Archives for the 'Minority Farmers' Category
Legislative Roundup: Farm Credit Funding Passes, Other Food and Farm Legislation Could Move
Wednesday, July 28th, 2010
[Friday July 30 update to story below -- A measure to fund the Pigford II class action settlement between USDA and black farmers is now expected to come to the Senate floor early next week as a stand alone measure. The Food Safety Modernization Act (S 510) is now not expected to be taken up before the Senate leaves for summer recess at the end of next week, though it may come to the floor in September. Whether the Senate takes up the child nutrition reauthorization bill next week is still an open question.]
As is often the case as the summer congressional recess approaches, there is lots of activity on Capitol Hill. With so many moving pieces of interest to the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) and NSAC member organizations, we are issuing this brief update.
Supplemental Appropriation – Farm Credit Funding, BCAP Cut
On Tuesday, July 27, the House approved a $59 billion war supplemental spending bill by a vote of 308-114 and sent it to the President for his signature. The bill includes $950 million in Farm Service Agency (FSA) farm loan program funding to help meet emergency farm lending needs. The loan funding and several other USDA-related provisions are offset by a $50 million funding cut to the Biomass Crop Assistance Program (BCAP). NSAC was a strong proponent of the farm loan funding and the offset.
The war supplemental has been pending for months. The bill has bounced back and forth between the House and the Senate, with major disputes centering around how many emergency domestic spending initiatives to tie to the war and foreign aid spending, the centerpiece of the bill. In the end, the Senate’s smaller domestic package prevailed.
The bill includes $33 billion for war operations, $6 billion in foreign aid, $5 billion for domestic disaster relief, and $13 billion in mandatory funding to help Vietnam veterans exposed to Agent Orange.
The NSAC-supported credit package includes $350 million for direct farm operating loans, $300 million for guaranteed farm ownership loans, $250 million for guaranteed farm operating loans, and $50 million for subsidized guaranteed farm operating loans.
The limitation placed on BCAP, an important farm bill renewable energy program, is warranted in our view based on runaway spending and misplaced priorities, as this program was being implemented by the FSA. With a cap on program spending, the agency will need to continue to give thought to focusing the program to support the most important biomass crop projects possible.
Pigford Settlement Funding
Included in the most recent House-passed version of the supplemental appropriations bill, but deleted from the final product, was $1.15 billion for the Pigford II settlement between USDA and black farmers. That measure was originally attached to a tax extender bill that has not made it through the legislative gauntlet yet, and then it was stuck onto the supplemental in the House.
Now, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) says he will try to add the Pigford settlement funding, and another class action settlement between American Indians and the Department of the Interior over the government’s mishandling of trust accounts, onto a small business bill the Senate is considering on the floor this week. It is not yet clear whether this third attempt to find a vehicle for the two settlement accounts will be successful. NSAC supports the funding and the quickest possible resolution of the matter.
Ag Disaster Aid
Speaking of the small business bill, Senate Agriculture Chair, Blanche Lincoln (D-AR), has secured the agreement of the Majority Leader to attach her emergency agricultural disaster funding measure to the small business legislation. That measure was also attached to the tax extender bill earlier in the year, but now is seeking a potentially faster moving vehicle. A vote is expected later this week.
The measure includes $1 billion for bonus direct commodity payments for farmers who suffered a greater than 5 percent loss in production, a provision that has proved controversial, yet remains in play. The measure also includes specific disaster funding for cottonseed, aquaculture, Hawaiian sugar, livestock, and specialty crop producers.
Food Safety and Child Nutrition Bills
As regular readers will know, food safety and child nutrition reauthorization legislation has been chugging along slowly for the past two years. With time running out on this session of Congress, it is not yet clear if a way will be found to pass these bills and get them signed into law this year. The measures are both among the most bipartisan bills pending in Congress, which, all other things being equal, should improve their chances of passage. Nonetheless, netiher has proceeded smoothly, and both are looking for Senate floor time before the August recess begins.
The Senate food safety bill (S. 510) was voted out of Committee late last year, but has been stalled since then due to behind the scenes negotiations over amendments ranging from family farms and local food systems, to banning the use of the chemical additive BPA in food containers, to the re-importation of drugs from Canada.
The House passed it’s companion bill a year ago and has been waiting for final Senate action before they can proceed to a conference committee to settle on the final form of the legislation. Even if the Senate passes a bill soon, it is unclear whether enough time remains in this session for what could be a long conference negotiation.
The pending Managers Amendment to the Senate bill contains a number of provisions strongly supported by NSAC. NSAC also supports two amendments still being negotiated by Senator Brown (D-OH) and Senator Tester (D-MT), though we will withhold final judgment until negotiated text is closer to being agreed upon.
