National Campaign for Sustainable Agriculture

What's in a Farm Bill?

Periodically Congress reauthorizes a variety of farm and food laws through a multi-year, omnibus farm bill. This omnibus bill is given a formal name, with the current Farm Bill called the Farm Security & Rural Investment Act of 2002.

The various provisions in a Farm Bill — commodity subsidies, food assistance, conservation, agricultural trade, credit, rural development, research and other farm, food, and rural policies are governed by a variety of separate laws, which can be, and at times are, renewed or modified as stand alone bills. Increasingly, though, Congress finds it advantageous to combine many of these laws into a single, large-scale reauthorization at the same time they renew the farm commodity programs.

This omnibus approach has the potential advantage of affording an opportunity to take a more comprehensive look at food, agriculture, and rural policy and also increases prospects for broader-based coalitions of support.

Key parts of the most recent farm bill — the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act (FSRIA) of 2002 — expire in 2007. The main reason farm bills, unlike many other laws, are dealt with on a fairly set schedule is because the primary driver of the farm bill, the commodity programs, expire in a year established by the preceding farm bill. If the commodity programs are not renewed with new legislation on a set schedule, the programs would revert to older, permanent law that, if it took effect, would result in rigid production controls and much higher commodity prices.

Farm bills were passed every four years from 1973-1985. Since then they have been written as 5, 6, or 7 year bills.

Sustainable Agriculture Coalition — January 2006

The Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002 is divided into ten titles
Title I: Commodity Programs
Title II: Conservation
Title III: Trade
Title IV: Nutrition Programs
Title V: Credit
Title VI: Rural Development
Title VII: Research & Related Matters
Title VIII: Forestry
Title IX: Energy
Title X: Miscellaneous

Federal Sustainable Agriculture Program Primer

Developed by the National Campaign for Sustainable Agriculture

Purpose

As a service to our partners, we are pleased to offer the first draft of a Federal Sustainable Agriculture Program Primer. This resource compiles basic information on a wide range of the programs and policies that the National Campaign and its partner organizations have helped to conceive, develop, promote and/or get funded over the years.

In a simple, user-friendly format, we provide:

a short description of each program
who administers it
how people can access the program (including application deadlines and criteria for eligibility)
how the program is funded;
the program's status, including various stages of administrative action (rulemaking, implementation, etc.)
where to go for more information

Note: Many of the fact sheets refer to the 2002 Farm Bill. The complete text of the 2002 Farm Bill is available at www.USDA.gov/farmbill.

Acknowledgements

We'd like to thank FoodRoutes Network for their support of this project. In addition, we could not have produced this primer without the many partners who contributed ideas, information, editing and fact checking, and who agreed to be listed as resource folks on specific programs. A complete list of acknowledgements is found at the end of this document.

Programs by Category

Note: We have categorized the fact sheets for ease of use. As all of the work is connected, there is much overlap among categories.

Marketing and Rural Development

Conservation

Community Food Security/Nutrition

Equity and Justice

Organic

We are grateful to the following individuals for their input and assistance in creating the Federal Sustainable Agriculture Primer:

Dr. Tom Bewick, United States Department of Agriculture, Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service, Organic Transitions Program
Bill Bullard, R-CALF-United Stockgrowers of America
Heather Fenney, Rural Coalition
Thomas Forster, Community Food Security Coalition Allen Hance, Northeast-Midwest Institute
Ferd Hoefner, Sustainable Agriculture Coalition
Liana Hoodes, Organic Committee of the National Campaign for Sustainable Agriculture
Loni Kemp, Minnesota Project
Tom Hutcheson, Organic Trade Association
Margaret Krome, Michael Fields Agricultural Institute
Richard Mandelbaum, CATA (Farmworker Support Committee)
Bob Pooler, National Organic Program
Kathy Ruhf, Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Working Group/New England Small Farms Institute
John Smillie, Western Organization of Resource Councils
Brise Tencer, Organic Farming Research Foundation
Ellen Vollinger, Food Research and Action Center
Don Wambles, National Association of Farmers' Market Nutrition Programs
Ann Wright, Sustainable Agriculture Coalition

Information from the following publications has also been used with permission:

Making Hay, Newsletter of the Sustainable Agriculture Coalition

Guide to New and Existing Opportunities for Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic States in the 2002 Farm Bill and Other Recent Agriculture Legislation by Allen Hance and Jason Newman (Northeast-Midwest Institute)
(http://www.nemw.org/workshopguide.pdf)

Building Better Rural Places: Federal Programs for Sustainable Agriculture, Forestry, Conservation and Community Development, U.S. Department of Agriculture in collaboration with The Michael Fields Agricultural Institute (http://www.attra.org/guide/index.htm)

Fact sheets about the Conservation Security Program, Environmental Quality Incentives Program, Conservation Reserve Program, Wetland Reserve Program, Wildlife Habitat Incentives Program, and Farmland Protection Program, Natural Resources Conservation Service

Fact sheets about the Conservation Security Program, Land Stewardship Project