NSAC Policy Associate Helen Dombalis and Farmer Jack Hedin

Earlier this week, the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) organized two Congressional briefings on the economic potential of local food systems and the programs and policies that are needed in the farm bill to realize this potential and to support this critically important agricultural sector.  The briefings were hosted by Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and Congresswoman Chellie Pingree (D-ME-1), the lead sponsors of the Local Farms, Food, and Jobs Act (S. 1773, H.R. 3286).

For the past year, UCS has been working to shine a spotlight on the economic benefits of local and regional food systems.  Just as importantly, UCS focuses on how smart policies that support the expansion of local food systems can provide much-needed investments in rural communities, create jobs and support family farms, and help increase U.S. production of healthful food.

For example, the recent report Ensuring the Harvest found that if fruit and vegetable consumption increased to meet the USDA’s “MyPlate” dietary guidelines, local food sales could increase to as much as $14.5 billion a year and generate as many as 189,000 new jobs.

Over the course of two briefings, one each for the House and Senate, the panel of speakers delivered hard facts and figures on local food systems, real life experiences and knowledge, and the ins and outs of the Local Farms, Food, and Jobs Act (LFFJA).  The briefing was moderated by UCS’s Ricardo Salvador, Senior Scientist and Food & Environment Program Director.  The panel featured the following speakers:

Jeff O’Hara, Ph.D., Agricultural Economist, Union of Concerned Scientists
Dr. O’Hara is UCS’s leading researcher on the economics of local and regional food systems and is the author of two recent reports on local foods, Ensuring the Harvest and Market Forces.  Jeff’s presentation focused on the economic success of local and regional food systems in recent years as well as the potential for additional growth and job creation that could be aided by smart policies like those included in LFFJA.

Jack Hedin, Featherstone Farm, Rushford, Minnesota
Mr. Hedin is the owner of Featherstone Farm, a 250 acre diversified and certified organic farm located in southeast Minnesota.  The farm produces 50 varieties of fresh market fruits and vegetables for distribution to food stores, wholesalers, and Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) members throughout the region.  Jack is also an ally of NSAC and was recently in DC for a series of meetings with NSAC and House and Senate staffers.  During the briefing, Jack spoke directly to his on-farm experiences in Minnesota, the financial challenges posed to diversified and organic farmers like himself, and the need for improved credit and risk management tools to be included in the farm bill.  Specifically, Jack spoke about the need for a whole farm risk management insurance product, a provision in the farm bill recently reported out of the Senate Agriculture Committee.

Bernadine Prince, Co-Executive Director, FRESHFARM Markets; President – Board of Directors, Farmers Market Coalition
Ms. Prince is the co-founder and co-executive director of FRESHFARM Markets, which operates 11 producer-only farmers markets in the Washington metropolitan area with more than 110 farmers and producers from five states who farm more than 9,000 acres.  Bernadine is also the Board President for the Farmers Market Coalition, an NSAC member group which seeks to strengthen farmers markets’ capacity to serve farmers, consumers, and communities nationwide.  Bernadine’s briefing presentation focused on the incredible growth of farmers markets and the critical role that programs like the Farmers Market Promotion Program have played in the success and growth of local markets.

Helen Dombalis, Policy Associate, National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition
NSAC Policy Associate and lead advocate for local and regional farm and food policy, Helen delivered an overview of the key provisions, programs, and funding included in LFFJA as well a comparison to the draft farm bill that recently passed the Senate Agriculture Committee.  Click here for specific information on how local food policies and programs fared in the Senate bill.

Nearly 50 staff, members of the media, and outside stakeholders attended the two briefings.  In addition to the presentations, each briefing also featured a lively Q&A session with panelists.

For more information on UCS’s work on local food issues, recent reports, and priorities and the farm bill, please visit their website.

            Rep. Pingree and Russell Libby

Chairwoman Jean Schmidt (R-OH) opened the hearing by stating, “In order for us to reauthorize and craft responsible farm programs, it is our duty and responsibility to ensure that every dollar spent is a wise dollar spent.   Investing wisely in specialty crops and ensuring that nutrition programs are being administered effectively is critical at this time.”

Schmidt highlighted the Specialty Crop Research Initiative (SCRI) because it has no baseline funding going forward.  She cited SCRI as a “critical element” of specialty crops, and one that promotes health– “A diet with more specialty crops is more nutritious.”

Congresswoman Chellie Pingree (D-ME) echoed the interrelated nature of nutrition and specialty crops as both “important links in ensuring that all families have the option of putting fresh and good food on their tables.”  According to Pingree, thinking about how to link nutrition programs to farmers involves expanding local markets.

“When farmers sell to local markets, they get to keep a bigger share of the dollar.  It’s a win for farmers and it’s a win for our families,” said Pingree.

The first panel included five witnesses involved in production and packing of specialty crops.  As a whole, members of the panel stressed the importance of both SCRI and the Specialty Crop Block Grant Program (SCBPG) which fund food safety, education, research, and marketing efforts that advance the competitiveness of specialty crops.  Several witnesses, asked for changes or more funding for the program.  Jerry Lee, the Environmental Services Manager of Monrovia Growers, suggested the Committee “support your Senate counterparts’ efforts to expand funding for this program and allow the opportunity for multi-state proposals.”