A child nutrition bill was approved by the Senate Agriculture Committee in March and a companion bill by the House Education and Labor Committee in July. Both bills include mandatory funding for the Farm to School program. The Senate bill costs $4.5 billion over 10 years and is paid for through offsets, including the controversial proposed cut to the Environmental Quality Incentives Program. The House bill costs $8 billion over 10 years, but House Democratic leadership is still in the process of looking for funding offsets and have thankfully indicated to us they will not scale back farm bill conservation programs to pay for the child nutrition increase.
While further House action on the bill is not likely until September, Senate Majority Reid said this week that he would explore whether floor time might be made available for the Senate nutrition bill. Senator Lincoln intends to take to the floor each day to explain to her colleagues the importance of taking up the bill. Her floor statement from Tuesday, July 27 is posted here.
We will continue to provide readers with new information on the food safety and child nutrition bills as it becomes available.
Letter Supports Reinstatement of Shirley Sherrod
Tuesday, July 27th, 2010
The Rural Coalition has crafted a sign on letter that expressed disappointment in the hasty removal of Shirley Sherrod from her position as USDA State Rural Development Director for Georgia on July 19, 2010.
The letter—which went out to the press, the Secretary, the President, and the Attorney General multiple times last week—acknowledges the leadership Sherrod has taken in promoting fairness within USDA and commends some in the press for “digging deeper” to restore Sherrod’s reputation as a leader on farm discrimination issues.
Sherrod had been forced to resign early last week after false revelations broke following distribution of video of a portion of a speech she delivered to the NAACP.
The Rural Coalition, along with NSAC and a plethora of organizations that also signed the letter, called on President Obama and USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack to apologize and to reinstate Sherrod. Vilsack and the Obama administration have officially expressed regret for its actions and have offered Sherrod a different USDA job, an offer she is contemplating.
Revised Chart on FY 2011 Ag Appropriations
Tuesday, July 20th, 2010
With both the House Agricultural Appropriations Subcommittee and the full Senate Appropriations Committee now having taken action on their Fiscal Year 2011 agricultural spending bills, NSAC is posting a revised version of its annual agriculture appropriations chart to our website. The chart provides detailed funding level decisions on a program-by-program basis for about 40 USDA programs that we follow closely each year.
Appropriations bills generally only become public once the full appropriations committees have voted on them. Since that has not yet happened for the House bill yet, the numbers represented in our chart for the House bill are based on the best available information we have been able to obtain. In a few instances there are blanks where information has either been lacking or inconsistent and therefore possibly unreliable. The Senate numbers are all confirmed. The Senate bill and committee report can be found here.
Looking ahead to later this year when a final bill is put together, we will be emphasizing:
- attaining the historic House Subcommittee-approved $30 million funding level for the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) program;
- removing the cuts to mandatory farm bill conservation funding contained in the Senate bill for the Wetlands Reserve, Grasslands Reserve, Farm and Ranch Land Protection, and Agricultural Management Assistance program;
- achieving the higher Senate total funding level ($8.35 million) for the Rural Micro-entrepreneurship Assistance Program and farm operating and ownership loans;
- obtaining the higher House funding level ($7 million) for the USDA Office of Advocacy and Outreach that coordinates policy and programs for beginning and minority farmers and farmworkers; and
- inserting into the final bill funding for the groundbreaking Beginning Farmer and Rancher Individual Development Account program.
As the process continues, we will update our appropriations chart as information changes.
USDA Boosts Assistance to Socially Disadvantaged Farmers
Monday, July 19th, 2010
The USDA Office of Advocacy and Outreach (OAO) is requesting a second round of applications for the Outreach and Assistance for Socially Disadvantaged Farmers and Ranchers Competitive Grants Program (OASDFR), a program that seeks to ensure equitable participation in USDA programs for minority producers.
The OAO will fund up to $4.7 million in grants to eligible entities.
Applications can be found here and must be submitted on or before August 9, 2010.
A conference call is taking place on Tuesday, July 20 from 1 PM to 2 PM EST to answer questions about the program and the request. The call-in number is (800) 867-6144 and the conference code is 4635#. To RSVP for the call send a message to oasdfr@usda.gov.
In June, USDA announced some $26 million in FY 10 awards under an earlier round of the program.
Through the new OASDFR request for proposals, the OAO hopes to identify the causes of inequitable participation by certain socially disadvantaged groups through the provision of grants to Native American Tribal Governments and organizations, Latino-Serving Institutions, State Controlled Institutions of Higher Education, Land Grant Institutions, and community-based organizations and non-profits that focus on minority farmers.
