On Thursday, March 29, the House approved the FY 13 Budget Resolution introduced by Budget Committee Chair Paul Ryan (R-WI) by a 228-191 vote, with all Democrats and 10 Republicans voting no. The budget resolution will not be taken up by the Senate and hence will only control spending actions in the House. The resolution […]
Archives for March 2012
Path to the Farm Bill: 164 Organizations Call On Congressional Leaders to Increase Agricultural Market Competition
On Thursday, NSAC joined with a total of 164 organizations on a letter to the Chairs of the Senate and House Agriculture Committees and the Senate and House Judiciary Committees urging them to make the issues of increased agricultural market transparency, fairness and access for farmers and ranchers a top priority in the next Farm […]
Path to the Farm Bill: Senator Harkin Introduces Rural Energy Investment Act
On Thursday, March 29, Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) introduced the Rural Energy Investment Act (S. 2270) which would reauthorize and provide mandatory funding for several programs in the Farm Bill’s Energy Title. The bill would provide $1.285 billion in farm bill mandatory funding over five years, including support for two farmer-based programs (see below) plus […]
Path to the Farm Bill: Former Agriculture Secretaries Support Conservation Requirements
Former U.S. Secretaries of Agriculture Dan Glickman (1995-2001) and Ann Veneman (2001-2005) delivered a letter to the chairs and ranking members of the House and Senate Agriculture Committees on Wednesday, March 28, urging them to reattach basic conservation compliance requirements to federally subsidized crop insurance in the next farm bill. The letter states: As you renew […]
Senate Subcommittee Holds Hearing on FY 2013 Agriculture Appropriations; NSAC Delivers FY 2013 Appropriations Testimony to Senate
On Thursday, March 29, the Senate Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee held its first hearing on USDA’s fiscal year (FY) 2013 budget request. The Subcommittee will consider USDA’s requests as it writes its funding bill for the year. Individual funding requests by Senators and outside groups were also due yesterday. You can download and read our FY […]
Path to the Farm Bill: New Bill Proposes Private Foundation to Fund Agricultural Research
On Thursday, March 29, leaders of the Senate Agriculture Committee introduced a bill to expand funding for food and agricultural research through the creation of a private research foundation. The bill (S.2274) was introduced by Senate Agriculture Committee Ranking Member Pat Roberts (R-KS), along with Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) and Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND), who […]
North Central Region SARE Seeks Regional Coordinator
The University of Minnesota College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences (CFANS) has announced it is seeking a Regional Director of the North Central Region Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (NCR-SARE) program. Funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (USDA-NIFA), NCR-SARE houses two main programs: the Research and […]
Congressional Briefing on Perennial Biomass Crops in the 2012 Farm Bill
On Monday, March 26th, the Environmental and Energy Study Institute hosted a congressional briefing entitled Conservation, Energy Security and Jobs with Biomass Crops? – A Question for the Next Farm Bill. The briefing focused on how the establishment of perennial biomass crops can increase both environmental quality and economic opportunities in rural America. Presentation slides […]
Court Orders FDA to Resume Hearings Examining Antibiotic Use in Animal Feed
On Thursday, March 22, U.S. District Court of Southern New York Judge Theodore H. Katz ordered the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to reissue its proposal to examine the use of certain antibiotics in animal feed. According to the Market Forces (UCS), nearly 70 percent of all antibiotics used in this country are given to animals […]
Bill to Improve Rural Energy for America Program Introduced
On Thursday, Senators Al Franken (D-MN) and Tom Harkin (D-IA) introduced Senate Bill 2225 that reauthorizes and amends the Rural Energy for America Program (REAP). REAP provides agricultural producers and rural businesses with grants and loans for renewable energy and energy efficiency projects. The Program also provides grant funding for energy audits and renewable energy […]
Path to the Farm Bill: Stripped Down House Farm Bill by April 27?
