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ACGA says proposal is the pits The American Corn Growers Association has denounced the Bush Administration's new farm bill proposal as the wrong direction for the future of U.S. agriculture policy. "ACGA has been calling for changing the course in U.S. farm policy for some time now, but with all due respect, Sec. Johanns' new proposed course is the wrong course," said ACGA's chief executive Larry Mitch- ell. "The new proposal eliminates fixed payments, excludes many farmers from the program and lowers the support prices established for many crops." "The administration's bill would attempt to privatize the safety net, lower the level of the safety net and deny the safety net to many farm families," added Mit- chell. "By moving current fixed payments into 'reve- nue insurance' - another insurance scheme whereby federal tax dollars are shifted away from farm families and into the bank accounts of insurance companies - would only fatten the bottom-line of those insurance companies as they take an ever bigger slice of federal farm program dollars from farmers. Farmers do not support privatization of their farm program safety net any more than they support privatization of the Social Security retirement safety net." "We also have serous concerns with the means testing suggested by the administration," said Mitchell. "Payment limitations are one thing, but means testing will eliminate many mid-sized and larger farming operations entirely from the farm programs and would therefore eliminate the incentive for those operations to continue their conservation and environmental improvement efforts as required by participation in the farm programs. There should be limits on the amount paid to larger operations, but means-testing, which will entirely exclude many farmers from the programs, is ill advised." "But the most disturbing provisions advanced by the secretary in his new farm bill proposal is the formula he plans to use to recalculate the commodity support rates of the marketing assistance loan," explained Mitchell. "Under USDA's new proposal, the loan rates would be recalculated and established at only 85 percent of the five-year average market price (excluding the highest and lowest year). That would mean that the 2007 loan rate for corn would be only $1.78 per bushel, compared to the current and woefully inadequate corn loan rate of $1.93. This provision reveals just how out of touch, out of step and irrelevant the administration's farm plan really is. They are changing direction, but their new direction is way off course." "What is needed in a new farm bill are provisions to provide a fair and adequate price floor for commodities so that farmers will no longer have to rely on taxpayer subsidies, a Strategic National Grain Reserve to meet the needs of national food security, national energy security and international famine relief, and program provisions to help farmers plant new energy crops on land currently over producing price depressing crop surpluses," concluded Mitchell.
ACGA represents 14,000 members in 35 states. For more information, or for membership information, please see http://www. acga.org/.
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