News
From
The Vermont Congressional
Delegation
Fri., Aug. 29,
2002
Leahy,
Jeffords, Sanders Ask USDA To Rewrite Its
‘Farmer-Unfriendly’ Draft Rules For Dairy
Plan
The members of
the Vermont Congressional Delegation – Sen. Patrick Leahy,
Sen. Jim Jeffords, and Rep. Bernie Sanders – are asking U.S.
Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman to correct serious problems
in rules her agency has proposed to implement the new national
dairy program.
The U.S.
Department of Agriculture (USDA) recently announced steps to
implement the program in ways that the delegation members say
would shortchange dairy farmers and needlessly add to farmers’
paperwork. They said the Bush Administration wants to
impose the strictest possible rules to deny payments to
multiple producers on multi-generational family farms and that
USDA’s rules would cut retroactive payments to producers on
medium-sized dairy operations. The delegation also
criticized USDA’s one-month delay in allowing producers to
sign up under the program and asked Veneman to prevent further
delays. The dairy program was enacted through the
delegation’s work on the Farm Bill.
They said
Congress gave the Bush Administration sufficient flexibility
to implement the Farm Bill in farmer-friendly ways.
Instead, they said, there is a concerted effort by the
Administration to restrict payments to farmers as much as
possible, across the board, and throughout the Farm
Bill. They said other examples of this
‘farmer-unfriendly’ pattern are USDA’s yield and acreage
updates for grain and oilseed producers, and in conservation,
where the Administration is refusing to make available $50
million for farmland protection authorized for this fiscal
year.
Leahy, Jeffords
and Sanders point out that dairy farmers are hurting and
urgently need these payments. Milk prices are nearly
one-third lower now than they were this time last
year.
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