Members and readers have been calling and writing asking for insight into what the House budget resolution — introduced on March 20, passed out of the House Budget Committee on March 21, and headed to a vote on the House floor next week — means for the new farm bill. We will do our best […]
House and Senate Move Forward on Different Paths with FY 2013 Appropriations
NSAC Testimony On Tuesday, March 20, the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) delivered its fiscal year (FY) 2013 agriculture appropriations testimony to the House Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee. The testimony includes NSAC’s FY 2013 appropriations requests for critical conservation, rural development, marketing, research, credit, and beginning and minority farmer programs. We will deliver matching funding requests […]
USDA Report on Rural Energy for America Program Achievements
This week, USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack released a report entitled The Impact of the Rural Energy for America Program on Promoting Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. The Report summarizes the energy efficiency and renewable energy projects funded by the Rural Energy for America Program (REAP) over the last three years, 2009 through 2011. It also […]
USDA Releases Report on Food Hubs
Last week, Agriculture Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan released a new USDA report, Moving Food Along the Value Chain: Innovations in Regional Food Distribution, that highlights the work of eight food distributors across the country. These food distributors, better known as food hubs, facilitate connections between producers and consumers at a local and regional level. Last […]
Path to the 2012 Farm Bill: House Agriculture Subcommittee Holds Hearing To Identify Duplicative Rural Development Programs
Today, the House Agriculture Subcommittee on Rural Development, Research, Biotechnology, and Foreign Agriculture held a hearing to identify duplicative federal rural development programs. The hearing focused on reducing duplication, fragmentation, and overlap in rural development programs for a 2012 Farm Bill. USDA Under Secretary for Rural Development Dallas Tonsager and Government Accountability Office (GAO) Director […]
Senate Bill Will Restore Common Sense Rules to Farm Subsidies
For Immediate Release March 21, 2012 Contact: Ferd Hoefner or Juli Obudzinski 202-547-5754 Senate Bill Will Restore Common Sense Rules to Farm Subsidies Washington, DC March 21, 2012 – On Wednesday, March 21, Senators Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Tim Johnson (D-SD) introduced a bipartisan bill that would place a hard cap on farm payments and […]
Cause for Celebration: ATTRA Again Open for Business
For over 20 years, the ATTRA program (Appropriate Technology Transfer for Rural Areas) has served as a reliable source of research-based information about sustainable agriculture, offering an expansive selection of publications, webinars, and listings of farming internships. In 2010, its staff answered over 60,000 requests on its 1-800 call line and brought over 5.8 million unique […]
Path to the 2012 Farm Bill: NSAC Releases 2012 Farm Bill Policy Platform
Today, the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) released its 2012 Farm Bill policy platform, Farming for the Future: A Sustainable Agriculture Agenda for the 2012 Food & Farm Bill. The platform is the culmination of two years of policy work with a broad, diverse coalition of over 90 grassroots organizations from across the country. It […]
Farming for the Future: National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition Releases its 2012 Farm Bill Platform
Today, the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition released its comprehensive 2012 Farm Bill policy platform, Farming for the Future: A Sustainable Agriculture Agenda for the 2012 Food & Farm Bill. With a round of Senate Agriculture Committee hearings complete and House Agriculture Committee field hearings underway, Congress is hard at work writing a new farm bill. […]
NSAC Joins with Other Groups to Brief Senate on Conservation Compliance and Sodsaver
On Friday, March 16, a broad coalition of groups held a congressional briefing to present their views to Senate legislative aides on the issue of conservation compliance and Sodsaver. The briefing, entitled “Conserving Soil, Sod, and Wetlands in the 2012 Farm Bill: the Future of Conservation Compliance and Sodsaver,” examined the need to relink highly […]
Regulatory Certainty Program Announced for Wildlife Habitat
Last week, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar announced a $33 million dollar partnership, Working Lands for Wildlife, which aims to protect wildlife habits through landowner conservation efforts. The program specifically targets conservation in priority areas that house seven species: the lesser prairie chicken, New England cottontail, Southwestern willow flycatcher, […]
Path to the 2012 Farm Bill: Senate Examines Commodity Programs
On March 15, the Senate Agriculture Committee held its final hearing in preparation for writing the 2012 Farm Bill. The hearing addressed risk management and commodity programs, and included testimony from farmers, crop insurance agents, commodity and farm groups, including: Michael Scuse, USDA Farm and Foreign Agricultural Services (Washington DC) Hope Hills, blueberry grower (Michigan) […]
House Holds Agriculture Appropriations Hearings
Earlier this month, the House Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee held a series of four hearings on the Obama Administration’s fiscal year (FY) 2013 budget request for the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The hearings precede and are meant to inform the markup of a FY 2013 agriculture appropriations bill. The four hearings covered the President’s budget […]
Path to the 2012 Farm Bill: New Budget Baseline
An important step in the process of reauthorizing legislation that will include changes in mandatory spending, such as the farm bill, is establishing what the legislation would cost in the future if no changes were made and existing law were simply extended indefinitely. This is known as the budget “baseline” and becomes the yardstick that […]