Russell Libby, the Executive Director of Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association, was the only one of the first panelists to discuss organic specialty crops.  Libby also referenced the Senate farm bill, asking the House to consider funding the National Organic Certification Cost Share at the level included in the Senate bill.  He warned that without the program “farmers here at home will opt not to certify, and organic companies will have to source from overseas instead of from American farmers to meet strong consumer demand.”

Libby also asked to expand organic production through a more efficient National Organic Program, through streamlined inclusion in programs such as the Environmental Quality Incentives Program and the Conservation Stewardship Program, and through the development of a workable organic crop insurance program.

During the question and answer portion of the hearing, Rep. Pingree inquired about  potential barriers to farmers, especially those concerning beginning and organic farmers and farmers selling into local markets.  Generally panelists agreed that farmers needed access to capital to aggregate product and scale up supply networks.

During his round of questioning, Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA) pointed out that cutting nutrition assistance programs also meant cutting benefits for farmers.  Phil Blalock, the Executive Director of the National Association of Farmers Market Nutrition Programs, made a similar point in the second panel.  He discussed the role the Farmers Market Nutrition Program and the Senior Farmers Market Nutrition Program play in supporting agriculture, explaining that these programs “increase income to small family farmers by increasing use and awareness of farmers markets.”

The Senate Agriculture Committee voted the Agriculture Reform, Food and Jobs Act — the proposed name for the 2012 Farm Bill — out of Committee on Thursday, April 26.  The markup and negotiations that immediately preceded the markup resulted in some improvements in the bill for local food systems and rural development, though there is still work to be done to ensure the final bill fully captures the economic opportunities to be gained in these areas of our nation’s agriculture and food policy.

What follows is a breakdown of provisions offered last week that were (and were not) included in the Farm Bill that emerged out of the Senate Committee markup.  A previous blog post on local food and rural development summarizes the provisions as presented in the original draft bill that was released on Friday, April 20.  We will not repeat that information here, but refer interested readers back to the earlier post.  This post focuses on changes adopted immediately before or in the Committee markup.

Nutrition Title

Two amendments were filed that could have bolstered opportunities for schools and other institutions to procure food from local farmers and ranchers.  The first was filed by Sen. Brown (D-OH), the Senate lead sponsor of the Local Farms, Food, and Jobs Act (S. 1773).  The second was filed by Sens. Casey (D-PA) and Leahy (D-VT).  Ultimately, neither of these amendments were offered during markup.  NSAC will continue to pursue Farm to School provisions during the Senate floor process and on the House side.

Thanks to an amendment offered by Sen. Leahy and passed out of committee, the bill now includes a provision that would make it easier for SNAP recipients to participate in Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) programs.  NSAC supports this provision and will advocate for it to remain in the final Farm Bill.

Chairwoman Stabenow (D-MI) championed a new program, with a total of $100 million in  mandatory funding over five years, to encourage purchases of fruits and vegetables by SNAP consumers at retail outlets, including farmers markets.  The grants are modeled after the successful work of Fair Food Network’s Double Up Food Bucks program.

Also noteworthy is the addition of the Healthy Food Financing Initiative (HFFI) – it was not in the original bill presented on April 20 but was included in the revised version on April 25 and included in the bill voted out of committee.  The initiative, which aims to improve access to healthy food in low-income communities, is authorized to receive up to $125 million (no time period is provided for) in discretionary funding through the annual appropriations process.

Rural Development Title

As our earlier post noted, the original bill did not include any mandatory funding for the Rural Development Title.  Unfortunately, despite the efforts of Sen. Brown and others, this sobering fact did not change during the markup process.  The Value-Added Producer Grant (VAPG) program and the Rural Microentrepreneur Assistance Program (RMAP) remain without any mandatory funding.

Brown did offer an amendment to put $25 million each into these two programs plus $100 million to fund water and wastewater projects.  He withdrew the amendment when it was not clear whether $150 million in mandatory funding was still available, given the changes made to the overall bill during markup, above the net $23 billion savings figure the Committee agreed to save over the next decade relative to current law.  Chairwoman Stabenow indicated her support for the Brown amendment, which will re-emerge in some form when the bill comes to the Senate floor.

No-cost policy changes proposed in the Local Farms, Food and Jobs Act to strengthen and improve a variety of rural development programs were not included in the Senate Committee bill.  The same holds true for the research and extension title.

Overall, the bill that was reported out of Committee last Thursday supports key pieces of the suite of unique programs that serve the organic sector.  Most of the organic provisions included in the draft bill presented by Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow (D-MI and Ranking Member Pat Roberts (R-KS) we reported on early last week remained unchanged in the package that the Committee approved.  Several organic amendments were filed before the markup, and two of them were included in the bill passed out of Committee.

Overview of Organic Provisions

The bill reported out of Committee maintains the mandatory funding levels included in the Chairwoman’s mark for organic programs.  Funding for national organic certification cost-share remained at $11.5 million per year, for the Organic Agriculture Research and Extension Initiative (OREI) at $16 million per year, and for the Organic Production and Market Data Initiatives (ODI) at $5 million over the life of the bill.  The bill also provided $5 million in mandatory funding for technology upgrades at the National Organic Program (NOP).

The modifications to OREI priorities and to ODI that we reported on last week remained in the bill, and the no-cost policy changes to the Environmental Quality Incentives Program organic provision that NSAC supported sadly were not made.

