have received only $15 million in mandatory funding over five years, a very nominal amount. This is the same amount of funding from the 2008 Farm Bill, which was used up entirely in the first year of that farm bill cycle. In LLFJA and the BFROA, NSAC is advocating for $30 million per year in mandatory funding for the program, which has a proven track record in boosting farm income and creating rural jobs. The proposed bill would have authorized up to $40 million a year in discretionary funding, the same as under current law, but current appropriations are at only 40 percent of that level and the pressure on appropriations bills from discretionary cuts already approved by Congress will grow each year.
The Rural Microenterprise Assistance Program (RMAP) provides entrepreneurs in rural areas with the skills necessary to establish new businesses and continue operation of existing rural microenterprises. While the 2008 Farm Bill included $15 million over four years in mandatory funding for the program, the proposed new bill would have included no mandatory funding for the program at all and authorized only $20 million a year in discretionary funds compared to $40 million a year last farm bill cycle.
Additionally, many of the policy proposals included in the Local Farms, Food, and Jobs Act (LFFJA) that would bolster “food hub” and value chain activities are not found in the new bill. For instance, the Business and Industry (B&I) Direct and Guaranteed Loan Program bolsters rural businesses and industries and includes a minimum five percent set-aside for local and regional food system activities including aggregation, storage, processing, distribution, and marketing. LFFJA proposes an increase of this set-aside to ten percent and makes other improvements; however, the proposed new bill did not adopt this proposal.
Local Food and Nutrition – The proposed new bill did not contain any of the EBT or school food provisions contained in the LFFJA. The LFFJA includes a leveling of the playing field so that direct marketing outlets such as farmers markets and CSAs can serve as SNAP vendors just as wired retail outlets do. The LFFJA’s school food provisions includes a “local food credit program” that would allow School Food Authorities to use up to 15 percent of their commodity dollars for making purchases of agricultural products from local and regional farmers and ranchers. Not only would this foster economic development but it would also bolster farm to school relationships. Additionally, while the proposed new bill would have maintained funding for the Department of Defense Fresh program, which gets produce into schools, the bill would not have allowed schools to use these dollars for their own purchases of more fresh, local food. On a positive note, the proposed new bill would have allowed USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service to continue to pursue a pilot program that explores avenues for local sourcing in the program.
Organic Agriculture — The National Organic Certification Cost Share Program (NOCCSP), which assists producers in 34 states and handlers in all 50 states with the regulatory costs of entering into organic production, was left in tatters in the proposed new bill. It would have ended any farm bill mandatory funding for the program and placed a five-year benefit limit on each farmer if, as is unlikely, the program were to shift from the farm bill to the appropriations bill. The proposed bill would have allowed farmers in the 12 Northeastern states plus HI, NV, UT, and WY to receive mandatory funding from a different source for organic certification cost share. The result would have been an absurd situation where eligibility for a farm program benefit depended on which state one resides in. For comparison, imagine if corn program subsidies were available only in 16 out of 50 states – it would not have passed the smell test.
The proposed bill also did not include the provisions in the Local Farms, Food, and Jobs Act (LFFJA) regarding organic crop insurance. The LFFJA would eliminate the organic premium surcharge and would direct RMA to complete development of an organic price series to allow organic policies to pay out at the organic price.
Minority Farmers and Ranchers
The proposed bill left the Outreach and Technical Assistance for Socially Disadvantaged Farmers and Ranchers program (also known as “Section 2501” program) high and dry. The program received $75 million in mandatory funding under the current farm bill, but was left unfunded in the proposal.
Beginning Farmers and Ranchers
The Beginning Farmer and Rancher Individual Development Accounts (BFRIDA) Pilot Program also was not provided with farm bill funding under the proposal. The Beginning Farmer and Rancher Opportunity Act proposes to fund the innovative pilot program at $5 million a year in mandatory funding.
Many credit programs that are essential to helping beginning farmers start farming, would have been reauthorized, including the Conservation Loan Program, the Down Payment Loan Program, and funding set-asides for beginning farmers within the guaranteed farm ownership and direct operating loan funds. None of the important policy changes that are needed and are contemplated by the Beginning Farmer and Rancher Opportunity Act were included, however.
