ASA Urges Rapid Enactment of New Farm Bill and Presents
Policy Recommendations to Senate
July 12, 2001… Saint Louis, Missouri… The American Soybean Association (ASA)
called for prompt approval of a new Farm Bill and outlined specific
recommendations for such legislation during testimony today before the Senate
Agriculture Committee. ASA President Tony Anderson presented the testimony that
described how the previous farm bill has left an “unfinished agenda” that must
be considered in the new legislation.
“Unless key issues are resolved, it will be difficult, if not impossible, to
move farm policy beyond the role of a safety net for producers facing
disadvantageous conditions, both at home and abroad,” said Anderson, a soybean
grower from Mount Sterling, Ohio. “Authors of the previous Farm Bill were clear
that the overall economic and trade environment of U.S. agriculture needed to be
changed to reduce production costs and enhance the competitiveness of U.S. farm
exports.”
ASA identified the following areas that still need to be addressed:
- Agricultural trade must be given the same weight in U.S. economic and
foreign policy decisions as accorded by our primary international competitors
and customers.
- Export assistance and promotion programs authorized by the WTO must be
fully and aggressively utilized, as our competitors do.
- Ineffective unilateral economic sanctions that discredit U.S. reliability
as a supplier and encourage our competitors to expand production and exports
must be rescinded and prohibited.
- Funding for U.S. humanitarian assistance programs must be increased and
maintained at a level that reflects the United States’ responsibility to
enhance societal, economic, and political stability in developing countries.
- An effective case must be made for modernizing the U.S. transportation
infrastructure, including the lock and dam system on the Mississippi and
Illinois Rivers.
- Barriers to U.S. farm exports based on non-scientific standards, including
restrictions on biotechnology trade, must be challenged and overcome.
- Funding for agricultural research must be restored and increased.
- Unnecessarily onerous regulations that increase agricultural production
costs must be either compensated or eliminated.
In addition to establishing conditions that will foster a competitive
environment for U.S. agriculture, ASA supports the following objectives in the
next farm bill:
- Domestic farm programs should be equitable and balanced among program
crops, defined as all loan-eligible crops that can be planted on the same
cropland on a farm. No program should favor production of one crop over
another.· The primary objective of the next farm bill is to provide adequate
long-term price and income support for producers of program crops and other
crops that have traditionally received multi-year support under federal farm
programs. To the extent additional funding is available, other priorities that
are appropriate for omnibus farm legislation should be addressed.
- Provide voluntary incentive payments to encourage improved conservation
practices. ASA helped develop and strongly supports the Conservation Security
Act (CSA). However, incentives provided under the CSA should not come at the
expense of price and income supports.
- Increase funding of export promotion and assistance programs, and of
foreign food assistance. Food aid should be based on a minimum annual tonnage
commitment, which should not be subject to variations in production and the
availability of surpluses.
- Programs established under omnibus farm legislation provide multi-year
support to crops that are either produced on the same acreage or that have
traditionally received support. These crops are also required to comply with
conservation measures, including Sodbuster and Swampbuster requirements. Crops
that do not meet these criteria should not be included in the next farm bill.
Any assistance required by producers of these crops due to economic or crop
losses should continue to be addressed in annual disaster legislation.
Regarding domestic farm programs. ASA supports key elements of the current
Farm Bill, such as full and unrestricted planting flexibility, continuation of
non-recourse marketing loans, no statutory authority to impose set-asides, and
no authority to establish government or farmer-owned reserves for oilseeds. In
addition, oilseed producer organizations oppose any limitations on marketing
loan benefits, fixed income payments, or any counter-cyclical income support
payments.
Oilseed producer organizations support maintaining current oilseed loan rates
for 2002 crops, and setting these rates as floors rather than ceilings under the
next farm bill. The formula for adjusting loan levels to 85 percent of Olympic
average prices in the previous five years should be retained, and discretion
should be provided to the Secretary to set loan levels above the floor when
prices warrant.
Anderson also presented details of ASA’s recommendations on Production
Flexibility Contracts, counter-cyclical income supports, the Foreign Market
Development Program, international food aid and more. The full text of the
testimony is available at http://www.soygrowers.wegov2.com/file_depot/0-10000000/0-10000/735/folder/9486/Oilseed+Farm+Policy+Satement+by+Anderson.htm.
For more information contact:
Tony Anderson, ASA President, Phone (740)
437-7803
Bob Callanan, Communications Director, bcallanan@soy.org
314/754-1291
American Soybean Association
12125 Woodcrest Executive
Drive, Suite 100, Saint Louis, MO 63141
Phone: (314) 576-1770, Fax: (314)
576-2786