As the congressional debate in
early 2011 focused on how to
tackle the nation’s ballooning
debt and deficit situation, no
one anticipated that the “solution” to
address the fiscal situation would lead to a
process to reauthorize farm policy for the
next five years. The current Farm Bill
expires at the end of 2012, but the House
and Senate Agriculture Committees have
been busy negotiating new farm policy for
2013 through 2017. The reasons are
twofold: The requirement to cut billions
from agriculture budget and the desire of
the Agriculture Committees to have a say
in how the savings are achieved.
Policy Alternatives Analyzed
In early August, Congress passed the
Budget Control Act of 2011, which established
the Joint Select Committee on
Deficit Reduction (Select Committee),
comprised of 12 lawmakers evenly divided
between Democrats and Republicans and
House and Senate members. The task of
the Select Committee is to achieve at least
$1.2 trillion in savings over 10 years by
reducing federal spending and/or increasing
federal revenue. If the goal is not
reached, automatic, across-the-board cuts
are scheduled to occur in 2013.
Considering that previous proposals to
address the fiscal situation included cuts to
agriculture as high as $50 billion, the
Agriculture Committees seized this opporopportunity
to develop a joint recommendation
to cut $23 billion from the agriculture budget
and still maintain a functioning farm
policy for producers.
The four leaders of the Agriculture
Committees, House Chairman Frank
Lucas (R-OK), Senate Chairwoman
Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), House Ranking
Member Collin Peterson (D-MN) and
Senate Ranking Member Pat Roberts (RKS),
are negotiating the new farm policy
to begin in 2013. While the USA Rice
Federation and the U.S. rice industry have
strongly supported current farm policy,
including the direct payment program, we
recognized the political and budgetary
realities of maintaining this policy.
As a result, USA Rice and its producer
leadership began analyzing policy alternatives
that would maintain an effective safety
net for rice and remain within the fiscal
constraints placed on agriculture. We believe
the outcome produced by the Agriculture
Committees should meet these requirements,
providing our industry with a
farm policy that allows for growth while
meeting unique risk-management needs.
Grateful For Ag Leaders’ Efforts
The volatility in agriculture has never
been greater, with commodity prices and
input costs moving more in weeks or
months than in an entire year in the not-too-
distant past. The U.S. agriculture sector
has been one of the bright spots in the
current economic environment and to risk
threatening this by dismantling farm policy
in the name of deficit reduction would
have proven foolish and misguided.
We owe a huge debt of gratitude to the
agriculture leaders in Congress who
embraced the challenge, proving that good
policy can still be achieved, even when it
means working with less funding and in
less time.
To learn more, visit www.usarice.com. |