Research and Extension
While the proposed bill would have provided important renewed mandatory funding for the Specialty Crop Research Initiative, Organic Agriculture Research and Extension Initiative, and Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Act, it contained no policy changes that we know of to other programs and offices with the research area.
Originally posted by the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition
After missing their original November 1 deadline, the House and Senate Agriculture Committee leaders continued to work on hammering out a deal on what might have become the 2011 Farm Bill. Things really heated up late Thursday and early Friday, November 18, when the new farm bill deal appeared imminent. Friday came and went, however, with the bill drafters still waiting on a final budget scoring on the bill from the Congressional Budget Office, delaying its official unveiling.
The Agriculture Committee leaders intended to send the bill to the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction (the “Super Committee”) for inclusion in the big government-wide deficit reduction bill. By this past weekend, though, it became clear the Super Committee would not succeed in producing a budget bill for consideration by the full House and Senate in December.
With the Super Committee process now dead, the Agriculture Committee leadership on Monday decided to simply scrap the deal they had nearly reached and issue no details, no summary, no budget score, and no bill. Instead, House Chair Frank Lucas (R-OK) and Senate Chair Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) issued a simple statement, saying:
“House and Senate Agriculture Committee leaders developed a bipartisan, bicameral proposal for the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction that would save $23 billion. However, the Joint Select Committee’s failure to reach a deal on an overall deficit reduction package effectively ends this effort. We are pleased we were able to work in a bipartisan way with committee members and agriculture stakeholders to generate sound ideas to cut spending by tens of billions while maintaining key priorities to grow the country’s agriculture economy. We will continue the process of reauthorizing the farm bill in the coming months, and will do so with the same bipartisan spirit that has historically defined the work of our committees.”
(Note: One downside of the decision to not release even a summary of the proposed deal is that an out of date and not completely accurate summary of the bill was distributed fairly widely on Friday. While helpful to a degree, it has also served to confuse people where the summary does not match later reports about what is in the bill.)
This “part one” post will attempt to answer the question of what happens next, with the budget and with the farm bill. A “part two” post will then outline the basic contours of the 2011 Farm Bill that wasn’t, and detail some of the more hopeful elements and some of the least positive elements.
What Happens Next – Next Year’s Budget Issues
By law, the failure of the Super Committee to produce a bill cutting the accumulated deficit by at least $1.2 trillion (over 10 years) triggers automatic budget cuts (known in budget-speak as “sequestration”) of the same $1.2 trillion over 10 year amount, but not starting until January 2013. The threat of automatic cuts — divided half and half between defense spending and non-defense spending but excluding tax expenditures, major entitlement programs, and most programs targeted to low-income families and individuals — was originally intended as the threat hanging over the Super Committee that would force a deal. In the end, however, many on both the right and the left began to view the automatic cuts as the preferred option relative, on the right, to closing tax loopholes to increase revenue and, on the left, to cutting entitlement programs.
The one-year gap before sequestration takes effect gives Congress a year in which to try to avoid sequestration by coming up with an alternative to the Super Committee process for finding a trillion dollar plus combination of spending cuts or revenue increases. The fact that 2012 is a presidential election year would tend to weigh heavily against a revived budget deal. The termination of the Bush-era tax cuts at the end of 2012, however, provides a counterweight. There is some talk about a deal based on a reduction in the automatic cuts to the defense budget plus continuation of the Bush-era tax cuts except for the wealthy. Whether that or any other iteration of a mega-deal is possible in a politically charged year remains to be seen.
If sequestration is not avoided and in fact does trigger, it will have a significant impact on the farm bill. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the farm bill’s share of the automatic cuts could be as high as $15.6 billion (the Office of Management and Budget has made the actual determination of the size of the cut, but the White House refuses to release those figures). While seemingly lower than the $23 billion in net savings in the 2011 Farm Bill deal that wasn’t, it is actually quite equivalent. That is because two programs within the farm bill are by law exempt from sequestration – SNAP (food stamps) and the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP). Within the $23 billion near-deal, those two programs accounted for $7.8 billion of the savings. With SNAP and CRP excluded, the sequestration route and the $23 billion savings route are about the same $15 billion plus in cuts.
