UNDERSTANDING THE
FARM BILL
Every five years,
the federal government reviews the food and farm landscape and renews the
Farm Bill. Who the bill benefits – and how – is the subject of decades of
debate.
Farm Aid breaks it
down with a Farm Bill
101, ways to take action, and key takeaways.
NOTE:
Google ‘farm bill
101’ for a list of information to
understand the U.S. Farm Bill and its’ ramifications across the board in all
sectors.
Learn about the Farm
Bill now
The final five-year farm bill, an $867 billion package titled the Agricultural Improvement Act of
2018, passed Congress in a bipartisan show of support and was signed into law
by President Trump on December 20.
Our biggest takeaway is this: in a time of farm crisis, this farm bill
will not right the ship.
There’s a whole lot of good, bad and ugly in the bill, but our biggest
takeaway is this: in a time of farm crisis, this farm bill will not right the
ship.
The future of
family farm agriculture requires a dramatic shift in policy towards
- fair pricing,
- supply management programs,
- cracking down on corporate goliaths and
accelerated attention to the climate crisis.
By those
standards, this farm bill fails. That said, farmers and ranchers cannot wait
another day for the programs that ended when the last farm bill expired on
September 30. The time is now to get them back up and running!
This whirlwind timeline robbed advocates of time for analysis or action
(surely by design), but here are some of the highlights in our priority areas
(a huge shout out to our friends at the National Sustainable Agriculture
Coalition and Rural Coalition for helping us sift through the
language).
Check out Farm
Aid’s Take in our Understanding the Farm Bill Hub for more details on how we
got here.
JUMP TO A SECTION:
- Farmer Livelihoods
- Local Food
Systems & Healthy Food Access
- Soil, Water &
Climate
- Equal Opportunity
for All Farmers
FARMER LIVELIHOODS
Since 2013, America’s farmers and ranchers have weathered a 50% drop in net
farm income.
The 1-800-FARM-AID
hotline has had its busiest year yet, with more farmers calling us
stressed, desperate and with a shrinking number of viable options for keeping
their farms running.
The 2018 Farm Bill could have risen to the occasion by
o restoring commonsense measures like supply
management (which would curb the overproduction that is causing the dairy
crisis) and
o recommit to fair pricing policies that cover
farmers’ cost of production,
o instead of using taxpayer money to compensate
for extreme, costly and avoidable market volatility that puts farmers at risk
of going out of business.
But this bill
won’t do that.
Despite a few bright spots, when it comes to
the core challenges facing the farm economy, the 2018 Farm Bill fails spectacularly, and in some
cases, actively takes steps backward by giving even more taxpayer money to
the wealthiest farm operations.
THE BRIGHT SPOTS:
* Farm and Ranch Stress Assistance Network: This
important program intending to deal with the rising levels of stress and
mental health concerns in farm country was actually authorized in the 2014
Farm Bill, but never received the funding it so desperately needed, and so
never got going.The 2018 Farm Bill makes important improvements to the
program – such as explicitly providing access to tribal communities – and
authorizes up to $10 million each year until 2023. Upon passage of the bill,
we will be working hard to make sure those dollars end up in the right hands
– with the network of service providers we depend on to help farmers in
crisis navigate their options and receive the support they deserve. Language
in the bill also directs USDA and the Department of Health and Human Services
to examine the problem of occupational stress among farmers and individuals
who work in agriculture to develop a long-term strategy and response.
Improvements to Whole Farm Revenue Protection: This essential crop
insurance program allows coverage for farmers who run more diversified
operations that previously could not access safety net programs. Improvements
in this bill include flexibility around record-keeping methods and the
ability to account for the impact of natural disasters in baseline
assumptions that influence insurance coverage.
* Risk Management Goes Local: This farm bill directs USDA’s Risk
Management Agency (RMA) to create a new Local Food Policy, helping farmers
and ranchers plugged into local and regional food systems to have better
access to insurance programs for their operations.
* Bye-bye King Amendment: The King Amendment would have preempted local and state laws around
factory farms in particular, but more broadly on state protections for
animals, the environment, food safety, and worker health and safety. This was
removed from the final bill.
LUKE-WARM:
* The Dairy Margin Protection Program: MPP, a safety
net program for dairy farmers now renamed Dairy Margin Coverage was
overhauled to make it more useful to dairy farmers across the board but
particularly to smaller-scale producers, (those with production of 5 million
pounds or less per year—about equivalent to 240 cows). Premiums will be
further reduced for farmers. This is a welcome improvement to a program that
was all but useless or inaccessible for the many dairy farmers in crisis who
have contacted us over the past year, but the 2018 Farm Bill still does not
deliver the supply management policy that would deliver fair prices to
farmers.
