Vermont
Highlights
Senate’s 2007 Farm Bill
Senate Agriculture Committee Markup
Wednesday, Oct. 24, 2007
Extension & Expansion Of MILC Program
More Funds For Lake Champlain Cleanup
Another Boost For Vermont’s Organic
Sector
[The Senate Committee
on Agriculture, Nutrition, And Forestry today (Wednesday) is
marking up the Senate’s version of the 2007 Farm Bill. Vermont again
has a prominent seat at the table as Farm Bill decisions are made, and
Vermont again is a major Farm Bill winner. Senator Patrick Leahy –
the panel’s most senior member and former chairman of the Committee – as
in earlier years has been able to include all of his key priorities for
Vermont in the Senate bill. Highest among Leahy’s
priorities have been extending and strengthening the MILC
Program, cleanup funding for Lake Champlain, securing
added help for Vermont’s rapidly growing organic sector,
strengthening conservation programs that have been the most
important ongoing sources of funds for environmental
and water quality improvements in
Vermont, improvements in the Food Stamp Program
and other nutrition initiatives, rural development funding for the
Northeast Kingdom, support for Vermont’s growing renewable
energy industry and for Vermont-branded products and
other Vermont value-added initiatives. Below are Vermont highlights
of the Senate Farm Bill:]
DAIRY --
The 2007 Senate Farm Bill will extend the MILC
(Milk Income Loss Contract) program for the life of the farm bill
(2008-2012). In addition the program will be expanded in two important
ways. Senator Leahy made this possible earlier this year by crafting
and enacting the funding baseline for an extension of the MILC program,
then followed through in including legislation to extend and expand the
program in the Senate’s version of the Farm Bill.
1. Payment percentage – In 2002 when
the MILC program was established, whenever the federal minimum price for
fluid milk in Boston fell below $16.94 per hundred weight, participating
dairy farmers were eligible for a payment on 45 percent of the
difference. In the Fiscal Year 2006 Omnibus Reconciliation Bill, the
payment rate was reduced to 34 percent in order to make it possible to
extend the program until the Farm Bill could be rewritten in 2007. The
2007 Senate Farm Bill will restore the original 45 percent payment rate
for the MILC program. (There is no comparable provision in the
House-passed Farm Bill.)
2. Eligibility Increase – Currently
producers are eligible to receive MILC payments on 2.4 million pounds of
production per year (approximately 125 cows). The 2007 Senate Farm Bill
will increase the eligibility to 4.15 million pounds per year
(approximately 225 cows). Of Vermont’s approximately 1100 dairies that
average about 120 cows per operation, nearly 90 percent of Vermont’s
farms now would be fully eligible under the Senate Farm Bill. (No
comparable provision in the House bill.)
§
Dairy Product Price Support – The 2007 Senate Farm
bill establishes individual product prices for cheddar cheese, butter,
and nonfat dry milk.
§
Commodities – The bill extends the current farm
safety net through the 2012 crop year, retaining current base acres and
establishing base acres for newly eligible crops. Target prices for
crops are rebalanced and direct payments are maintained, as are fruit
and vegetable planting restrictions.
§
Average Crop Revenue -- A new Average Crop Revenue
option for farmers, including fixed payment rates, recourse loans, and a
state-level revenue program for covered commodities and peanuts, is
included in the Senate bill.
§
Payment Limitations – The bill reforms current
payment limitations, including provisions to directly attribute payments
to program beneficiaries, and it eliminates the controversial
three-entity rule.
CONSERVATION/LAKE CHAMPLAIN CLEANUP --
Agricultural conservation, responsible stewardship and
environmental quality are important to Vermont’s farmers and communities
and continue to be high priorities for Senator Leahy in the 2007 Farm
Bill. Several years ago as chairman the Agriculture Committee, Leahy
forged the first “Green Farm Bill” which created partnerships between
farmers and environmental goals, and since then the Farm Bill has become
the most significant ongoing nationwide funding source for conservation
and environmental quality efforts such as the cleanup of Lake
Champlain. Several of Leahy’s conservation initiatives began as pilot
programs in Vermont, proved themselves, and since then have expanded
nationwide. Much of the available funding in the 2007 Senate Farm Bill
for Vermont will be directed to addressing the water quality challenges
in the Lake Champlain Basin. This crucial funding will be added to the
more than $100 million Senator Leahy has already secured in Lake
Champlain cleanup funds.
§
Environmental Quality Incentive Program (EQIP) – A
program created by Senator Leahy in the 1996 Farm Bill, EQIP has quickly
become a major factor in the ongoing efforts to clean up Lake Champlain.