Organic Crop Insurance

The mark did not include changes to make crop insurance more appropriate for organic farmers, and Sen. Casey (D-PA) filed an amendment to make these changes.  Sen. Casey’s amendment would have eliminated for all crops the unjustified premium surcharge that organic farmers pay for coverage of all but a dozen organic crops, and would have directed the Risk Management Agency to develop and publish a complete organic price series.

Although the amendment was filed, and these changes were included in the Senate’s version of the 2008 Farm Bill, the Committee did not vote on the amendment and it was not included in the approved bill.

National Organic Program Enforcement

Sen. Leahy (D-VT) championed an amendment to improve NOP’s enforcement authority that was included in the revised bill provided to the Committee by the Chair and Ranking Member on April 25 and remained in the bill reported out of Committee.  With an increased focus on enforcement of organic standards at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, NOP has identified areas of needed authority to improve organic enforcement.  Sen. Leahy’s amendment grants NOP stronger enforcement authority.

Specifically, Sen. Leahy’s amendment requires organic producers, handlers, and certifying agents to submit records – that will be kept confidential – associated with organic certification at the Secretary’s request, and requires those records to be kept for 5 years for most people participating in organic, and 10 years for certifiers.  The amendment allows the Secretary to carry out an investigation to verify the accuracy of the information provided, and provides USDA with authority to subpoena the records.  Through the amendment, the Secretary can also issue an order to stop the sale of a product misrepresented as organic, and suspend and revoke organic certification.  The amendment also outlines an appeals process, and provides a penalty for a person that violates an order or revocation.

Organic Research and Promotion Program

Sen. Casey also championed an organic check-off amendment.  The amendment would have provided USDA with the authority to issue an organic commodity promotion order; would have allowed organic producers that currently participate in conventional check-off programs the ability to choose whether to participate in the conventional commodity check-off or an organic check-off if one is created; and would have clarified that an organic-only producer can choose to be exempt from a conventional check-off.  The Organic Trade Association is the lead stakeholder advocating for these changes.

A much modified version of the amendment was included in the revised draft bill issued April 25 and in the bill reported out of Committee.  The bill requires USDA to submit a report to Congress that describes what the Secretary is doing to ensure that check-off activities reflect the priorities of all members in a check-off, and assesses the feasibility of creating an organic check-off.

Conservation Reserve Program

The Senate Agriculture Committee’s version of the farm bill cuts the Conservation Title by $6.37 billion over ten years.  Roughly 60 percent of the cut to conservation ($3.8 billion) comes from the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP).  The program’s total acreage cap is ratcheted down over five years from its current level of 32 million acres to 25 million acres.  To a significant degree, this reduction tracks changes in CRP enrollment expected as a result of market forces, though with the declining cap the opportunity for new general sign-ups would be relatively small.

Beyond reducing the acreage cap, the Senate bill makes a number of substantive changes to the program.

We are happy to report that funding for the CRP-Transition Incentives Program (CRP-TIP) for beginning farmers was doubled from $25 million in the underlying draft bill to $50 million over five years.  The increase came by way of an amendment by Sen. Mike Johanns (R-NE) that was accepted as part of the revised bill issued by Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) and Ranking Member Pat Roberts (R-KS) on April 25.  The program ran out of funds this year due to high demand and would have likely done so again in less than two years had funding been kept level at $25 million.  The push by Sen. Johanns brought it closer to what is needed over the five-year farm bill.

CRP-TIP offers a special incentive of two years of extra CRP rental payments to owners of land that is currently in the CRP but returning to production, who rent or sell to beginning or socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers who will use sustainable grazing practices, resource-conserving cropping systems, or transition to organic production.  Unfortunately, the new Committee bill does not include measures to further strengthen the program that had been proposed in the Beginning Farmer and Rancher Opportunity Act (BFROA).

The Committee-approved bill adds grassland to the list of lands eligible for CRP enrollment, so long as the land is located in an area historically dominated by grass, is made up predominantly of plants suitable for grazing, and can provide habitat for ecologically significant animal and plant populations.  It reserves 1.5 million acres within the program for enrollment of such grasslands, and gives a priority for enrolling land with expiring CRP contracts.  NSAC advocated for a provision to encourage expired CRP acres to remain in grass-based agriculture under a long term or permanent grassland easement.  While the change in the bill does not accomplish this, it is a decent second best alternative to conserve environmentally sensitive CRP grasslands.

The Senate Committee bill also waives the 25 percent rental rate reduction for grazing livestock on CRP acres when the livestock are owned by beginning producers.  This provision was originally filed as an amendment by Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Mike Johanns (R-NE), and Max Baucus (D-MT) and was subsequently included in the revised draft bill issued by the Chair and Ranking Member on April 25.  NSAC does not have a position on this provision, though we do worry some about possible abuse.

Environmental Quality Incentives Program and Wildlife Habitat Incentives Program

The bill combines the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) and the Wildlife Habitat Incentives Program (WHIP) into a single program and cuts total funding by $1.605 billion, or approximately 8.7 percent.  This cut is significantly smaller than the 10 percent cut included in the draft farm bill from last year.

