WASHINGTON --- Senators Chuck Grassley and Tom Harkin of Iowa and Saxby Chambliss of Georgia and several colleagues have introduced legislation to clarify a provision from the 2008 farm bill that the Department of Agriculture is implementing contrary to Congress’ intent on people who farm plots of land less than 10 acres. The Senators stand firm that the farm bill explicitly lays out the intent, but said that legislation was necessary so small farmers aren’t caught in the cross-fire during the short term.
The Department’s interpretation would eliminate producers from receiving direct, counter cyclical, or ACRE payments, if the farm is 10 acres or less. The manager’s report of the farm bill specifically included language to ensure that small farm acreages could be aggregated to allow for farm program payments if the sum of the acres is over 10.
“It’s unfortunate that it’s come to this. The farm bill clearly states our intent when we wrote the law,” Grassley said. “We can’t let the Department of Agriculture ignore congressional intent and put the burden on small farmers. They need a safety net now.”
“USDA wants to freeze a moment in time rather than include all the base acres on the farm at the time of program sign up,” said Harkin, Chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee. “That not only goes against the new farm bill as written, but USDA seems intent on going out of the way to cut off payments that would be made if a farmer were allowed to combine bases on farms.”
“USDA’s failure to follow congressional intent has forced us to introduce a measure to ensure that the 10 acre or less provision is implemented as Congress intended,” said Sen. Chambliss, Ranking Republican Member of the Senate Agriculture Committee. “Thousands of active farmers are depending on reconstitution and aggregation to maintain their eligibility. The Department’s conscious disregard of congressional intent, especially when it is so clearly expressed in the conference report, is unfortunate and does not bode well for future cooperation.”
Specifically, the legislation suspends for crop years 2008 and 2009 the provision of the farm bill that prohibits direct, counter cyclical, and ACRE payments on commodities and peanuts if the sum of the base acres on the farm is 10 acres or less.
The legislation also extends the 2008 crop year signup until December 31, 2008 for direct and counter cyclical payments. The bill ensures that no penalty to benefits can be assessed by the Department of Agriculture against producers who fell into this 10 acre prohibition for failure to submit reports or timely comply with other program requirements if using the extended sign up period.
Senators who cosponsored the bill along with Grassley, Harkin and Chambliss were Senators Herb Kohl of Wisconsin, Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, Patrick Leahy of Vermont, Larry Craig of Idaho, Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, Mike Crapo of Idaho, Norm Coleman of Minnesota, Susan Collins of Maine, Hillary Clinton of New York, Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina and Max Baucus of Montana.
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