Much More Than
Dairy –
Senate-Passed Farm Bill Is
Best Ever For Vermont And For The
Environment
WASHINGTON -- The Senate version of the Farm
Bill, which passed Feb. 13 by a 58-40 vote, contains the
highest conservation, specialty crop, dairy, rural development
and nutrition funding levels ever included in federal farm
legislation. The emphasis on conservation funds, the new help
for specialty crop growers and the safety net program for
dairy farmers combine to make the Senate Farm Bill the best
farm bill ever for Vermont and for the environment.
The bill takes major new strides toward
achieving more regional equity for Northeast and Mid-Atlantic
states. Federal farm programs have long been oriented toward
the costly "commodity" programs – subsidies to producers of
wheat, corn and other grains. Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), a
senior member of the Agriculture Committee and its former
chairman, worked closely with the bipartisan alliance of
senators from Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states that he helped
form two years ago, informally known as "the Eggplant Caucus,"
to provide crucial drafting and support for a wide range of
provisions important to Vermont and to New England in the
Senate Farm Bill that improve the bill’s regional balance.
Leahy is the only senator from the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic
states on the Agriculture Committee. The coalition showed
strength last year in a crop insurance debate. This year,
during the floor fight on this Senate Farm Bill, the caucus
held the swing votes critical for its passage.
"This historic level of funding for
conservation, dairy, rural development and nutrition in the
Senate Farm Bill positions us where we want to be with
21st Century agriculture policy," said Leahy. "This
Farm Bill will return record funds to Vermont to support our
dairy programs, our specialty crops, our farmers’ markets and
low-income nutrition assistance programs. It will mean cleaner
waterways. It will help farmers who are working hard to
maintain family farms. And it will benefit the economies of
our local communities in numerous ways, large and
small."
The bill now goes to House-Senate conference
to iron out differences between the House and Senate bills.
Leahy will be one of seven Senate conferees.
CONSERVATION:
Championed by Sen. Leahy and Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.), working
with Committee Chairman Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), the conservation
title of the Senate Farm Bill includes record levels of
conservation assistance -- an average of $4.4 billion each
year nationally -- for working farms and forests. Touted as
the most sweeping environmental legislation since the Clean
Air Act by a leading environmental organization (New York
Times, Feb. 14, 2002), the Farm Bill’s conservation
section more than doubles current conservation spending and
was written specifically to send over $12 million in popular
land, wildlife, and water quality protection funds to Vermont
and other small states each year.
Within this package of conservation programs
lies an historic increase in Sen. Leahy’s Farmland Protection
Program – a working farmland conservation program authored by
Leahy in the 1996 Farm Bill. Previously funded at $35 million
and hugely oversubscribed by interested farmers, the Farmland
Protection Program (FPP) will now receive $1.75 billion over
the next six years. Last year, when Sen. Leahy inserted $17.5
million in farmland protection funds into the crop insurance
bill, Vermont received $3.3 million. Since 1996, the FPP
program in Vermont has protected more than 80,000 acres of the
state’s most precious farmland.
Other programs already popular in Vermont
include the Environmental Quality Incentives Program,
increased from $200 million a year to more than $6.2 billion
in the next five years, and the Wildlife Habitat Incentive
Program, increased from $50 million a year to $1.25 billion in
the next five years. Leahy also strongly supported the
Conservation Security Program, a new program that could send
up to $50,000 a year in direct payments to Vermont farmers
practicing strong conservation programs on their working
lands. Three new conservation forestry programs in the bill
will also enhance federal assistance to sustainable forestry
initiatives throughout the country.
Several national environmental groups are
strongly endorsing the Senate bill and argue that the House
bill conservation title, though increased from current law,
does not include several clean water, wildlife habitat and
other environmental programs included in the Senate bill. A
comprehensive chart showing Senate Farm Bill conservation
funding levels compared to current law is attached (see
Conservation Chart).
SPECIALTY CROPS:
Sen. Leahy also worked closely with the coalition of Northeast
and Mid-Atlantic senators to secure new efforts benefitting
specialty crop agriculture. New programs include $101 million
in new funding for a cost-of-production insurance program for
new crops, including specialty crops, and $100 million in
assistance for recent market losses by apple producers. Other
provisions include $650 million in directed USDA purchases of
specialty crops for food assistance programs and $75 million
in mandatory grant monies for marketing value-added
foods.