As has always been the case for EQIP, 60 percent of the consolidated program’s funding goes to livestock operations, including but not limited to infrastructure expenditures for concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs).  The new merged program also includes a 5 percent set aside for wildlife in lieu of WHIP.

The statutory language that led to creation of the EQIP Organic Initiative did not change.  Attempts to improve program operation and coordination were turned back, as were efforts to equalize the payment limits applied to organic and non-organic producers.  Organic farmers are limited to $80,000 in EQIP payments over a five-year period, whereas all other farmers are entitled to up to $300,000 in the same time period.

Both the Beginning Farmer and Rancher and Socially Disadvantaged Farmer and Rancher set asides within EQIP and CSP are retained at five percent.  Efforts to increase the percentage to 10 percent were turned away, despite evidence that the set-asides have succeeding in helping to level the playing field for underserved segments of agriculture.

Within the 5 percent set-asides for socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers, the Senate bill creates a new preference for farmers and ranchers who are veterans.  It also adds veteran farmers to the list of eligible applicants (along with beginning and socially disadvantaged farmers) who can receive an increased cost-share rate.  NSAC worked for the inclusion of the veteran farmer provisions and we applaud Senators Max Baucus (D-MT) and Mike Johanns (R-NE) for successfully spearheading the effort.

The advanced EQIP cost share for Beginning, Socially Disadvantaged, and Limited Resource Farmers and Ranchers is also retained at 30 percent, as opposed to 50 percent proposed by the Beginning Farmer and Rancher Opportunity Act.  Having the cash on hand to make the full expenditure in advance of receipt of the cost share is a significant barrier to participation by farmers with limited ability to pay.

The Senate bill makes two significant changes to the EQIP Conservation Innovation Grants (CIG) program.  First, the bill eliminates a special carve out for projects that address air quality concerns on agricultural operations.  Second, it establishes a new requirement that directs USDA to report to Congress on CIG project funding and results, and on efforts to integrate project findings into USDA’s conservation efforts.  This was an NSAC proposal, and we applaud Chairwoman Stabenow and Ranking Member Roberts for including it in the Senate bill.

Regional Conservation Partnership Initiative

Like the draft farm bill prepared for the super committee last year, the Senate bill combines the Cooperative Conservation Partnership Initiative (CCPI), Agricultural Water Enhancement Program (AWEP), Chesapeake Bay Watershed Initiative (CBWI), and Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (GLRI) to create a single regional partnership program.  The CCPI and its predecessor Partnerships and Cooperation Initiative were originally moved forward into the farm bill arena by NSAC.

While the CBWI and AWEP had a combined baseline of $1.1 billion through 2012, the new regional partnership program has a $1 billion baseline, equating to a $100 million or slightly less than 10 percent cut.  Like the current CCPI, 6 percent of EQIP and CSP funds are reserved for the regional partnership program.  However, unlike the current CCPI statute, which splits funding authority between the states (90 percent) and national (10 percent), the new bill splits the authority between national (50 percent), states (25 percent), and “critical areas” (25 percent).

Whereas the super committee draft specifically identified these critical areas, the new Senate Committee bill directs the Secretary to identify not more than eight such areas.  According to the legislative language, a critical area will: (1) include multiple states with significant agricultural production; (2) be covered by an existing regional, state, binational, or multistate agreement; (3) have water quality concerns; (4) have water quantity concerns; and, (5) be subject to regulatory requirements that could reduce the economic scope of agricultural operations within the area.

Unlike current law and the earlier draft of the farm bill, the Senate version of the bill explicitly lists nutrient management as an eligible activity under the program.  The language was filed as part of an amendment to be offered by Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and was subsequently included in the April 25 revised draft bill.  This is an important, albeit relatively small, step toward more comprehensive nutrient management policy in the farm bill.  The regional partnership program also has an easement option through the Agricultural Conservation Easement Program, which is described below.

The new bill makes a significant step forward by strengthening the 2008 Farm Bill provision to allow for program rule flexibility with respect to local partnership programs.  The new provision, including by the Chair and Ranking Member, clarifies that only basic rules regarding appeals, payment limits, and conservation compliance are not able to be waived.  Other program rules can be modified if NRCS determines such changes would help fulfill the purposes of the partnership project.

Less clear is the status of funding for technical assistance under the program.  While it is clear NRCS may provide technical assistance to farmers under special partnership projects, in the case where the partners provide the assistance, it is not entirely clear whether any portion of the funding for such assistant may come from NRCS.  This issue if perhaps the key remaining issue for state and local farm and conservation organizations hoping to participate in this innovative program delivery mechanism.

Combined Easement Program

On the easement side of the Title, three programs – the Wetlands Reserve Program (WRP), Grasslands Reserve Program (GRP), and Farm and Ranch Lands Protection Program (FRPP) – are combined into a single easement program with two branches.  The first branch combines FRPP and GRP into an ‘agricultural lands easement program.’  The second branch consists of a wetlands easement program very similar to the WRP.

Nationally, no less than 40 percent of the program funding can go to the agricultural lands easement program.  While this does leave some room for USDA to increase that proportion, the split between wetland easements and agricultural land easements is expected to be 60/40, respectively, when the program is implemented.  Each state conservationist, though, can request an adjustment to better reflect the needs of their state.

