Local, state officials pleased with new farm bill
To local farmers, the latest U.S. Farm Bill is akin to riding a tiger. “Once you get on the subsidy treadmill, it’s very difficult to get off again,’ Richard Burd, a former officer of the Fayette County Farm Bureau and a local grain farmer, said.
But Burd and others hope the new farm bill will put some predictability into what the government “is going to do over the next six years,’ the tenure of the legislation.
According to the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau (PFB), the latest farm bill, a $190 billion package, will create a safety net in the form of higher loan rates and counter-cyclical payments for most crop producers when commodity prices dip below set levels.
“The new safety net programs combined with direct payments and marketing loan gains are meant to eliminate the need for ad hoc emergency economic assistance in the future and insulate farmers from the volatility of the agricultural economy,’ Joel Rotz, PFB’s director of National Legislative Programs, said.
“Adoption of this farm bill assures farmers and our lenders that we will have an adequate safety net in place and prevent the need to rely on emergency assistance in the future.”
The bill also increases agricultural conservation spending to its highest level ever, a little over $17 billion. In addition to the trade, rural development and research titles, it includes a new energy title to develop the market for agricultural sources of renewable energy such as ethanol and biodiesel.
“The bottom line is we are pretty pleased with the farm bill,’ Rotz added.
“There certainly is a lot of new opportunity for diversity for agriculture here in Pennsylvania that was not in the former farm bill,’ he said.
Rotz explained the new legislation, officially called the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002, will in its first year bring about $60 to $70 million to the state’s dairy farmers, eliminate a process for emergency funding, replacing it with more consistent avenues to support crop growers and present a “lot of new money for conservation.’
“We estimated that because of low milk prices, the bill will bring about $100 to the average produce for 18,000 pounds of milk. This will give some stability to those farmers,’ Rotz said.
“The changes in the farm bill in the commodity crop program will benefit corn and soybean growers. There is an added safety net feature in the program that will alleviate the need for us to go to congress for emergency spending bills.
“It has been well recognized that there is a lot of money in this farm bill. But we need to understand that because the last farm bill did not have these safety net measures we ended up going back to congress for the emergency spending measures. That made the last farm bill more costly in the long run,’ Rotz said.
In relation to the conservation provision, Rotz said details still have to be worked out.
“But the potential is there for good programs to help farmers manage their environmental resources, to help them farm in more economically viable ways.
“An example is the EQUIP (Environmental Quality Initiative Program). It offers a dramatic increase in funding and that will help livestock and crop farmers supplement best management practices to help preserve natural resources. One of the big benefits of this new program is it will not just be targeted to special interest areas. All farms will have an opportunity to participate.’
“The new farm bill will invest money in the rural communities of Pennsylvania that depend on farming, and help to preserve a way of life that is struggling, not only in Pennsylvania, but across the country, Rotz added. Funds included in the farm bill will help steer private investment dollars to our rural communities, to help revitalize those areas and stimulate slumbering rural economies.’
Pennsylvania Farm Bureau is a voluntary, non-governmental organization, which represents over 29,000 farm and rural families.
Alvin Diamond, Fayette County Farm Bureau president, said he is sure the new bill will “affect the dairy farmers here more than grain farmers because we don’t have that many grain farmers. I think they wrote the bill more for grain farms than dairy farmers.’
Diamond, whose family has a major dairy operation near Masontown, was disappointed the bill cut the Northeast Compact, which helped dairymen collectively get better prices for their product.
“That will have an impact because it may mean lower prices for dairy farmers. I think it was a better thing for the northeast but the dairy industry in the midwest was opposed to it. What it did was raise prices in the northeast because you had some states that banded together. Dealers were claiming it raised the price of milk to consumers but when it went off the price of milk rose anyway.’
Part of the compact, he added, set a $9.50 cent per hundred pounds of milk support payment.
Diamond is unsure what the conservation measures in the new bill will do.
“Some may hurt us now but will be good for us later down the road. Environmentalists are getting more and more clout and farmers are getting less as there are fewer of us now. We’ll have to see what happens.’