Phosphorus levels are one of the foremost challenges in the restoration
of Lake Champlain, and EQIP helps producers implement new practices that
reduce the phosphorus loading in the Lake and its tributaries. Funded
in the Senate Farm Bill at more than $1.27 billion a year, the program
will continue to help producers comply with the State of Vermont’s water
quality regulations and assist dairies in implementing environmentally
beneficial changes in their operations.
§
Farmland Protection Program (FPP) -- The highly
successful and popular Farmland Protection Program was created by
Senator Leahy in the 1996 Farm Bill and grew out of Vermont’s ‘Farms for
the Future’ program. Preserving Vermont's agricultural lands helps to
combat urban sprawl and keeps Vermont farms viable. Funded at $97
million a year in the Senate Farm Bill, FPP will provide matching funds
to help purchase development rights to keep productive farms in
agricultural uses. Total FPP enrollment in Vermont since inception of
the program is 40,000 acres.
§
$15 Million Small State Minimum -- The ‘Regional
Equity’ provision sponsored by Senator Leahy in the 2002 Farm Bill will
be continued and increased from $12 million to $15 million a year per
state. This Leahy effort helps bring more Farm Bill resources to
Vermont and other Northeastern states. This Leahy provision requires
that each state receive an allocation of at least $15 million a
year in the following working-lands conservation programs: EQIP, FPP,
Grassland Reserve Program, and the Wildlife Habitat Incentive Program.
This small state minimum guarantees that states like Vermont will
receive the necessary program funding to better help farmers in their
stewardship of the land.
§
Agricultural Management Assistance (AMA) – An
important program in Vermont, AMA provides $20 million a year in
mandatory funding to agricultural producers to voluntarily address
issues such as water management, water quality and erosion control, by
incorporating conservation into their farming operations.
§
Public Access – The bill will create a new $20
million grant program for states that run programs to encourage owners
of private land to allow public access for wildlife-related recreation
such as hunting, fishing, and birding.
ORGANICS --
As the father of the
national organic standards and labeling program and author of the 1990
Organic Foods Production Act, Senator Leahy has remained organic
agriculture’s leading champion and has again made the further
development of organic agriculture a top priority in the Senate’s Farm
Bill. Vermont has taken a strong leadership role in transiting to
organic agriculture and now leads in the nation on a per capita basis in
organic farm conversions – now with more than 500 organic operations;
more than 200 are dairies. In Vermont and elsewhere across the country,
organic agriculture also is beginning to create major new export
opportunities for U.S. farm products.
§
Organic Certification Cost
Share – The
2007 Senate Farm Bill provides $22 million
in guaranteed funding for a national organic certification cost share
program to assist producers of agricultural products in obtaining
certification under the National Organic Program established by Senator
Leahy under the Organic Foods Production Act of 1990. Each producer
will be eligible for a reimbursement of up to 75 percent of the costs of
certification, not to exceed $750 annually. Last year Vermont producers
received $165,000 under this Leahy-led effort to assist organic
certification.
§
Organic Conversion
Assistance – In addition to
assisting with the costs of organic certification, the 2007 Farm Bill
will expand eligibility of the Environmental Qualities Incentives
Program (EQIP – see above) to directly assist producers defray
the substantial costs of transiting to organic production. During a
required three-year conversion process, producers often struggle to
complete the conversion to organic production. This new initiative will
offer producers up to $20,000 per year for up to four years of financial
assistance to help in the conversion to organic production.
§
Organic Data Collection –
The Senate Farm Bill will provide
$5 million in mandatory funds to ensure that data on the production and
marketing of organic agricultural products is included in USDA’s
collection of data about agricultural production and marketing. This
mandate and these funds are vital in establishing adequate crop
insurance coverage for organic crops in the future.
§
Organic Research
– The Senate Farm Bill makes a major commitment for the first time to
funding research on organic agriculture. The bill provides $80
million in new mandatory funds for organic agriculture research and
extension -- to enhance the ability of organic producers and processors
to grow and market organic food, feed and fiber.
§
Organic Crop Insurance
Reform – The bill will bar USDA
from charging unnecessary and unwarranted premium surcharges on organic
crop insurance policies.
NUTRITION --
The nutrition title of the Senate Farm Bill contains crucial
anti-hunger programs such as the Food Stamp Program and The Emergency
Food Assistance Program. Senator Leahy has long led on these programs,
which extend an essential safety net to millions of Americans and
thousands of Vermonters. During 2006, an average of more than 47,000
Vermonters received Food Stamps each month. The bill also includes
initiatives to encourage better health and nutrition for children and
seniors and to support self-sufficiency and food security in low-income
communities.
§
Strengthening Food Purchasing Power of Low-Income
Vermonters – When calculating the Food Stamp help an individual or
family receives, the rules of the program allow a standard deduction for
the cost of such items as housing, utilities and transportation. A
decade ago, the standard deduction was frozen at $134, a move that has
caused significant erosion in the purchasing power of Food Stamps as
costs for these items have risen and benefits have not kept pace. The
2007 Senate Farm Bill increases the standard deduction from $134 to $140
and indexes it to inflation, ending the erosion of benefits and
increasing Food Stamp assistance for the majority of participating
families.
