A quick vocabulary lesson before you read further:
- Direct Payments are the subsidies that farmers get every year whether they need them or not. They are based on historical, not current, production. If you historically produced a certain amount of corn, multiply that times a dollar amount, and that's your direct payment. Even if you aren't growing anything on that land this year, and even if corn prices are sky high.
- Crop Insurance: This is a relatively new phenomenon. The government now subsidizes crop insurance against low yields or low income. I highly recommend this article to better understand crop insurance.
First up was Vilsack. He thinks that the EPA isn't necessarily trying to pick on agriculture as much as Big Ag thinks it is. He encouraged the ag lobby to befriend the leaders of EPA - to take them to visit farms, show them the reality of agriculture - and he thinks that will bring about a resolution to the current outcry of ag that EPA stands for "End Production Agriculture." (Production agriculture is Big Ag's term for Big Ag.)
As for budget cuts, Vilsack thinks we should counteract them by expanding the market for commodities by encouraging more experts and also coming up with more uses for commodities (i.e. biofuels) at home. He mentioned the Obama administration's efforts to cut direct payments for the richest farmers, the ones who presumably don't need them. He emphasized that he wants a strong farm safety net and he thinks a strong crop insurance program might be the way to get there.
Next up was Lucas. He is going after the EPA and wants to see if he can keep them from regulating agriculture as much as possible. And he is a staunch defender of direct payments. He is not yet working on the farm bill because commodity prices are so high and he worries that with the call for budget cuts, ag would not be able to defend all of its subsidies. He's hoping that by waiting until next year there will be less of a need for budget cuts and also lower commodity prices, making subsidy programs easier to defend.
Third, Mike Johanns. He also wants to make sure that crop insurance programs are strong in order to provide a safety net to farmers. He wasn't as crazy about direct payments as Lucas was. The interviewer suggested changing direct payments so that they are only paid out in years with low commodity prices, and he didn't come out against that idea. He also noted that most of the farm bill money goes to nutrition programs (like food stamps) and while he didn't directly call for nutrition programs to be cut, I think that's what he was implying. Johanns was not at all sympathetic to the EPA (he called them "activists") but felt that the Senate would not do much about them because most Senators support Obama.
Last, Collin Peterson. He was not sympathetic to the EPA either, and in particular, he is ticked off about the EPA's impending regulation of greenhouse gases. He was also asked about cutting conservation acreage to increase the amount of land in cultivation, and he said he is not for that. He feels that the land in conservation right now is land that should not be farmed for environmental reasons.
As for direct payments and budget cutting, Peterson said he could envision a small cut of direct payments (like a 10% reduction) or a scheme in which direct payments are not paid in years when farmers are doing very well. However, with Lucas in power in the House and Sen. Roberts as the senior Republican on the committee in the Senate, he doesn't think direct payments will be eliminated. He didn't mention any way in particular he wanted to cut the ag budget. Instead, he said that ag has already cut its budget, and he'd be willing to cut it more after everyone else took a cut similar to the one ag already took.
So that's what some of the most powerful men in ag policy are talking about right now. Of course, there's a full year to go before they start actually debating the farm bill. |
