October 15, 2001
The Honorable Tom
Harkin
Chairman
Senate Agriculture Committee
328A Russell
Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
Dear Mr. Chairman:
We appreciate your efforts to move forward with a farm bill. We
have stressed the urgency of completing the farm bill this year.
Your dedication brings us closer to attaining this goal and
providing needed assistance to America’s farmers and ranchers. The
House passed a farm bill that provides a fair and equitable
allocation of an additional $73.5 billion in spending without
reducing the benefits provided from otherwise currently available
budget authority. We urge you to develop a farm bill that allocates
the total funding for each of the various titles at the
House-approved levels.
Those funding levels provide well-balanced assistance to
producers of crops, livestock, and fruits and vegetables. The levels
that were established have provided significant increases to all
titles especially conservation, rural development, trade, research
and nutrition programs. Conservation received an 80 percent increase
in funding over previous levels. We believe using these established
levels as a framework will provide continuity to the process leading
to a successful farm policy.
We also urge you to consider the farm bill as a package. While we
appreciate that you are beginning the mark-up as early as this week,
we are concerned by the concept of a piece-meal approach. It will be
difficult to support portions of the bill without information on the
farm policy and conservation titles.
Thank you for your consideration, and we look forward to working
with you and the Committee in providing an equitable farm bill this
year. As you begin your work and develop legislative language, we
request that you make it available as soon as possible for review
and input.
Sincerely,
American Farm Bureau Federation
National Association of Wheat
Growers
National Cotton Council
National Grain Sorghum
Producers
National Milk Producers Federation
Rice Millers’
Association
U.S. Rice Producers Association
U.S. Rice
Producers’
Group