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Much More For Vermont Than Dairy . . .
Vermont Also Fares Well
In Other Priorities In The Senate Farm
Bill
WASHINGTON (Dec. 14) - Vermont farmers would see steep increases in conservation aid
under the Farm Bill now being debated on the floor of the U.S. Senate. The Senate Friday began
the fifth day of debate on the new 5-year Farm Bill.
Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), working with Agriculture Committee Chairman Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and Sen. Harry Reid
(D-Nev.), led the efforts that have produced the strongest
conservation aid programs for working farm land in Farm Bill history. Leahy also successfully
led efforts to direct more Farm Bill benefits to states in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic - regions
that in the past have secured proportionately less because of the domination of Farm Bill dollars
by commodity payments to producers of such crops as wheat, corn and soybeans in the Midwest.
The conservation provisions - included in the bill during committee work and strengthened last
week in further negotiations -- would ensure that Vermont farmers receive more than $12 million
each year in voluntary programs to protect working farmland, wetlands, wildlife habitat, a 1300
percent increase over current conservation dollars going to Vermont.
Some of the conservation programs offer incentives for farmers and livestock producers to keep
their land in production instead of selling their land to developers, and others will pay farmers to
cut run-off from farm fields into drinking water supplies and to maintain forests and wetlands on
their property. Many of these are conservation programs, initiated by Leahy in earlier Farm Bills,
that have become so popular with farmers that they are vastly oversubscribed for the funding now
available.
Leahy is a senior member of the Agriculture Committee and its former chairman. Leahy and
Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) were the principal authors of the first so-called "Green Farm Bills"
of 1990 and 1996 that forged a partnership between farmers and environmental goals important
to their communities. The only Agriculture Committee member from the Northeast, Leahy also
mobilized a bipartisan alliance of senators from Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states, informally
known as "the Eggplant Caucus," in drafting the conservation and regional equity provisions. By
boosting conservation investments, the bill addresses the alliance's goal of moving Farm Bills
toward more regional equity.
"With this Farm Bill we continue to turn the corner toward a national farm policy that better
recognizes the needs of states outside the Midwest and South," said Leahy. "Vermont farmers
are constantly investing in their communities, resisting the development of their open fields and
ensuring that their working lands meet the highest environmental standards. If this Farm Bill is
passed, Congress will more fully reward their efforts, giving farmers and their rural communities
the tools they need to meet environmental challenges, value open space and wildlife habitat, and
sustain the beauty of the rural landscape."
With the revisions championed by Leahy and Reid, conservation agriculture spending in the
Senate bill is now double its levels of the last Farm Bill - the highest conservation spending level
in history and an average of about $4.4 billion each year. Leahy focused his efforts on increasing
conservation assistance on those programs most beneficial to Eastern and Western states -
including $1.75 billion for Leahy's existing Farmland Protection Program (FPP) to conserve
working farmland, $1.25 billion for the Wildlife Habitat Incentive Program (WHIP), and $6.2
billion for the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) to help farmers improve soil,
water, and air quality on their working lands. Perhaps most important for smaller states, Leahy
also convinced Harkin, chairman of the committee, to promote greater regional equity --
minimum annual state payments of $12 million per year -- in the bill's conservation title (see
Conservation Chart, attached).
This fall the House passed its own version of the Farm Bill with an 85 percent increase in
conservation spending, but without regional equity provisions important to smaller states like
Vermont and with little emphasis on the conservation programs most important to Vermont and
other Northeastern states.
Beyond the conservation provisions, Senator Leahy and the Eggplant Caucus have also continued
to press for new resources to help forestry on private lands, specialty crops, farmers' markets,
nutrition programs, organics programs, and rural development (see Other Highlights list,
attached). Of the several amendments that will be offered to the Farm Bill on the Senate floor, at
least one will attempt to further increase funds for specific programs to benefit Northeastern
specialty crop producers, including apple growers, maple syrup producers, and Christmas tree
farmers.
# # # # #
ATTACHMENTS:
1) Conservation Chart
2) Other Farm Bill Highlights For Vermont
CONSERVATION CHART
* = programs of particular significance to Vermont and other Northeast/Mid-Atlantic states
| PROGRAM |
PAST FUNDING |
NEW FARM BILL |
| Regional Equity Provision* |
N/A |
$12 million/state/year ($5
million/year for EQIP; $7
million/year for all other
conservation programs) |
| Farmland Protection Program* |
$35 million over 5 years |
$1.75 billion over 5 years |
| Wildlife Habitat Incentives
Program* |
$50 million over 5 years |
$1.25 billion over 5 years |
| Environmental Quality Incentives
Program (EQIP)* |
$200 million/year |
$6.2 billion over 5 years |
| Conservation Security Program* |
N/A |
$3.7 billion |
| Conservation Reserve Program
(CRP)
--Enhanced CRP (CREP)* |
36.4 million acres |
41.1 million acres |
| USDA discretion to set aside |
USDA urged to set aside
4 million acres |
5.5 million acres |
| Wetlands Reserve Program (WRP) |
1,075,000 acres |
2.225 million acres |
| Grassland Reserve Program (GRP) |
N/A |
2 million acres |
| Water Conservation Program |
N/A |
$1.1 billion |
OTHER SENATE FARM BILL HIGHLIGHTS FOR VERMONT
SPECIALTY CROPS:
- USDA purchases of $650 million worth of speciality crops to be used in food assistance programs (to
help fruit and vegetable farmers, including apple farmers)
- Grants for encouraging the processing and marketing of value-added farm products ($75 million in
mandatory funding)
- Funding to assist farmers in exporting high-value products;
- Authorization for a matching grant program for the purposes of developing, improving, and expanding
farmers' markets
ORGANICS:
- National organic certification cost-share program -- funding to help organic farmers become certified under
the National Organic Program, chartered by legislation by Leahy in the 1990 Farm Bill;
- Funding for organic research initiatives as well as expansion of organic agriculture research and extension
initiatives to allow for research which identifies marketing and policy constraints on the organic
industry and emphasizes innovation for working farms; and
- Initiatives to promote the collection of data on the production and marketing of organic crops, to facilitate
access to organic research conducted outside of the United States, to understand the impact of the
national organic program on small farms, and to provide information on the costs associated with
transitioning to organic production.
NUTRITION:
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