The funding for the new combined easement program will now all be denominated in dollars rather than acres per year.  The program is provided with $3.2 billion over the next ten years and unlike the current WRP and GRP, the new funding is permanent funding rather than temporary.  This is a significant improvement, though the flip side is that the overall funding levels for all three underlying programs will be signficantly less than what it has been per year in the last farm bill cycle.

Within the agricultural land easement program, we are very happy to report that the purpose of the program now includes the promotion of agricultural viability for future generations.  This change was part of the Beginning Farmer and Rancher Opportunity Act and was pressed forward last week on an amendment by Sen. Pat Leahy (D-VT) that was accepted and included in the revised draft bill presented by the Chair and Ranking Member on April 25.

This is a big step forward toward ensuring that beginning farmers and ranchers are able to participate in the program and that the program itself aims to keep working farms in business over the long term.  We will continue to explore opportunities to include additional provisions to advance this important concept that were part of the Beginning Farmer and Rancher Opportunity Act as the farm bill process moves forward.

Other Changes to the Conservation Title

The bill does, however, decrease funding for the Voluntary Public Access (VPA) program by 20 percent to $40 million over five years.  While funding for VPA was reduced relative to the last farm bill, it was actually increased relative to the draft  bill released on April 20.

The Senate bill includes a new provision that requires USDA to promulgate a single initial application for participation in all USDA conservation programs.  This change was first proposed in an amendment filed by Senator Dick Lugar (R-IN) and is intended to help alleviate paperwork and redundancy for farmers and USDA.

Finally, the Senate bill creates a program to provide grants to states to purchase “terminal lakes” that are located on agricultural land and that are ineligible for enrollment in the Wetlands Reserve Program.  The new language includes eligibility restrictions relating to flooding depth, access for agricultural use, and cropping and grazing history.  The program includes a 50 percent state cost share.  The language authorizes Congress to appropriate $25 million to remain available until expended for land purchase grants.  It also provides $150 million in mandatory funding for the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Reclamation to transfer water into some terminal lakes under certain conditions.

Step Forward, Two Steps Backward for Conservation Stewardship Program

First the good news: the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) remains part of the revised conservation title for the 2012 Farm Bill approved by the Senate Agriculture Committee on April 26.  The program emerges from Senate Committee markup continuing as an ongoing, permanent program with substantial funding on a par with the other large working lands program, the Environmental Quality Incentives Program.

The CSP provides comprehensive conservation assistance to farmers and ranchers to resolve particular priority resource concerns in a given location and address the full range of conservation issues, including soil quality, soil erosion, water quality and quantity, wildlife and biodiversity, air quality, and energy conservation.  It offers farmers the opportunity to augment the foundation of their good current conservation efforts by earning payments for actively managing and maintaining them, expanding and improving them, and adding new conservation activities—even while they work their lands for production.  CSP is for working farms and ranches, built on the belief that we must enhance natural resource and environmental protection at the same time we produce profitable food, fiber and energy.

Unlike EQIP, which provides “once and done” cost share assistance for implementing new conservation activities, primarily for structures and equipment, CSP provides support for ongoing advanced conservation management of farming operations on a long-term, continual improvement basis.

NSAC has a very extensive platform for improvements in the conservation title of the 2012 Farm Bill, but none more important than retaining and improving CSP.

In light of that priority status, we are unhappy to report that the good news from last week comes with two major setbacks, one expected, one less so.

Funding

As has been clear since a draft farm bill was put together by the chairs and ranking members of the House and Senate Agriculture Committee last year for the ill-fated congressional super committee, the conservation title has been slated to be cut by 10 percent, or about $6.4 billion over the next decade, in the 2012 Farm Bill.  As part of that overall slashing of the conservation budget, the Conservation Stewardship Program has also been on deck for a 10 percent or $2 billion cut, wiping out the $1 billion increase it received in the 2008 Farm Bill with another $1 billion cut added on top of that.

Rather than enrolling 12.769 million acres a year, as was the case under the 2008 Farm Bill, if the new conservation title becomes law, the annual amount will decrease to 10.34 million acres a year.  The national average payment rate per acre, including both financial and technical assistance and administrative costs will remain at $18 an acre.  (That is an average rate; the rate for individual farms can vary widely, depending on land use and conservation benefits).

The NSAC farm bill platform called for a decrease in the number of acres enrolled each year but an increase in the average per acre payment rate, with no change in net funding for the program.  That recommendation was based on a program analysis that suggested farmers would tend to choose conservation activities with higher conservation and environmental impact if payments were not such a small percentage of their costs as is currently the case.

Policy

While the large 10 percent cut had long been anticipated, the second big step backward for the CSP was more unexpected.  When the draft farm bill presented to the Senate Agriculture Committee by Chair Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) and Ranking Member Pat Roberts (R-KS) on April 20, it became clear there were serious policy setbacks for the program as well.

In the place of a comprehensive conservation program that both targeted conservation priorities by watershed and encouraged farmers to meet or exceed environmental thresholds for these priorities while also taking steps to improve other resource concerns such as soil quality and energy conservation, the proposal laid before the Committee scaled back the program to one that would focus only on a small handful of priority concerns and limit supported conservation activities to a narrow subset.  Thankfully, this was corrected in the revised bill presented to the Committee on April 25 based on amendments pursued by Sen. Harkin (D-IA) and accepted by Chairwoman Stabenow and Ranking Member Roberts.  This is an incredibly important revision and is now part of the bill reported out of Committee.

