The Iowa senator made his case in a letter sent to the Secretary of Agriculture this week, urging the government to include silage storage facilities ? as well as grain ? in its Farm Storage Facility Loan program.
Grassley said that Iowa's cattlemen and dairy producers "could really use these low-interest loans right now to build and upgrade silage storage. What's more, livestock producers deserve the same fair treatment given to grain producers, and USDA could send an important signal by expanding its proposal to a feed storage program," he said.
USDA just recently said it would re-institute the 1949 FSFL program for grain to alleviate storage problems and help producers benefit from new technology and marketing advances.
Under the plan, the FSFL program would be funded through the Commodity Credit Corporation at $500 million over two years. Farmers would be eligible for loans with five- to 10-year repayment terms and interest rates as low as the CCC's cost of borrowing money from the U.S. Treasury. Today, that's 5.25 percent.
In his letter to the secretary, Grassley asked that his request be incorporated into the new program when USDA formally unveils it.