§
Working Families with Childcare Expenses -- Food
Stamp rules allow households to deduct up to $175 per month for the cost
of childcare, but this deduction has not been adjusted in more than a
decade and now covers only about a quarter of the monthly cost of
childcare in the United States. To better support working families, the
2007 Senate Farm Bill will eliminate the existing cap on the
deductibility of childcare expenses.
§
Food Stamp Asset Reform -- Despite broad agreement
about the importance of family savings, the Food Stamp ‘asset test’ has
remained largely unchanged since established in 1977 and fails to exempt
tax-preferred savings accounts from the current asset limit. To
encourage savings among low-income families, the 2007 Farm Bill will
increase the current asset limit to keep pace with inflation and exempts
tax-preferred education and retirement accounts from counting against
the asset limit.
§
The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP) --
TEFAP provides commodities for distribution to food banks across the
country, which then distribute those commodities to community food
providers. The Farm Bill will provide more than $460 million in
mandatory commodity purchases for distribution through food banks.
§
Fruit and Vegetable Program -- To promote child
health and nutrition, the Senate Farm Bill expands the Fresh Fruit and
Vegetable Program to include every state in the country, targeting those
benefits to low-income children. The proposed funding level would
ensure that Vermont receives at least $2.25 million a year to assist in
providing free fresh fruits and vegetables to children at school.
§
Senior Farmers Markets and Community Food Projects –
Funding for two programs fathered by Senator Leahy -- the Senior
Farmers Market Program (which provides vouchers for WIC recipients and
low-income seniors to use at farmers markets), and Community Food
Projects, (which promote self-sufficiency and food security in
low-income communities) – is increased by $10 million annually in
assured funding in the Senate Farm Bill. In Vermont, Community Food
Project grants have supported the farm-to-school projects which increase
access to fresh, healthy, local foods.
ENERGY/RENEWABLE ENERGY --
§
Rural Energy for America Program – Funded in the
Senate Farm Bill at $260 million, this program (previously called
Section 9006 -- the Renewable Energy Systems and Energy Efficiency
Improvements Program) offers grants and loan guarantees to
agricultural producers and rural small businesses to help with
purchasing renewable energy systems and to make energy efficiency
improvements. The program will also fund energy audits and will provide
technical assistance to farmers to help them become more energy
efficient and to use renewable energy technology and resources on the
farm. Since the 2002 Farm bill, this program has helped to fund the
building of several energy efficiency projects in Vermont, as well as a
number of anaerobic digester projects in
Vermont.
§
Manure to Energy Facilities – Vermont is at the
forefront of demonstrating that power derived from manure is quickly
evolving from an alternative-fuel experiment to a promising new
industry, bolstered by high oil costs and by new laws that restrict
harmful gas emissions and require the use of renewable energy. The
Senate Farm Bill will create a new grant and loan guarantee initiative
within the Rural Energy for America Program, focused solely on building
and evaluating on-farm and community-based animal manure-to-energy
facilities, such as methane digesters. Funded at more than $40 million
in the bill, this effort will help Vermont create more homegrown energy
while also reducing the potentially negative impacts on water and air
quality.
§
Bioenergy Production -- The Senate Farm Bill
provides $227 million to initiate dedicated biomass crop production
through incentive payments to farmers to cover production, harvesting,
transport and storage costs for advanced biofuels. Biomass technologies
are some of the innovative alternative energy sources that could be used
in Vermont that both minimize greenhouse emissions, while reducing the
nation’s dependence on foreign oil.
§
Rural Energy Systems Renewal – This is a new
program to help communities assess their energy systems and formulate
strategies for improvements. By keeping energy costs low, this
initiative will help Vermont move toward a cleaner, more sustainable
energy future. This program builds upon Vermont’s existing work as the
nation's first statewide provider of energy efficiency services.
§
Regional Bioenergy Crop Research – The bill creates
a regional crop research program of side-by-side bioenergy crop
experiments at 10 dispersed land-grant universities, funded at $45
million. The crop experiments are to include all appropriate biomass
species, including woody biomass species that will help to establish
best-management practices that could be used in Vermont for growing
bioenergy crops.
§
Community Wood Energy – The Senate Farm Bill
creates a new Community Wood Energy Program that is a perfect fit for
Vermont, offering competitive, cost-share grants for communities to
supply public buildings with energy from sustainably harvested wood.
SPECIALTY CROPS --
Vermont is the nation’s largest producer of maple
syrup and a major Northeast producer of apples, potatoes, eggs, honey,
vegetables, Christmas trees and greenhouse nursery products.