Another critical improvement made in the bill last week is on the issue of contract renewals.  Under the draft bill presented on April 20, CSP contract renewals were based in part on the farmer agreeing to address two additional priority resource concerns.  This would not be possible for farmers who already are addressing all priority resource concerns at levels exceeding the good stewardship threshold levels.  Additional language pursued by Sen. Harkin and accepted by the Chair and Ranking Member clarifies that the test is whether a farmer has met or exceeded or will meet or exceed those levels.

On other issues, though, there are still major setbacks in the bill as reported:

• Rather than ranking CSP applications solely by their projected environmental benefits based on the totality of the conservation activity on the farm, the new Senate farm bill proposal maintains a more complicated ranking system that has had the effect of NRCS providing greater points to those who enter the program with less conservation on the ground and fewer points to those with the highest level of conservation, keeping the best stewards out of the program.

• Rather than clarifying how the 2008 Farm Bill encouraged farmers to undertake comprehensive conservation planning, the new bill moved in the opposite direction, narrowing the scope of conservation planning.

• Rather than clarifying the law to provide for CSP payments for farmers with the strongest commitment to highly diversified resource-conserving crop rotations, the new proposal continues to single out those who will adopt diversification strategies in the future.

• Rather than add language to allow landowners to make a smooth transition from a Conservation Reserve Program contract to a CSP contract, the new bill would keep the current one year lag, but then give former CRP contract holders additional ranking points, providing them with an unfair advantage over all other producers.

• Rather than making the program work more fairly for New England, Appalachia and other areas with a predominance of small acreage farms, the new bill continues to base payments on size of farm, with no allowance for a minimum contract rate.

• Rather than clarifying the 2008 Farm Bill provision encouraging farmers to voluntarily undertake on-farm conservation research, the new proposal eliminated it as an option altogether.

• Rather than improve the Conservation Measurement Tool – the engine that drives CSP enrollment – and increase its transparency, the new bill eliminates all references to environmental benefit measurement tools, leaving the future direction of the program and its basic operating system a bit of an in-limbo mystery.

• Rather than adding organic farmers to a USDA coordination provision, the new bill continues to direct special interagency coordination with respect to transitioning farmers only.

• Rather than increasing the successful beginning farmer set-aside from five percent to ten percent (which would still be less than half the beginning farmer fair share, the bill maintains the status quo.

Other changes to CSP include a switch from each watershed selecting between three and five priority resource concerns to each watershed choosing at least five.  It is unclear from the bill language whether this is intended to apply to the eight major resource concerns or to a much longer list of more specific resource concerns.  We believe this provision must be clarified as the farm bill proceeds.

The new bill eliminates the existing 10 percent set-aside for forested land.  The bill also eliminates the current prohibition against enrolling the same land in CSP and what is today the Grassland Reserve Program and will become the Agricultural Land Easement program in the new bill.

NSAC will continue to work for CSP improvements as the farm bill process moves forward.

We are thrilled to report the bill approved by the Appropriations Committee endorsed the Administration’s proposal to fund for the first time the Sustainable Agriculture Federal-State Matching Grant Program as a new component of the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) program.  Combined, the Committee bill provides for $22.7 million for SARE, including $3.5 million for the matching grant initiative.  The latter was authorized by Congress, along with the rest of SARE, back in 1990, but to date it has never received an appropriation.  The Committee’s proposed funding level represents a long overdue 18 percent increase in funding.

We are also glad the Committee endorsed the Administration’s proposal to increase spending for the Value-Added Producer Grants program by $1 million to $15 million.  This is still $5 million less than the long-term funding level for the program and $25 million less than the 2002 Farm Bill provided for the program, but at least a modest step back in the right direction.

In the conservation part of the bill, we are delighted the Committee chose to reject the Administration’s proposal to cut a portion of farm bill mandatory funding for the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP).  We strongly oppose backdoor efforts in the appropriations bill to reduce mandatory farm bill funding for conservation and applaud the Committee for keeping CSP funding intact.

The Committee bill also steered clear of cuts to the Farmland Protection Program, the Wetlands Reserve Program, and several other conservation programs.  However, they did propose to cut $350 million out of the farm bill mandatory funding level of $1.75 billion for the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, the same amount as in FY 11 and FY 12.  Also cut was farm bill funding for the Wildlife Habitat Incentives Program, down $12 million from the farm bill level of $85 million, a smaller cut than made in the FY 12 appropriations act.

We are also pleased to report the Senate Committee did not include the legislative rider from the FY 12 appropriations act that acts to prevent USDA from doing its job to ensure fair competition in the livestock and poultry marketplace.

The Committee also:

• includes a big bump up for the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative, a quasi-competitive research, education and extension grants program, from $264 million currently to $298 million, a 13 percent increase;
• keeps direct and guaranteed farm ownership and operating loan funds constant at FY 12 levels; NSAC has requested an increase for direct farm ownership loans targeted to beginning farmers and ranchers;
• allows $3 million in remaining 2008 Farm Bill funding for the Rural Microentrepreneur Assistance Program to be spent in 2013; we had advocated for additional discretionary funding but none was granted; and
• maintains level funding or very modest increases for a variety of other programs we follow closely including ATTRA, Organic Transitions Research, IPM Regional Centers, Office of Advocacy and Outreach, Local and Regional Food Enterprise Loan Guarantees, State Mediation Grants, Conservation Operations including Technical Assistance, and others.