NUTRITION: The
Senate-passed farm bill also contains substantial funding for
nutrition programs and critical policy changes that will
increase food stamp benefits for working families, families
with children, elderly and individuals with disabilities, and
legal immigrants. Sen. Leahy worked to ensure that the Seniors
Farmers’ Market Program received the funding needed to
continue the program -- which was targeted for elimination by
the Bush Administration in the budget plan released this month
-- as well as supporting the WIC Farmers’ Market Program,
which is in danger of not receiving full funding from USDA
this year. Both of these successful programs were initiated by
Leahy in earlier farm bills. More than 15,000 Vermonters
benefit from the farmers’ markets programs, which are in 35
towns around the state and involve more than 200 local
farmers. He also worked to maintain food stamp eligibility for
families with disabled adults. Sen. Leahy also included the
authorization for a research program to study nutrition and
the problems of childhood obesity -- areas of expertise at the
University of Vermont.
RURAL DEVELOPMENT:
The bill contains $3.4 billion to assist rural areas in
improving the rural infrastructure, attracting jobs, and
improving high-speed internet access to businesses and homes,
as well as improved satellite TV programming which will offer
all local network television stations to those with satellite
dishes.
The Senate-passed bill authorizes a new $700
million Rural America Infrastructure Account to close the
backlog of pending rural development loans and grants. It also
creates two new venture equity capital funds to be
administered by the Small Business Administration that will
provide grants and low interest loans to attract businesses to
rural areas. The bill provides $100 million a year for new
grants and low-interest loans to improve broadband access in
communities with populations of 20,000 or fewer, and it
includes $82 million annually for a new Rural Endowment
Program to assist economically depressed communities with
long-term planning, and $130 million for a new program to
train rural firefighters and emergency medical
personnel.
The bill also authorizes (subject to
appropriations) new programs to provide: up to $1.5 billion
annually in funding for rural water and waste disposal
systems; $5 million annually for grants to build rural
broadcasting systems; $10 million annually for a new Rural
Entrepreneurs and Microenterprise Assistance Program; $30
million annually for a new Rural Telework Centers program; $25
million annually for a new Barn Preservation Program sponsored
by Sen. Jim Jeffords (I-Vt.); $25 million annually for grants
to senior citizen programs; and $51 million annually for new
SEARCH grants to provide technical assistance to very small
communities for help in meeting environmental
goals.
ORGANIC AGRICULTURE: Sen. Leahy, the "father" of the national organic
standards program, championed several provisions that will
benefit organic farmers. The Senate Farm Bill funds a national
certification cost-share program which will help farmers pay
for organic certification under the National Organic Program.
The bill also provides $45 million for organic farming
research initiatives and authorizes a new voluntary organic
research and promotion program. And the bill authorizes $75
million annually for new value-added agriculture market
development grants – 5 percent of which is set aside for
organic products.
DISASTER AID: The
Senate Farm Bill also includes $2.4 billion in disaster aid
for the 2001 crop year. Sen. Leahy worked closely with
Southern senators to ensure that armyworm damage to Vermont
forage crops will be eligible for crop disaster assistance
payments. He will continue to work on this provision in
conference to help as many Vermont farmers as
possible.
ENERGY: For the
first time, the Senate bill contains a new major renewable
energy title. Funding for renewable energy programs is set at
$550 million over five years and includes grants and loans to
help establish farmer- and rancher-owned renewable energy
cooperatives that would produce electricity. Funds are also
made available to help to buy small-scale wind turbines,
methane digesters, and solar water or heat
pumps.
BANKRUPTCY: Sen.
Leahy worked with Sen. Jean Carnahan (D-Mo.) to make special
"Chapter 12" bankruptcy provisions for farmers a permanent
part of the bankruptcy code. These basic bankruptcy safeguards
enable farmers to reorganize and continue farming. The Chapter
12 provisions had expired last October, but the Senate-passed
bill makes this change retroactive, so farmers who filed for
bankruptcy after October 1 still will qualify for the Chapter
12 bankruptcy protections.