Two important differences between an automatic farm bill cut and a non-automatic decision by Congress are worth noting. First, under automatic cuts, the biggest share of the $15 billion plus reduction would fall on Risk Management Agency-administered crop and revenue insurance since it has the biggest budget ($8 billion a year average). Under most regular farm bill scenarios, crop insurance is less likely to be cut. Second, with CRP exempt, the total cut to conservation programs would be lower under sequestration than it would have been under the near-deal on a 2011 Farm Bill.
What Happens Next – Immediate Budget Issues
More immediately, the lack of a Super Committee deal has removed a train from the legislative track on which several high cost freight cars were going to hitch a ride. Two relate to the President’s jobs bill. Extended unemployment benefits and the temporary reduction in payroll taxes both expire at the end of 2011. Also up for grabs is the annual, costly revision to the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) to avoid it from triggering at a level that would impact many middle-income households as well as the now regular annual adjustment to prevent government health care payments to doctors and hospitals from going down (sometimes referred to as the doc-fix). With just a month to go this year, these are big, costly items for which there is broad political support, but for which there will be major arguments about whether or not they must be paid for with reductions elsewhere in the budget and if so, where. On top of all that, Congress must still finish the majority of the FY 2012 appropriations bills. Expect a very contentious December!
What Happens Next – Farm Bill
There are many scenarios with respect to what might become of the next Farm Bill. The wildest one, and most unlikely of the lot, is that it would still happen in 2011, with the net cuts of $23 billion in the near-deal serving as an offset for a deal on unemployment benefits, payroll tax reductions, AMT adjustments, or the so-called doc-fix.
Scenarios for 2012 include two variations on taking it up early in 2012 and finishing it by summer, before nearly all attention focuses solely on the elections. Variation one would pick up where things left off, with the draft deal from last week serving as the initial draft that would then be open to amendment. Variation two would start the whole process over from scratch. And of course there would be combination approaches in which some pieces would start over, but others would start from where things left off.
Under either of those variations, there could be a continuation of the goal of cutting total farm bill spending by $23 billion over ten years, or that number could change. Also under either variation, there could be a return to more normal legislative process, with hearings, subcommittee and full committee markups, and floor amendments and floor votes, or there could be a continuation of a less open process, especially if there is a new deficit reduction budget deal that emerges in the meantime.
Another scenario for 2012 could be more of a wait and see approach, with the Agriculture Committees crafting a bill only after the dust settles on the mega-budget situation and deficit reduction targets are known or the situation with respect to automatic cuts in January 2013 changes or does not change. The problem with the wait and see approach is that, in an election year, they could run out of time to respond with a farm bill once the mega-deal on the budget comes into focus, if in fact it ever does.
At least four things tend to weigh toward a one-year extension of the existing farm bill and delay work on the new one until 2013. Two are budgetary and two are political.
First, the overall budget situation is confusing and without knowing how much to cut, the Agriculture Committees could start down the wrong path and turn out to be out of sync with a long-term deficit reduction deal. Second, if a reduced-cost farm bill is written and becomes law in 2012, but sequestration is allowed to move ahead as per current law, then the new farm bill would be cut a second time barely before the ink has dried on the actual farm bill. A 2013 Farm Bill, on the other hand, would have the advantage of being able to revise the shape of the automatic cuts before they go into effect permanently.
Third, it is an election year and legislative time will be short, with interruptions for primaries and campaigning. Fourth, for those Agriculture Committee Republicans who may assume their party will regain control of the Senate in the November election, there is also a strong incentive to wait a year.
There are also strong countervailing forces to the 2013 scenario. It is probably safe to say that at this particular point in time, no one really knows under which scenario the farm bill debate will play out. It may take time for the dust to settle and new strategies to emerge.