§
Specialty Crop Block Grants – The 2007 Senate Farm
bill includes $365 million in new mandatory funds to make block grants
to Vermont and other states to support specialty crop production,
marketing and development.
FORESTRY --
§
Community Forest and Open Space Conservation Program –
While chairman of the Agriculture Committee, Leahy created the first
Forestry Title in a Farm Bill and has crafted several forestry
initiatives in the years since then. The latest is Leahy’s new
Community Forest and Open Space Conservation Program in the Senate’s
Farm Bill, which will provide matching funds to help local governments
or nonprofit groups acquire town forests. In Vermont, where private
forests are threatened by sprawl and fragmentation, this new Leahy
program will help to protect forestlands that are economically,
culturally and environmentally important to their communities. Lands
acquired through this program will also provide much-needed public
access for recreational activities, including hunting and fishing.
§
National Forest Priorities – The 2007 Senate Farm
Bill will establish national priorities to guide federal and state
efforts in private forest conservation, including: conserving and
maintaining working forest landscapes for multiple uses; protecting
forests from threats to forests and with forest health; and enhancing
public benefits from private forests.
§
Comprehensive Statewide Forest Planning -- The
comprehensive statewide forest planning program established in the
Senate Farm Bill will provide Vermont with both financial and technical
assistance to develop and implement a new statewide forest resource
assessment and plan, which will identify critical forest resources,
incorporate existing Vermont forestry plans, and identify how our plans
connect with larger regional forestry needs.
RESEARCH --
The nation’s
investments in agricultural research, extension, and education have not
kept pace with the challenges Vermont and the nation face in
agriculture, and during this Farm Bill year, various proposals to
breathe new life into the research system at USDA have been considered
and incorporated into the Senate Farm Bill’s research title.
§
Organic Research – The organic agriculture sector
is fast approaching $20 billion in annual sales and continues to grow at
approximately 20 percent every year. Yet funding at USDA for research
on organic production issues lags far behind conventional crop
research. The 2007 Senate Farm Bill dedicates $80 million in new
mandatory research funds for organic agriculture at USDA.
§
Coordinated Research -- The bill will formalize the
coordination between USDA’s in-house research agency -- the Agricultural
Research Service -- and the newly created National Institute of Food and
Agriculture, to facilitate more efficient use of resources.
§
Improvements in Research -- This research title
also offers the first step in building a robust research, extension and
education system that is responsive to stakeholders, ensures that
funding goes to areas of greatest need, and emphasizes the best science
to keep U.S. producers competitive, rural communities productive, and
consumers healthy.
RURAL
DEVELOPMENT --
§
Priority for Vermont – The Rural Economic
Partnership Zone (REAP) designation for Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom is
extended through the life of the 2007 Senate Farm Bill. That
designation offers the Northeast Kingdom access to additional federal
funding for business development, job creation, housing, and water and
sewer infrastructure projects from USDA Rural Development and adds
priority points to applications for funding from many other federal
agencies. Since 2001, more than $31 million dollars from Farm Bill
programs have been directed to the Northeast Kingdom; most of those
investments have come from funds specifically set aside for the REAP
Zone.
§
Broadband – In too many of Vermont’s rural
communities, access to adequate broadband coverage is still
unavailable. The 2007 Senate Farm Bill reforms the USDA broadband
access program to ensure the funds available will be employed to provide
new broadband development. The bill will make $25 million available
annually to provide loans and loan guarantees to allow rural consumers
to receive high-speed, high-quality broadband services.
§
Value Added Market Development Grants – Knowing the
importance of enabling producers to capture more of the value of their
commodities, this bill provides $26 million per fiscal year through 2013
for value-added initiative grants. This will increase participation in
the program by allowing broader standards of eligibility so agricultural
producer groups and business ventures largely owned by producers can
compete for grants designed to develop value-added products or markets.
The provision also encourages grants to be used to assist in the
development of agricultural-based renewable energy sources.
§
Water and Wastewater Grants – The 2007 Senate Farm
Bill provides $135 million in mandatory funds to address the backlog of
pending wastewater grants currently held in each state. Vermont
applications for water and waste water grants and loans still pending at
the end of this fiscal year will be eligible for these funds.
§
Grants to Broadcasting Systems – The Grants to
Broadcasting Systems program authorizes grants to statewide private
nonprofit public television systems, whose coverage areas are
predominantly rural, for the purpose of demonstrating the effectiveness
of providing information on agriculture and other issues of importance
to farmers and rural residents. Eligibility for the program limited to
four public broadcasting systems: Vermont, Alaska, Maine and North
Dakota. The 2007 Senate Farm Bill reauthorizes the program through 2012
at $5 million for each fiscal year.
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