Senate OKs Farm Bill
That Renews MILC Program
And Advances A Wide Range
Of Other Vermont Priorities
WASHINGTON (Friday,
Dec. 14) -- The U.S. Senate Friday passed a five-year Farm Bill
that advances key Vermont agriculture, anti-hunger and
environmental priorities, championed by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.).
The bill’s Vermont-related features include renewal and
improvement of the MILC safety net program for dairy farmers;
greater Vermont access to farmland conservation programs that
have become integral to the cleanup of Lake Champlain; more
support for food banks; and more funding to help farmers make
the transition to the booming organic sector.
The bill goes next
to a House-Senate conference committee that will negotiate
between the separate bills passed by the Senate and the House to
produce a final version. Leahy, the most senior member of the
Senate Agriculture Committee, will be a leading conferee in
those negotiations.
“So far, so good,”
said Leahy. “We have cleared every hurdle, including a
filibuster. Vermont’s priorities rank high in this bill, and in
the negotiations ahead I will do all I can to keep it that way.
Renewing and strengthening the MILC program is especially
important to our state, and I’m especially pleased that this
bill would expand full coverage to 90 percent of Vermont’s dairy
farms. We need to keep the safety net in place so it will be
there when farmers need it.”
Leahy said the
improvements in the Farm Bill’s conservation programs will help
limit phosphorus runoff into Vermont’s streams, rivers, and Lake
Champlain. “These conservation programs, which partner with
farmers, have become important building blocks for cleaning up
the Lake,” he said.
Leahy, the father of
the national organic standards and labeling program, noted that
organic farming has become the fastest-growing sector of
American agriculture and is especially robust in Vermont. “This
bill is welcome news to farmers who want to make the costly
transition to organics,” he said.
Below are Vermont
highlights of the Farm Bill passed by the Senate:
Vermont Highlights
Senate’s 2007 Farm Bill
Extension & Expansion Of MILC Program
More Funds For Lake Champlain Cleanup
Another Boost For Vermont’s Organic Sector
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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