Are your local farmers, farmers market, CSA and food coop important to you? Are you a farmer interested in having access to new and emerging direct market opportunities like farmers markets and restaurants? What about having fresh, local food for your child's school meals? Or how about selling your fresh fruits and vegetables to local institutions? We have a rare and important opportunity for you to support the continued growth of local food systems in Illinois.
In the coming days, we will be joining members of Congress and other farm and food groups in introducing the Local Farms, Food, and Jobs Act! This bill is what is called a "marker bill" and is intended to influence the writing of the federal farm bill (Hopefully we get a chance to do that!). More information below.
The goal of the bill is to advance the development of local and regional farm and food systems in the next farm bill -- from farm to table. Local food systems not only hold potential for connecting consumers with where their food comes from, but also for boosting farm income, stimulating job creation and economic development, and meeting public health and nutrition goals.
The bill will address the needs of consumers in accessing food from their local communities and the needs of farmers and ranchers producing for local and regional markets, including infrastructure and processing capabilities. While there are growing "relocalization" efforts and local food economies across the nation, policy reforms are needed to overcome barriers and more fully capitalize on the new farming opportunities, jobs, and economic growth this sector can deliver.
Ask your two Senators and your Representative to co-sponsor the Local Farms, Food, and Jobs Act! We need support from as many legislators as possible.
Don't know who your State Representative is or how to contact them?
You can look up your elected officials based on your home address by clicking here.
It's easy to call:
When you call a Senate or House office, ask for the staff member who works on agricultural issues. If the agriculture staffer isn't available, leave a message and have them call you back.
The Message is Simple:
I am a constituent, calling to urge Senator/Congress(wo)man __________ to co-sponsor the Local Farms, Food, and Jobs Act. This legislation is about to be introduced in the House and Senate. It will help boost farm income and meet consumer demand. It's a job creator and a cost-effective, smart investment. Can I count on Senator/Congress(wo)man_________ to be a co-sponsor?
If your Senator will co-sponsor or wants more information: Tell them to communicate with Senator Sherrod Brown's office.
If your Representative will co-sponsor or wants more information: Tell them to communicate with Representative Chellie Pingree's office.
The Federal Farm Bill & The Local Farms, Food & Jobs Act
The farm bill is a comprehensive omnibus bill that is written every 4-6 years. The farm bill is the single most influential piece of legislation when it comes to structuring the food and farm system in the U.S. The farm bill determines the size and structure of our subsidy programs, support for farmers markets and specialty crops, conservation agriculture policy, the size and structure of SNAP (formerly food stamps), support for rural development, support for organic agriculture and much more.
During the writing of the farm bill, coalitions and organizations often introduce what are called "marker bills," these are introduced as conversation pieces with goal of having the content of the "marker bill" be included in the farm bill. The more co-sponsors a "marker bill" has the more likely it will be included in the farm bill.
However, last week the Agriculture Committee leadership proposed to rewrite the food and farm bill in 2 weeks - yes you heard that right, 2 weeks - this is usually a year plus process and they want to do it in 2 weeks behind closed doors?! This would be the fastest food and farm bill decision-making process in history - 7 days from today - and will be decided without your input. Which is why the timing of the Local Farms, Food & Jobs Act being introduced now is critical.
The Local Farms, Food & Jobs Act is a comprehensive local and regional food systems "marker bill" that is being introduced by Representative Chellie Pingree and Senator Sherrod Brown.
The Local Farms, Food, and Jobs Act will improve federal farm bill programs that support local and regional farm and food systems. This legislation will help farmers and ranchers engaged in local and regional agriculture by addressing production, aggregation, processing, marketing, and distribution needs and will also assist consumers by improving access to healthy food and direct and retail markets. And of utmost importance, this legislation will provide more secure funding for critically important programs that support family farms, expand new farming opportunities, and invest in the local agriculture economy.
The Local Farms, Food & Jobs Act will:
Boost Income and Opportunities for Farmers and Ranchers
Improve Local and Regional Food System Infrastructure and Markets
Expand Access to Healthy Foods for Consumers
Enhance Agriculture Research and Extension
A factsheet outlining some of the provisions in the Local Farms, Food, & Jobs Act can be found here.