UNCONSCIONABLE:
* Boondoggle for the big guys: The 2018 Farm Bill widens
loopholes for wealthy mega-farms to exploit commodity and crop insurance
subsidies, allowing nieces, nephews, and cousins who may have never worked on
the farm to receive taxpayer-funded subsidies. This will continue
to drive consolidation in the farm sector, allowing the biggest farms
to keep growing and gobble up smaller and midsized operations that are so
critical to the wellbeing of rural communities.
LOCAL FOOD SYSTEMS
& HEALTHY FOOD ACCESS
Farm Aid celebrates the great power of food to connect people and grow strong
communities, as well as the farmers and ranchers at the root of our food
system. The 2008 Farm Bill ushered in a suite of programs that support
the development of local and regional food systems, market diversification
opportunities for farmers, healthy food access initiatives and other
innovative programs that seize upon the great potential of food to bolster local economies,
create jobs and deepen the connection between farmers and eaters.
Our hope for this Farm Bill was continued support for these programs and an
expansion of access to healthy food for all Americans. By and large, this was
a bright spot in the bill, which is no small feat given how hard our
communities have had to fight to make the case that local food systems
represent worthy investments in rural economies, public health, job creation
and farmer livelihoods.
WHAT WE LIKE:
* We love LAMP: A number of scrappy programs that
spurred local and regional food systems over the last decade have consistently
been fighting for funding. This farm bill combines two of our favorites – the
Value-Added Producer Grant (VAPG) program and Farmers Market and
Local Food Promotion Program (FMLFPP) – into a new program called the Local Agriculture Market
Program (LAMP). The Farm Bill provides these programs with
permanent funding and makes significant policy improvements.
The 2018 Farm Bill
also reauthorizes the Rural Energy for America Program (REAP), which will
receive $50 million per year in mandatory funds in perpetuity, the National
Sustainable Agriculture Information Service / Appropriate Technology Transfer
for Rural America (ATTRA), Business and Industry Loan Guarantees Local &
Regional Food Enterprise Set-aside, an expands the Healthy Food Financing Initiative.
* Rural Matters: The 2018 Farm Bill overturns the outrageous decision
made last year by Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue to eliminate the
position of an Undersecretary for Rural Development. The bill now mandates
this position’s existence.
* Urban Matters, too: The 2018 Farm Bill establishes a new “Office of
Urban Agriculture and Innovative Forms of Production” with $25 million per
year in appropriations authority, a 15-member advisory committee and
competitive grants authority. It instructs the creation of 10 pilot Urban and
Suburban County Committees and creates a community compost and reducing food
waste pilot. The bill also includes $10 million annually in mandatory funding
for research grants in urban agriculture.
* ‘Let food be thy
medicine’: This bill reauthorizes the Food Insecurity Nutrition
Incentives Program and renamed it the Gus Schumacher Nutrition Incentive
Program (named after
a hero of ours who worked tirelessly to ensure that everyone has access to
good food). The program will receive $250 million over 5 years and
includes a produce prescription program.
* A better SNAP. The bill extends funding for the Supplemental
Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly called ‘food stamps’) without
the rigid and bureaucratic work requirements initially placed in the House
version of the bill. Those provisions would have deepened hunger and poverty
for vulnerable Americans, including children and families. The bill also
instructs USDA to allow farmers markets to operate an individual EBT device
for accepting SNAP benefits at more than one location.
DISAPPOINTING:
* Farm to
School: The 2018 Farm Bill fails to provide additional mandatory funding
for the USDA Farm to School Grant Program and does not provide for the
regulatory flexibility that would allow school food authorities to procure
local and regional food and farm products.
* Where’s the money? This bill reduces mandatory funding for the
Community Food Projects grant program by $4 million and does not provide
mandatory funding for the Food Safety Outreach Program.
SOIL, WATER & CLIMATE
For the better
part of a century, farm bills have acknowledged the crucial role that
government dollars can play in developing conservation programs that steward
our natural resources. Funding for these programs has expanded over the last
three decades, as more farmers seek to learn on-farm conservation skills,
invest in the long-term health of our soil, water and climate, and build a
more resilient agricultural system in the face of climate change.
Our hope was for a farm bill that empowers farmers and ranchers to steward our
natural resources and effectively mitigate and adapt to climate change by
investing in the long-term health of our soil, air and water and maintaining
full funding for all conservation programs; expanding program access to serve
farmers of all types; and removing loopholes in the EQIP program that
subsidize factory farms. Unfortunately, while there are important measures in
this farm bill, it falls far too short in advancing these goals.
