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NCGA Accelerates Momentum on Shaping New Farm Bill
June 6 ,
2001
FOR IMMEDIATE
RELEASE
Contact:
Mimi Ricketts, Director of Marketing
Communications, 314-275-9915, ext.112
David Uchic, Manager, Washington,
D.C., Communications,
202-628-7001
WASHINGTON (June 6,
2001) -- The early reviews are in, and the consensus of
policymakers in
Washington is that the National Corn Growers Association’s
(NCGA) bold
and innovative counter-cyclical income support proposal
deserves
serious consideration.
Since NCGA unveiled
its farm bill proposal in testimony before the House
Agriculture
Committee on April 25, reaction from federal agencies, Capitol
Hill
offices and other commodity groups has been encouraging.
In the last month,
NCGA has been busy briefing administration officials,
congressional
leaders and other farm groups on the merits of our proposal.
The
timeframe for incorporating the counter-cyclical income support
proposal
into a new farm bill is limited. In all likelihood, a farm
bill will be
reported out of the House Agriculture Committee by the end
of July.
The accelerated
schedule the House will follow in crafting a farm bill
provides
precious little time for NCGA, its state associations, checkoff
boards
and other advocates to influence their work. The Senate Ag Committee
is
expected to announce its hearing schedule soon.
Brent Porteus,
chairman of the NCGA Public Policy Action Team and a
Coshocton, Ohio,
farmer said: “Our biggest challenge now is to get people to
look at our
proposal and evaluate it on its merits. It’s really important
to
understand that our counter-cyclical proposal incorporates-and does
not
replace-what worked well in the ’96 Farm Bill. But it also
represents an
evolution in policy in that it capitalizes on the
previous bill’s strengths
in a manner that is WTO friendly. The beauty
of our counter-cyclical
proposal is that it moves us down the road in
terms of creating a good
market-driven policy that avoids the pitfalls
of previous policies that were
market-distorting.”
For more information
regarding NCGA’s farm bill proposal, please visit
NCGA’s website at http://www.ncga.com/.
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