Senate Ag Committee Advances Farm Bill

This week, the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry passed legislation to re-authorize and overhaul farm, conservation and nutrition programs through fiscal 2017 while cutting spending by $24.7 billion over the next 10 years. The vote, including proxy votes, was 16-5. The amended draft measure would end direct payments to grain and cotton growers and would replace those subsidy programs with a revenue protection plan that would offer “shallow loss” coverage for farmers who experience price and crop yield losses. The measure would consolidate a variety of conservation programs to save $6 billion over a decade. As amended, it would provide $800 million in mandatory funding to continue a variety of energy programs that were re-authorized by the original draft bill with no mandatory funding. 

The future of the Senate bill is still unclear. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (N-NV) has told Ag Committee Chair Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) if she were able to pass a bipartisan bill out of committee would make floor time for consideration. However, southern and plains states Senators are still unhappy about how rice, cotton, peanuts and wheat fared in the bill. Stabenow repeatedly pledged to try to address the concerns of rice and peanut growers. The bill abolishes the $5 billion in annual direct payments to farmers and landowners and replaces them with the bill's new Agriculture Risk Coverage (ARC) program, which is designed to cover drops in revenue, and a special insurance program for cotton. Also eliminated is a counter-cyclical program created in 2002 to provide subsidies when commodity prices fall below target levels. Rice growers wanted that program continued if they couldn't keep their direct payments. Under the bill, they would have neither option.

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) objected to the bill because of cuts to nutrition programs, and she also raised concerns about a new program designed to protect revenue of dairy farmers. She said small-scale farms can't afford the payments the program requires.

Before the final vote, the committee amended the bill to add $800 million in mandatory funding to programs in the energy title, including loan guarantees for biorefineries and subsidies for biofuel feedstocks and rural energy projects. The Congressional Budget Office estimated the bill would save $24.7 billion over 10 years before the committee added that spending and made revisions to ARC sought by wheat-growing states.