Page 64 - Farm Bill Series_The 7 Things You Should Know

At the final hour, 11 Republicans and Democrats voted against the 557-page package:
Republicans Bob Goodlatte of Virginia, Tim Huelskamp of Kansas, Marlin Stutzman of Indiana,
and Bob Gibbs of Ohio, as well as Democrats Joe Baca of California, David Scott of Georgia,
Chellie Pingree of Maine, Marcia Fudge of Ohio, Terri Sewell of Alabama, Joe Courtney of
Connecticut and Jim McGovern of Massachusetts.

The bill, known as the Federal Agriculture Reform and Risk Management Act (FARRM),
maintained crop insurance as the primary risk management tool for farmers and ranchers while
setting up the new Price Loss Coverage program that would pay when prices dropped below an
established target.

The bill also contained provisions for Revenue Loss Coverage
(RLC), similar to the Senate’s ARC, but FARRM’s PLC and RLC
applied to planted acres up to total base acres on a farm. (For a
comparison of PLC and RLC, see this FarmDoc analysis.)

In a press statement, Chairman Lucas and ranking member Collin
Peterson called FARRM a “bipartisan bill that saves taxpayers
billions, reduces the nation’s deficit and repeals outdated policies
while reforming, streamlining and consolidating others.” The
measure would cut USDA spending by $35 billion over 10 years,
$12 billion more than the Senate version. Almost all of the
additional cuts came from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance
Program, commonly called food stamps.

Raun and her USA Rice Producers were very happy with the
outcome, in part because “it recognizes that you can’t have a
one-size-fits-all program for all regions and crops.” Rep. Bob Gibbs
American Soybean Association’s President Steve Wellman noted that, “we remain concerned
about planting distortions that could occur under a coupled target price program such as that
contained in the House bill.” He said ASA’s key priority has been to develop programs that help
farmers manage risk while complementing crop insurance and avoiding planting distortions.

National Corn Growers Association President Garry Niemeyer said his organization was
disappointed that the House version of the farm bill “does not include a more viable market-
oriented risk management program,” but urged the process to move forward.

Lucas offered an all-too familiar refrain to corn growers who criticized his version of the farm
bill.

“You got yours (price supports) in the RFS (Renewable Fuel Standard),” Lucas told
farmer leaders. “I’m going to make sure others get theirs…” recalled a former grower who
was involved in discussions.

Ultimately, GOP leaders decided – for a variety of reasons that we’ve chronicled in Part One of
this series – to not bring the House Agriculture Committee’s version up on the House floor. But
even though the bill was destined to die in the House that year, the regional commodity disputes
did not.

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