Go to foodday.org to view a map of activities from across the country.
Photo: eutrophication&hypoxia The message is loud and clear: The environmental community wants to get out ahead of the 2012 Farm Bill debate.
Yesterday, a group of 56 leadership organizations representing over a million members across the nation sent Congress a very public memo. The groups ranged from the Environmental Working Group to the World Wildlife Fund, the Environmental Defense Fund, and the Union of Concerned Scientists. Their message: Industrial farming has no place in this country without parallel measures aimed at stopping soil erosion, lessening pesticide use, and cleaning up the air and soil on and around farms. The statement reads:
The progress farmers have made is real, but pressing problems remain unaddressed; we will lose the ground we have gained if Congress fails to ensure that conservation intensifies in lock-step with production.
The bulk of the deliberation about the next Farm Bill isn't supposed to begin until next year, so why the rush? There's been speculation that the congressional Super Committee currently strategizing about the national debt might start making cuts to conservation programs early. As Don Carr of the Environmental Working Group writes in his latest article, Americans' Views of Industrial Agriculture By the Numbers, "Many informed observers believe the committee will effectively re-write the farm bill this fall, a full year ahead of schedule." (For more context, read the EWG's primer, Why the Farm Bill Matters.
Since the last Farm Bill, conservation programs have been funded at a baseline of $6.5 billion a year. That might sound like a hefty sum, but it's only 7 percent of the total funding the Farm Bill allocated in 2008 (the bulk of it -- around 73 percent in 2008 -- went to funds for nutritional programs such as SNAP, and around 16 percent went to other farm programs, including direct payments and crop insurance). The coalition of 56 organizations has made a list of recommendations, including (first and foremost) that Congress maintain that 6.5 billion amount. They're also stressing the importance of linking other types of farm subsidies and insurance payouts to efforts to improve land, water, and air quality.
A new David & Lucile Packard Foundation poll released in concert with the statement reflects American's attitudes about agriculture, the environment, and the federal budget. (And they didn't just speak with enviros and sustainable foodies either: The pollsters surveyed to around 1,200 random people around the nation.) Among other findings, the results reveal that:
- Americans value conservation programs with environmental benefits more than programs with economic benefits such as job creation or recreation dollars.
- 75 percent said helping family farmers stay in business should be a top or high priority in agriculture policy
- 78 percent said making nutritious and healthy foods more affordable and more accessible should be a top priority in the next Farm Bill.
- 57 percent did not agree with cutting funding for farm conservation programs, saying they save money by preventing pollution.
At a time when much of the interest in food and farming can seem self-interested -- we want to know how that pesticide residue will impact our own personal health, or whether there will be wild salmon available in our neighborhood grocery store -- it's heartening to know that the public is also prioritizing our shared natural capital.
Those numbers also suggest that the grassroots organizing around the bill in 2008 may have had more of an impact on Americans outside liberal coastal cities than many of in the food movement initially suspected. Four years ago eaters and policy makers put forward a positive vision of a holistic "food bill" that will one day balance healthy food with healthier farmland.
Claudia Emken, a conservation policy advocate for the Illinois Stewardship Alliance -- one of the 56 organizations behind yesterday's recommendations -- did well to reflect this holistic vision by tying the need to support non-commodity (or healthy "specialty crops") in her statement on the issue.
It is critical that the 2012 farm bill funds programs that show proven soil and water conservation benefits and that are open to all sectors of agriculture production, including fruit, vegetable, and organic growers. Local foods production and delivery is a growing industry and needs to be treated equally.
Of course, whether or not those in Washington will heed any of these recommendations is a big question. Grist will be doing more to dig in to the conservation debate -- and to explain why it matters -- in the coming weeks. But this much is clear: Farm Bill 2012 has swiftly gone from an abstract concern worth pontificating about to a very pointed demand: Whatever you do now, Congress, don't stop funding conservation on farms.
The original article was published by Grist the online magazine and can be found here.