Groups eligible for the newly-announced grants must be able to implement a project that addresses the following:
1. Collect and analyze data on the number of actual and potential socially disadvantaged farmers within a defined geographic region
2. Engage in outreach to identify causes of failure to achieve equitable participation in USDA agricultural programs and to develop recommended solutions
3. Develop and deploy improved approaches to technical assistance and outreach
4. Collect and analyze information to evaluate the success of those approaches
More information regarding the program is available on our website: OASDFR.
FSA Programs Get USDA Push
Thursday, July 15th, 2010
USDA’s Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food initiative recently highlighted Farm Service Agency (FSA) resources that can be used to expand and diversify farm businesses, preserve natural resources critical to future farm income and create links with local and regional food systems.
The Farm Storage Facility Loan program was expanded by the 2008 Farm Bill to include authority for use by vegetable, fruit, and nut producers as well as other farmers to use these loans for the construction of on-farm storage and minimal processing facilities. Controlling the product from seed to sale allows farmers to target specialty markets and retain more of the final sale price, increasing economic activity in rural areas.
Farmers and Ranchers can use FSA’s Guaranteed and Direct Loan programs either for farm ownership or for farm or ranch operating expenses, including for value-added and direct sale activities. The 2008 Farm Bill included special provisions to increase FSA credit opportunities for beginning, youth and socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers. These direct loans and guarantees are designed specifically for producers not yet able to receive financing through commercial lending sources.
FSA’s Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) helps producers take fragile land out of production and establish conservation practices on working lands. Implementing conservation practices not only preserves and beautifies farmland but changing to sustainable production practices can allow farmers to realize a better price for their products through adopting value-added production methods. The new wildlife habitat the conservation practices create also offer new income opportunities through agritourism and hunting activities.
NSAC submitted comments this week to FSA on the new CRP-TIP program to help beginning and minority farmers and ranchers secure land coming out of the CRP program to engage in sustainable grazing or sustainable cropping operations.
You can get more information about all of these programs at your local FSA office.
According to FSA, their direct and guaranteed lending volume was up nearly 30 percent in the first nine months of Fiscal Year 2010 and the agency has requested additional funding from Congress that may come soon. In the meantime, county offices will continue to process all applications in expectation of supplemental funding or 2011 appropriations.
Farmers Agree, Mr. Vilsack: Farm Bill Should Emphasize Beginning Farmers
Thursday, July 8th, 2010
By Anna Jones-Crabtree from Vilicus Farm
On July 1st, NSAC posted a blog to applaud Secretary Vilsack’s plea to Congress to support beginning farmers and to encourage USDA to walk the talk.
Farmers agree. Here is how Anna Jones-Crabtree from Vilicus Farm in Montana responded to our blog:
We would not be farming if it were not for some of the Farm Service Agency’s (FSA) beginning farmer programs. However, all of the points made below are right on….. USDA and the farm bill continues to talk the talk about beginning farmers but we aren’t seeing the walk.
Access to land, financing/credit, and time are the three biggee’s for beginning farmers. There are minimally supportive programs for financing and access to land. The time issue isn’t even dealt with since most of us are working two jobs to support the dream of farming.
It’s clear to us; we need systematic reform.
We need to rework the risk structure system so we can get crop insurance on ’specialty crops’ like flax and spelt in our first year of production since we choose to not follow the recipe of a simple wheat/fallow/spray rotation. Society needs to provide farmers with health insurance so we don’t have to work second jobs. We need a formal farmer mentorship program to ask questions like how deep do you set your blade plow? Or, at what stage does mowing your cover crops work?
We need a much more robust, creative and integrated research program at our universities. We need research that targets real life systems approaches to sustainable agriculture. We need researchers to inform and cooperate with the Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) on their conservation programs. We need to value and compensate our farmers just as we do our doctors. We don’t ask our physicians to jerry-rig and duct tape the heart lung support machine– we ask them to be doctors. We need to ask our farmers to be farmers.
In my vision of the future, I see well-informed farmers captivated by the wonders of soil microbial action. I see farmers working with their communities to create biodiesel from their oilseed crops that they grew as part of their complex rotational — improving the sustainability of not only their operation but also their community’s. I see farmers growing vegetables for their local community. I see farmers, such as myself, growing grains and legumes, that change vast tracts of land into functioning robust ecosystems, that are not just based on ‘nature’ but also weave humans into natural systems. I see rigorous academic opportunities to study farming systems that produce farmers held in as high esteem as engineers.