For more details, see the NSAC Appropriations Chart on our website, which is now up-to-date with Senate Committee action.

For general details on the bill refer to the Committee’s summary.

To read about the big conflict between House and Senate spending levels for 2013, read our earlier post.

April 26, 2012

Contact:  Ferd Hoefner, 202-547-5754

NSAC Comments on Senate Farm Bill Markup and Passage

Washington, DC – The Senate Agriculture Committee voted a new farm bill out of committee today by a vote of 16-5.  The committee bill saves $23 billion over the next ten years according to budget estimates.

The committee bill includes historic reforms to commodity subsidies.  In addition to replacing automatic direct payments with a shallow loss revenue-based payment, the bill limits payments to not more than one farm manager per farm operation.  Under current law, mega farms collect multiple payments worth millions of dollars through passive investors and landowners who are counted as farm managers.

“We applaud the Senate Agriculture Committee for including common sense rules to commodity payments and ending years of abuse by closing program loopholes,” said Ferd Hoefner, Policy Director for the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.  “Thanks to Senator Grassley’s (R-IA) tireless leadership, the Committee was able to make sure that hardworking farmers – not mega farms and absentee investors – are the key beneficiaries of farm programs.”

The Committee also enacted a nationwide “Sodsaver” provision to protect native grass and prairie lands.  The provision reduces crop insurance premium subsidies and tightens program rules in a manner that will reduce the taxpayer-funded incentive to destroy important grassland resources.

“By agreeing to a nationwide ‘Sodsaver’ provision championed by Senators Thune (R-SD), Brown (D-OH), and Johanns (R-NE), the Senate Agriculture Committee made sure that taxpayer dollars are not subsidizing the destruction of native grass and prairie lands,” said Hoefner.  “These lands are diminishing at a rapid rate and protecting them provides ranching opportunities and economic, environmental, and recreational benefits to rural communities.”

While the Committee made progress on these commodity and crop insurance issues, there are several outstanding gaps in the proposed changes to the farm safety net.

“By failing to place limitations on crop insurance subsidies and to re-attach soil erosion and wetland conservation requirements to crop insurance programs, the Committee has failed to do the full reform that is needed.  We intend to continue to press these issues as the bill moves forward,” continued Hoefner.

The Committee also made progress on critical programs that underpin economic growth.

“The leadership of Chairwoman Stabenow (D-MI) and Senators Brown (D-OH), Leahy (D-VT), Harkin (D-IA), and Casey (D-PA) ensured that programs that spur economic growth in rural communities built on gains from the 2008 Farm Bill,” noted Hoefner.  “The Committee reauthorized critical local food and organic programs, such as the Farmers’ Market and Local Food Promotion Program and National Organic Certification Cost Share.”

Despite progress, there were glaring shortfalls and omissions in the Committee’s draft.

“Sens. Harkin (D-IA), Johanns (R-NE), Casey (D-PA), and Nelson (D-NE) championed various beginning farmer provisions, but the bill lacks a cohesive strategy to assist the next generation of American farmers,” said Hoefner.  “Most noticeably, the Committee failed to provide adequate funding for the Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program, thus limiting critical resources that new farmers need to succeed.”

The Committee did not fund the rural development title, nor did it make needed improvements in farm to school programs.  It also limited the funding for programs targeted to socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers.

“We regret the Committee’s decision to limit funding for minority farmers in the new bill, and will work to see that funding restored,” said Hoefner.  “We also echo Sen. Brown’s (D-OH) concluding statements: without a strong investment in rural development programs we will miss the opportunity to truly make this bill a jobs bill,” said Hoefner.

“Overall, the bill released out of Committee is an improvement over last year’s draft bill,” said Hoefner, “but there is a still a ways to go to produce a bill that expands opportunities for family farmers to produce good food, sustain the environment, and contribute to vibrant communities.  We look forward to working with the Committee and the full Senate to ensure further progress toward that end.”

The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition is a grassroots alliance that advocates for federal policy reform supporting the long-term social, economic, and environmental sustainability of agriculture, natural resources, and rural communities.

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Today, the House Appropriations Committee set its own discretionary spending allocations, but rather than abide by the spending caps agreed to by both the House and Senate in last year’s Budget Control Act, it lowered them an additional $19 billion.

On the Senate side, the allocation allows the Senate Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee to provide discretionary funding of $20.785 billion for USDA and FDA programs.

The House allocation, as it passed today, caps House Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee discretionary spending on USDA and FDA programs at $19.4 billion, roughly $1.4 billion below the Senate level.  (The House Democrats put forth an unsuccessful amendment to peg the agricultural allocation at $21.1 billion).

To put this $1.4 billion in perspective, the entire discretionary spending appropriation in FY 2012 for the Food Safety Inspection Service was $1 billion.  The difference is also more than all discretionary spending for the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service and over half of all rural development spending in FY 2012.

As the House and Senate move forward with their respective agriculture appropriations bills, they will be moving on very different paths.

The Senate Appropriations Committee is scheduled to mark up its agriculture appropriations bill tomorrow morning.  We do not know much about the Chairman’s mark, which has yet to be released; however, funding levels for most programs are expected to be very close to if not the same as last year’s levels.