______________
ATTACHMENTS:
1) Conservation Chart
2) Select Senate Farm Bill Highlights
CONSERVATION PROGRAMS CHART
* = programs of
particular significance to Vermont and
other Northeast/Mid-Atlantic states
PROGRAM |
PAST
FUNDING |
NEW FARM
BILL |
Regional Equity Provision* |
N/A |
$12 million/state/year ($5 million/year
for EQIP; $7 million/year for all other conservation
programs) |
Farmland Protection
Program* |
$35 million over 5 years |
$1.75 billion over 5
years |
Wildlife Habitat Incentives
Program* |
$50 million over 5 years |
$1.25 billion over 5
years |
Environmental Quality Incentives Program
(EQIP)* |
$200 million/year |
$6.2 billion over 5
years |
Conservation Security
Program* |
N/A |
$3.7 billion |
Conservation Reserve Program
(CRP) |
36.4 million acres |
41.1 million acres |
Enhanced CRP (CREP)* |
USDA discretion to set aside
4 million acres |
USDA urged to set aside 5.5 million
acres |
Wetlands Reserve Program
(WRP) |
1,075,000 acres |
2.225 million acres |
Grassland Reserve Program
(GRP) |
N/A |
2 million acres |
Water Conservation Program |
N/A |
$1.1
billion |
SENATE FARM BILL HIGHLIGHTS BENEFITTING
VERMONT
(NOT INCLUDING CONSERVATION
PROGRAMS)
SPECIALTY CROPS:
USDA purchases of $650 million worth of speciality
crops to be used in food assistance programs (to help
fruit and vegetable farmers, including apple farmers);
$75 million in mandatory grant funding for
encouraging the processing and marketing of value-added
farm products;
Funding to assist farmers in exporting high-value
products; and
Funding for a matching grant program for the purposes
of developing, improving, and expanding farmers'
markets.
ORGANICS:
National organic certification cost-share program --
funding to help organic farmers become certified under
the National Organic Program, chartered by legislation
by Leahy in the 1990 Farm Bill;
$45 million in mandatory funding for the expansion of
organic agriculture research and extension
initiatives;
Authorization of a new voluntary organic research and
promotion checkoff program, which gives organic
producers currently participating in checkoff programs the
opportunity to choose how their research and promotion
dollars are spent; and
Initiatives to promote the collection of data on the
production and marketing of organic crops, to facilitate
access to organic research conducted outside of the United
States, to understand the impact of the national organic
program on small farms, and to provide information on the
costs associated with transitioning to organic
production.
NUTRITION:
The Senate farm bill saves Farmers’ Market nutrition
programs, which have been zeroed out in President
Bush's budget.
• The Senate farm bill makes up for the projected
shortfall in funding the WIC Farmers' Market this year by
providing an additional $15 million to the program.
Currently thousands of Vermonters benefit from the WIC
Farmers' Market Program by shopping at 35 Vermont farmers
markets which are supplied by 200 Vermont producers. This
program was originally authored by Senator Leahy in 1989
as a 4-state pilot project.
• $15 million/year for Senator Leahy's Seniors'
Farmers Market Program that provides vouchers for
senior citizens to use at farmers' markets and which has
contributed to the creation of several community farmers
markets in Vermont;
• Increase in funding for nutrition programs -
nearly triples what was provided in the House bill ($8.9
billion over 10 years in the Senate farm bill);
• Food stamp increases focused on helping
low-income families with children, 6-month transitional
assistance to families leaving TANF, increases the
standard deduction for larger families, additional
benefits for elderly and disabled individuals, and legal
immigrants.
FORESTRY:
Establishes a Sustainable Forestry Cooperative
Program ($2 million/year) to assist in the development
of sustainable forestry cooperatives owned and operated by
nonindustrial private forest landowners.
Establishes a Sustainable Forestry Management
Program ($48 million/year) to establish a program with
states to provide cost-share grants to nonindustrial
private forest landowners who agree to develop a
management plan and implement approved activities for a
period of not less than 10
years.
ENERGY:
Provisions for bio-based products, including
bio-refinery development grants and federal purchasing
requirement of bio-based products.
Renewable energy development grants, loans, and
technical assistance to assist farmers, ranchers,
farm-oriented cooperatives and farm-related business
ventures in the development of renewable energy projects
(including fuel cells) and in making energy efficiency
improvements.
RURAL DEVELOPMENT:
Grants for rural firefighter and first emergency
responder training and other projects;
Enhancement of access to broadband access in rural
America to assist in breaking down the digital
divide;
Rural water and wastewater grants and loans to help
communities improve the safety of drinking water; and
An $87 million program to provide a comprehensive
economic development funding for depressed rural
areas.
RESEARCH:
Authorization for a coordinated, national integrated
pest management program to reduce pesticide use, an
effort long led by Leahy;
Authorization authored by Leahy for a research program
to study nutrition and the problems of childhood
obesity -- areas of expertise at the University of
Vermont.
TRADE:
• Mandatory funding for the international school
lunch program, which provides schoolchildren in
impoverished areas overseas with meals to improve their
educational opportunities and nutritional health in an
attempt to bring them out of their cycle of poverty. In
the Senate, this proposal was authored by Senators Leahy
and Harkin.
• Provisions to provide food aid to families in
humanitarian crises (including refugees in
Afghanistan).
# # # # #
_____________________________
Feb. 15 - 18,
2002 |