Calls Needed Today to Support Farm Bill Reform

[Guest guest]

Courtesy of Sheilah Davidson, National Campaign for Sustainable

Agriculture

 

Greetings!

This is a copy of the action alert sent earlier this morning. Hope

you can make a call by tomorrow!

 

 

ACTION ALERT

For the Week of July 23

 

Tell Speaker Pelosi that we want REAL Farm Bill reform!

 

 

The Farm Bill approved by the House Agriculture Committee on July 19

fails to deliver true Farm Bill reform. The bill strips $3 billion

in funding from the Conservation Security Program, USDA's only green

payments program. It offers a commodity program payment limitation

provision that actually increases the cap on direct payments and

removes any cap on loan deficiency payments.

 

With the farm bill scheduled to be debated on the floor of the House

on Thursday, July 26, calls are needed to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi

urging her to find the funding necessary to save the Conservation

Security Program and to demand meaningful commodity payment

limitation reform.

 

CALLS NEEDED TO NANCY PELOSI TODAY THROUGH July 25!!!

 

The message: I am a constituent of House Speaker Pelosi. I urge the

Speaker to support a 2007 Farm Bill that truly supports family

farmers, rural communities, and the environment. Speaker Pelosi

should demand that:

·$3 billion be restored to the Conservation Security Program

and

·Real payment limits be applied to commodity programs,

including a $40,000 direct payment cap and the closing of all

loopholes.

 

It's easy to call or write. Please call Congresswoman Pelosi's

office at (202) 225-4965. Ask the receptionist for the staff person

responsible for agriculture. If the agriculture aid is unavailable,

leave your name, phone number, and the message above on the aid's

voice mail, or if necessary, with the receptionist.

 

If you prefer to write, fax a brief letter with the same points

above, along with your name, address, and contact information. The

Fax number is (202) 225-8259.

 

Background:

The Conservation Security Program (CSP) is an innovative and

proactive stewardship incentives program first authorized in the 2002

Farm Bill. The CSP provides financial and technical assistance to

farmers and ranchers who develop and maintain conservation systems

that solve critical natural resource and environmental concerns,

rewarding them for investments of labor, management, and capital

aimed at fostering healthy, productive, and non-eroding soils, clear

air and clean water, energy savings, and wildlife habitat.

 

Despite its wide popularity with farmers and ranchers, the intent and

scope of the CSP have been stunted by repeated cuts to its funding

levels. The 2007 Farm Bill is the vehicle for improving the CSP,

strengthening its environmental criteria, ensuring that it serves

sustainable and organic farmers, and getting its funding back to a

level where the program can be made available to farmers on a regular

nationwide basis.

 

The draft farm bill, as it stands in the House Agriculture Committee,

makes another huge cut of $3 billion to the program. The proposal

then transfers those CSP funds to the already well-funded

Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP). Unlike the CSP,

EQIP has low environmental standards and uses a portion of its $1.3

billion a year to pay for construction costs associated with large

scale confined feeding operations (CAFOs), promoting overproduction

and industrialization.

 

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Effective payment limits would cap direct payments at $40,000,

counter-cyclical payments at $60,000, and marketing loan payments at

$150,000, for a total hard cap of $250,000. It would also establish

clear, measurable standards to determine whether beneficiaries are

actually actively engaged in the business of farming, and close a

variety of existing loopholes that have entered into the statute and

regulations over the years.

 

The House Agriculture Committee's payment limits provision has been

labeled as a positive reform that helps family farmers, but this is

laughable, and more importantly inaccurate. The House Farm Bill

would increase the current cap on direct and counter-cyclical

payments from $210,000 a year to $250,000 a year and remove any cap

whatsoever on marketing loan gains and loan deficiency payments. The

proposal also fails to address the widespread abuse, documented by

the Government Accountability Office, which results from the lack of

any measurable standard to determine whether payments are being made

to actual working farmers or to participants in sham partnerships

designed to avoid limitations.

 

In short, ineffectual or a complete lack of payment limits

contributes to land prices rising well beyond market levels, which

leads to farm consolidation and the disappearance of mid-sized family

farms, in addition to reduced farming opportunities for a new

generation of farmers.

 

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Sheilah Davidson

Administrative director

National Campaign For Sustainable Agriculture

P.O. Box 396

Pine Bush, New York 12566

Phone: 845-361-5201 Fax: 845-750-6687

e-mail: sheilah

http://www.sustainableagriculture.net/

 

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