My husband Doug and I are committed to this longer term vision. It has taken us 15+ years in other careers, saving money, and building good credit to even be able to entertain a return to farming. Even with all of our ducks in a row, it was not, by a long shot, an easy path.
We have to make the entry to farming easier. We have a whole generation who would relish the opportunity to farm but don’t know where to start. Their hands have spent more time text-messaging than shaking off hydraulic oil from an implement that just didn’t want to plug or from playing with the tractor. They need exposure to climate change science, business planning, skills to navigate USDA programs, agronomy, wildlife, moisture management along with the basics of growing carrots, or safflower, or buckwheat, or eggplant or, or, or…..
I was one of 100+ folks that applied for about 10 positions on that Beginning Farmer and Rancher Advisory Committee. The Committee was supposed to be in place by the end of last calendar year. I spent a lot of time on that application and had some wonderful letters of recommendation. Try as I might to call, ask, probe, USDA is moving slower then molasses in December on our farm in north central Montana.
I would welcome a spirited conversation about what we can do in Montana and elsewhere to grow our next generation of farmers in a way that creates the systemic change I think we all hope for. We need a dialog with all the parties in the food system – the farmers, the buyers, the consumers and the retailers- about the challenges inherent in the current system and how we change it for the better – for all of us.
We need to start somewhere. At some level, I believe we as a society have written our farmers off… it’s not something our best and brightest strive to become. It’s not a career you go into if you are smart. All that has to change if we have any hope of creating a sustainable way of living on this planet.
And heck, if the Beginning Farmer Rancher Committee ever gets appointed and I get the chance to be on it, I would welcome a way to take the grounded, real life ideas from a bunch of Montanan’s to DC.
Farm Credit, Pigford Settlement Funding in House Supplemental War Spending Bill
Friday, July 2nd, 2010
Late on Thursday, July 1st, the House adopted by key amendments to the 2010 supplemental war spending bill (HR 4899). The House amended a Senate-passed version of the bill from May. Click here to view NSAC’s initial blog on this bill.
The Senate bill included $950 million worth of Farm Service Agency direct and guaranteed farm operating loans and guaranteed farm ownership loans, which the House did not alter. Thus, if the Senate can approve the House amendments when it returns from the July 4 recess week, then the badly needed emergency farm loan money will finally become a reality.
The House amendments do, however, alter the offset for the farm loan funding. Rather than reducing runaway spending on the Biomass Crop Assistance Program, the House amendments uses funds from earlier fiscal year appropriations bills that were provided to various program accounts at USDA but have not been used.
Both House and Senate versions of a different bill – the so-called tax extenders or second stimulus bill – contains funding for USDA ($1.15 billion) and the Interior Department ($3.4 billion) to settle discrimination cases pending against them from black farmers (Pigford case) and Native Americans (Cobell case) respectively. With future prospects for that important piece of legislation now in doubt, the House, prodded by the Congressional Black Caucus and others, added both settlement accounts to the supplemental spending bill yesterday, hopefully bringing those one step closer to reality. To offset the cost of those items among others, the House acted to close gift tax and cellulosic fuel tax credit loopholes. As with the farm credit situation, the outcome on Pigford funding now requires positive Senate action after the week-long recess.
The Senate version of the supplemental includes $45.5 billion in discretionary funding for FY 2010 ($37.1 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan plus additional amounts for US disaster aid, Haiti, the Gulf Coast oil spill, farm loans, and other domestic needs) plus $13 billion in mandatory funding for Vietnam veterans exposed to Agent Orange.
The House has now voted to add, in addition to the discrimination settlement funds, $10 billion to help save teaching jobs around the country, $4.95 billion for Pell Grants, $701 million for border security, $142 million in additional Gulf Coast oil spill funding, and $50 million in emergency food assistance, among other items. The House amendment offsets the additional funding via $11.7 billion in rescissions from discretionary programs and $4.7 billion in savings from changes to mandatory programs.
Among the discretionary offsets are roughly $300 million from broadband funding to USDA under the recovery/stimulus act, $487 million in reserve fund money for the WIC program, and another $220 million from other USDA accounts. Full details on those recessions are not yet publicly available.
One of the offsets – an $800 million recission from President Obama’s “Race to the Top” educational initiative – drew a rebuke and veto threat from the White House. The White House also weighed in against an amendment that ultimately was defeated that called for the White House to produce a plan and a timeline for the safe, orderly and expeditious redeployment of troops from Afghanistan.
NSAC will continue to urge Congress to find the most expeditious way possible to enact the farm credit and Pigford funding, with attention now turning back once again to the Senate once they return from the one-week July 4 recess.
