U.S. Sen. Grassley: Target family farms in next farm bill
Source: IowaPolitics.com
November 15, 2007
As Iowa farmers harvest the bounty of America’s agricultural abundance, families and friends across the country prepare to gather for the annual Thanksgiving feast.
Sound stewardship and rich natural resources have long allowed the American farmer to help stop hunger and provide U.S. food security.
Today a farmer’s bounty also contributes to U.S. energy security as technological and scientific advances unlock innovative ways to produce energy from renewable, homegrown resources.
Rural America shoulders a great deal of responsibility to help feed and fuel an urbanized nation where 80 percent of the population lives in cities and suburbs. As a farm state lawmaker, I work hard in Washington to advance tax, regulatory, trade, environmental and agricultural policy that allows hard-working rural residents to enjoy their way of life and achieve prosperity for generations to come.
About every five years or so, Congress updates federal farm policy with passage of a new farm bill. For the past year, lawmakers on the Senate Agriculture Committee have been plowing through the 10 policy titles authorized under the farm bill, including for the first time a Livestock Competition Title.
As the only farmer serving on the Agriculture Committee, I led an effort to voice the interests of family farmers and independent livestock producers. The income protection safety net first created during the Great Depression was intended to keep small and mid-sized family farming operations afloat during tough times.
However, the farm safety net today disproportionately channels funding to those who typically can withstand one difficult year due to weather, international war, or political intervention into the markets.. The lion’s share of farm program benefits now goes to a fraction of the largest farming operations. Today 10 percent of the farmers get 73 percent of the benefits. And the top one percent gets nearly 30 percent of farm payments.
What was intended as a helping hand to assist family farmers withstand downturns in the marketplace has evolved into a federal hand-out that drives up land prices and makes it easier for corporate farmers to get bigger but more difficult for beginning farmers to get started.
Farmland for sale near my home in Butler County in Northeast Iowa sells for $4,000 to $6,000 an acre. Across Iowa, the average land value per acre rose 72 percent in the last six years. You don’t have to be an Iowa banker to realize these prices create a steep challenge for young farmers to carry on the tradition of farming. Few beginning farmers can afford to buy land at these prices or afford to pay the inflated cash rents.
The current system creates an imbalance in the marketplace. It leads to overproduction if growers plant for government payments instead of market-driven commodity prices. Remember, farm payments were designed to guarantee a stable food supply and keep farmers in business during cyclical downturns in the marketplace.
And as consolidation in agribusiness continues, independent producers have fewer buyers and suppliers from which to choose. The family farmer today also stands to receive the smallest share of the consumer dollar in history. Perhaps its little wonder the number of family farms is dwindling. Some may feel as though the deck is stacked against them.
Beyond the imbalanced payment disparity, the system is riddled with examples of waste and abuse. We have cases where individuals have collected direct crop payments only because a commodity was once grown on the land upon which they live. We have cases where payments were sent to deceased farmers. We have cases where large operators creatively skirt the law to evade the $360,000 limit and take taxpayers for a ride.
I’m working to shepherd through genuine reforms that will put the brakes on unlimited farm payments and tighten restrictions on eligibility.
As the U.S. Senate considers the farm bill, I’m fighting to win the votes for reforms that close abusive loopholes, put $250,000 hard cap on farm payments ($100,000 direct and counter-cyclical payments and $150,000 marketing loan gains) and tighten the requirement that recipients must be “actively engaged” in farming to qualify for farm payments.
Targeting assistance to those who need it will shore up support by the taxpaying public for the farm safety net. Let’s hope my colleagues in the U.S. Senate will join my efforts to enact strict payment limits, promote conservation, encourage homegrown energy, support beginning farmers, increase food/nutrition assistance, promote local farmers’ markets and give Americans another reason for which to be thankful during this season of Thanksgiving.