On the House side, the future of the agriculture funding bill is much less clear.  The House Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee has yet to set a date to mark up its bill.  An allocation this low complicates matters, making it extremely difficult for the members of the Subcommittee to do their work.  Moreover, President Obama has said that he will veto any spending bill that does not conform to the levels set out in the Budget Control Act.

More likely than not, the House’s unwillingness to abide by the agreement struck in 2011 will lead to a rancorous and drawn out fight over vastly different spending bills come the end of the fiscal year.  We hope that, instead, the two chambers are able to reconcile their bills in conference at the Budget Control Act level and pass something that supports and enhances rather than undermines important rural development, research, conservation, and beginning farmer programs.

Stay tuned for a detailed analysis of the FY 2013 Senate Agriculture Appropriations Bill after it is released tomorrow.

We worked last fall with Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-ME-1) and many other members of Congress to develop the Local Farms, Food, and Jobs Act.

We are both pleased and disappointed with how the local food bill compares to the Senate’s draft Farm Bill, which makes some steps in the right direction but also missed the mark on vital funding needs as well as no-cost policy tweaks with enormous prospective impact for our economy.

The Good

• The Crop Insurance Titles adds a directive to USDA to create a Whole Farm Diversified Risk Management Insurance product for diversified operations, including specialty crops and mixed grain/livestock and dairy operations.
• The Farmers Market Promotion Program (FMPP) is renamed the Farmers Market and Local Food Promotion Program, thus serving not only direct producer-to-consumer marketing channels but also “scaled up” local food sales to retailers and institutions.  The program receives $20 million in annual mandatory funding, double the current level in light of the new expanded program purpose.  The Local Farms, Food and Jobs Act calls for $30 million a year, a level we will continue to advocate for.
• Funding for Community Food Projects receives an increase of $5 million a year for the next 5 years, above its permanent funding of $5 million a year.
• Appropriate Technology Transfer for Rural Areas (ATTRA), which provides research-based information on sustainable agriculture, remains intact with $5 million in annual discretionary funding.
• Funding for national organic certification cost-share fares well.  Click here to read our analysis of organic agriculture in the bill.

The Half-Baked

• The bill levels the playing field between wireless and wired vendors by requiring all retailers to fund their own SNAP Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT, formerly food stamps) equipment, with a discretionary exemption for farmers markets.  NSAC advocates to expand this exemption beyond just farmers markets to all direct producer-to-consumer marketing outlets.  The bill also establishes a pilot program for mobile technology to accept EBT at farmers markets and other direct marketing outlets, however the pilot does not include the development of technology that can accept other nutrition assistance program benefits, which would further expand access to fresh, local foods for low-income Americans.
• The Rural Development Title’s Business and Industry Direct and Guaranteed Loans includes the Local Farms, Food, and Jobs Act provision for publishing information on and outreach for the program’s set-aside for Local and Regional Food Enterprises loans.  However, none of the proposed food enterprise program improvements were included in the draft bill.  We hope this will be rectified in markup this week and as the farm bill process continues.
• The Rural Business Enterprise Grants (RBEG) and Rural Business opportunity Grants (RBOG) are combined into a single program called Rural Business Development Grants.  NSAC advocates for authority for developing local food enterprises in these programs and in the Community Facilities (CF) program, though none of these no-cost policy changes are included.  We hope these will be added as the bill moves forward.
• Most of the needed policy changes to the Rural Microentrepreneur Assistance Program are included in the draft bill, which is good news.  However, the program receives no mandatory funding, a disappointing loss after the 2008 Farm Bill funded the program.  Hopefully funding will be added as the Senate considers the new farm bill.
• The Horticulture Title creates a study on local food production and program evaluation, which is critically important.  Unfortunately, the study receives no mandatory funding.
• The Specialty Crop Block Grant Program (SCBGP) receives a mandatory funding increase from $55 million to $70 million per year, however none of the Local Farms, Food and Jobs Act’s no-cost local food policy asks were included.  In particular, we support an allocation of program funding for locally marketed specialty crops.

The Ugly

• Organic crop insurance does not fare well at all.  Click here to read our analysis of organic agriculture in the bill.
• The bill leaves out several no-cost policy provisions to expand Farm to School, which benefit both American schoolchildren and our nation’s agricultural producers by ensuring more local foods are served in cafeterias.
• The Senior Farmers Market Nutrition Program, already receiving less funding that there is demand, does not receive an increase in its mandatory allocation.
• The Credit Title does not address the specific needs nor enhance lending opportunities for producers selling in local and regional markets.
• No funding was provided for the Rural Development Title.  NSAC advocates for a Rural Community Prosperity Fund with mandatory funding to drive economic growth in rural communities.
• Value-Added Producer Grants (VAPG) receives no mandatory funding, despite the program’s proven track record of creating jobs and stimulating the economy.  Click here to read about VAPG and beginning farmers and ranchers.
• The bill does not include a proposal called “Local and Regional Food Enterprise Facilitation,” which would authorize Extension to provide training and technical assistance in the neediest parts of the country in order to develop economically-viable local food businesses.
• The Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) is untouched in the bill, thus leaving out chances to shore up research on local food.  Click here to read more about research in the bill.