"This effort is bi-partisan. And its goal is to provide fair treatment to farmers under the tradeact," Grassley said. Right now, when imports cause layoffs in manufacturing industries, workersare eligible for compensation, but when imports adversely affect the ag sector, farmers who loseincome receive no compensation."
The bill Grassley introduced with Sen. Kent Conrad of North Dakota would amend the TradeAct of 1974, and make farmers also eligible for assistance when:
the commodity price drops by more than 20 percent below the averageprice for the previous five-year period, and
imports contributed "importantly" to this price drop.
If both requirements are met in a given year, farmers would receive cash assistance equal tohalf the difference between the national average price for the year and 80 percent of the average pricein the previous five years, multiplied by the amount of product that the farmer had produced.
Grassley said that under his proposal the one producer group that would have been eligiblefor assistance during the last five years according to USDA would have been pork producers. Arough cost estimate on the bill shows that in 1998, pork producers could have been eligible for about$100 million in assistance.
Grassley is chairman of the Senate International Trade Subcommittee.