Rural Coop Development Grants Available
Friday, June 25th, 2010
On Friday, June 25, USDA announced the availability of almost $8 million in competitive grant funds through the Rural Cooperative Development Grant Program (RCDG). The RCDG program is designed to improve the economic conditions in rural areas by funding the establishment or operation of Coop Development Centers that can help start up, expand or improve rural coops and mutually-owned businesses.
This year USDA is specifically interested in projects that help create wealth in rural communities through strategies that stimulate economies and create jobs through:
- Local and regional food systems
- Renewable energy generation, energy conservation, and climate change adaptation/mitigation
- Broadband and other critical infrastructure
- Access to capital, or
- Innovative uses of natural resources
USDA expects to award about 35, one-year grants with an average grant size of $225,000. Paper applications must be postmarked by August 9, 2010 and electronic applications must be received by August 9, 2010. Visit the Rural Development website for more information or contact your local Rural Development office.
Comments Invited on the Value-Added Producer Grant Program
Friday, June 18th, 2010
Family farm advocates have an important opportunity to help shape the Value-Added Producer Grant Program (VAPG). USDA has requested comments on the administrative rules that will govern the implementation of this important program. VAPG offers competitive grants to farmers and ranchers developing new farm and food-related business enterprises that boost farm income, create jobs, and increase rural economic opportunity. VAPG offers both working capital and planning grants that strengthen the profitability and competitiveness of small and medium-sized farmers and ranchers.
The 2008 Farm Bill established ranking priorities for VAPG projects that benefit beginning, socially disadvantaged and small and moderate-sized family farmers and ranchers. Special reserve funds have been established for beginning farmers and projects involving mid-tier value chains.
While the rules are positive overall, NSAC has identified three areas in particular that require your input to ensure that VAPG fulfills its promise. Go to our action alert for talking points and instructions on how to submit a comment.
2009 Value-Added Awards Announced
Thursday, June 3rd, 2010
As part of today’s activities associated with the National Rural Summit hosted by USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack in Hillsboro, Missouri, USDA announced the long-awaited awards for the 2009 round of Value-Added Producer Grants. Read the full press release here.
Some $22.5 million in grants were available. Grants were made in 45 states, with Wisconsin, California, Oregon, and Iowa, in that order, leading the way in terms of highest grant volume. Only Arizona, Delaware, Hawaii, Nevada, and West Virginia came away empty this particular grant cycle, a remarkable achievement given the $22.5 million total.
As the first full cycle since passage of the 2008 Farm Bill, this was the first set of VAPG awards from which to assess how well the agency has responded to the farm bill’s inclusion of local food system development as a program purpose, priority status for projects aiding small and medium-sized farms, and funding set-asides for mid-tier value chain and regional food development project and for projects aiding beginning farmers or minority farmers. Not enough information has been released by USDA yet to make a careful assessment, but some initial clues are available.
The USDA press release highlights two projects awarded as part of the new special funding category for mid-tier value chains. One involved 21 wheat growers in the Northwest who received a $300,000 working capital grant to expand the marketing of their “Shepherd’s Grain” brand. Karl Kupers, a leader of that effort, is one of the featured speakers at the NSAC-hosted USDA and Congressional Briefings next week on agriculture of the middle.
The other regional food supply network grant highlighted by USDA was Wisconsin-based Producers & Buyers Co-op. The cooperative received a $55,000 grant to help link local, sustainable farms with institutional buyers in a 12-county area of West Central Wisconsin. Members of the value chain include the producers plus institutional buyers, food processors, and those from the private transportation system.
A full list of recipients is available at the bottom of the USDA press release. Once we secure additional information on the grant awards from the Rural Business and Cooperative Service, we may post again with additional analysis of the 2009 awards. We also encourage readers to send us information and stories on grant recipients.
VAPG has long been an NSAC priority program. We fought for the program at its inception in 2000 and have worked to increase its funding and expand its mission to include organic food and farming, grass-fed and other sustainable livestock and dairy projects, local and regional food systems, a stronger focus on small and mid-sized agriculture, and increased attention to underserved areas and populations.
Public comments on the recently released VAPG rule are due on June 28. Next week NSAC will issue an action alert calling attention to several major problems with the proposed rule and encouraging readers to contact USDA with these concerns.
The House and Senate Agricultural Appropriations Subcommittees will also be taking up funding for VAPG for 2011 when they mark up the annual agricultural appropriations in June and July. NSAC is urging a $30 million funding level. To help in that effort, respond to this action alert. You can stay on top of agricultural funding issues by signing up for NSAC action alerts.