THE GOOD:
* Organic:
There are important improvements for certified organic growers in this farm
bill, such as increases in the Organic Initiative payment cap within the
Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP), a new organic allocation
within the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) – the largest federal conservation
program— and $5 million in mandatory funding for the collection of organic
production data.The bill also increases funding for the Organic Agriculture
Research and Extension Initiative (OREI) to $50 million a year in permanent
funding by 2023, with a total of $395 million in funding over ten years.
Finally, the bill included $24 million in mandatory funding for National
Organic Certification Cost Share from 2019-2023, although this was far less
than advocates had requested.
* Soil Health: The bill increases payments for cover crops, crop
rotations and advanced grazing management within the CSP, and authorizes
payment for comprehensive conservation planning. The bill also includes new
research priorities around soil health.
* Seeds for the future: This bill authorizes a National Genetics
Resources Program, adopts a National Strategic Germplasm and Cultivar
Collection Assessment and Utilization Plan, and makes other important policy
around public, locally- and regionally-adapted seed varieties that can help
farmers navigate a changing climate.
MIXED BAG:
* Hand outs for
factory farms: While this bill decreases livestock set-asides within EQIP
that were being funneled to the factory farm industry, it does not remove
these loopholes entirely and does not include any of the much-needed reforms
that would limit taxpayer dollars being used to subsidize factory farms.
* No cuts: The fact that there were no cuts in overall funding in the
Conservation Title is a huge win, since the first House version of the bill
slashed these programs and removed the CSP altogether. That said, this bill
failed to restore $6 billion in cuts to the title made in the 2014 Farm Bill
and set us up for a challenging future because…
…THE OH-SO-UGLY:
* Borrowing
from the future: You may have to read the fine print to realize that this
Farm Bill establishes cuts over the long-term for CSP past the year 2023,
amounting to over $5 billion in advance cuts to the CSP and EQIP for the next
farm bill.
* Research shortfalls: This farm bill did not include important
research priorities on climate change and provided no baseline funding for
plant breeding research.
EQUAL OPPORTUNITY FOR ALL FARMERS
For too long, the
lion’s share of federal farm bill dollars has gone to a narrow segment of farmers
and farm types. Farmers of color and female farmers have experienced
discrimination when seeking access to credit, conservation and other farm
programs. In far too many cases, this discrimination has led to farm families
going out of business and losing their land.
Our hope was for a farm bill that would build upon past progress to ensure
equal opportunity for farmers of all kinds and create a truly level playing
field for anyone interested in becoming a farmer. There are some notable
achievements in this bill.
WHAT WE LIKE:
* Hello, FOTO!
The final farm bill combines the Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development
Program (BFRDP) and Outreach and Assistance for Socially Disadvantaged and
Veteran Farmers and Ranchers Program (also known as “Section 2501”) into the
new Farming Opportunities Training and Outreach (FOTO) program. The improved
program has permanent funding of $50 million annually, shared equally between
the two programs.
* Fairer Safety Net: Throughout the Farm Bill, there are important improvements
to programs in the farm safety net that make sure farmers of color are not
left behind. For example, the bill mandates that there is a report every 3
years on Underserved Producers with recommendations for improving
participation in insurance programs. And it includes equitable relief for
producers who received incorrect servicing by the USDA when applying for
direct loans.
* Fairness for Heirs Property. Heirs’ property refers to land that
passed down to multiple descendants without the presence of a will or estate
plan. It leaves the heirs without clear title to the land, which prevents
farmers who are part of an heirs’ property to receive FSA loans. This bill
ensures that these farmers, often African-American farmers and farmers of
color operating on land with undivided interests, can finally access USDA
programs that enable them to protect the soil and water, and continue to
operate viable farms that feed their communities.
* Historically Black Colleges and Universities: The bill includes $40
million in mandatory funding for scholarships for the 1890 land-grant
institutions – agricultural colleges created primarily to serve African
American students who could not access to higher education due to
segregation.
* Legalizes Industrial Hemp by removing it from the controlled
substances list and allowing tribes, states, and territories to establish
regulatory structures within their boundaries that allow farmers and ranchers
to produce a high-value cash crop while retaining federal farm program benefits
that were previously not allowed.
MIXED BAG:
·
Set asides: This bill maintains, but fails to increase,
allocated dollars set aside for socially disadvantaged and beginning farmers
in major conservation programs (CSP and EQIP).
·
No money, more
problems: The bill removes mandatory
funding for the Rural Microentrepreneur Assistance Program, an important
program for farmers and ranchers of all kinds. It also does not provide
mandatory funding for Individual Development Accounts (IDAs), which are
important for beginning farmers.
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