Lugar, Lautenberg offer FRESH Reform of Farm Programs

WASHINGTON, DC - U.S. Sens. Dick Lugar (R-IN) and Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) introduced the Farm, Ranch, Equity, Stewardship and Health (FRESH) Act Tuesday, October 23, 2007. The comprehensive farm bill reform would end depression era federal crops subsidies that benefit only a few farmers, of a few crops, in a few states. The new safety net would be an insurance program available to all American farmers.

 

The FRESH Act will save billions in farm payments, while broadening the agricultural safety net.  The savings would be invested in other vital programs with $3 billion left over to reduce the deficit.

 

“Over the past ten years, farm subsidies have gone to just one out of three farmers with only six percent of farms receiving more than 70 percent of that money – namely $120 billion. Subsidy programs have spurred farm consolidation, violated international trade agreements and still left most farmers heavily exposed to risk,” said Lugar, a family farmer and member and former chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee.  

 

"The current farm bill is an antiquated system of giant payments to a handful of farms, while ignoring the needs of most American farmers,” said Lautenberg.  “The farm bill, as it stands, is bad policy.  It increases our fiscal deficits and fails to provide a safety net for most farmers.  Our bill provides a safety net to farmers in our region and across the nation, regardless of what they grow or where they farm. It ensures stable incomes, even in bad years, reduces our deficit and frees up money for conservation, nutrition and harvesting local crops like fruits and vegetables.”

 

The bill would expand popular revenue insurance tools, and for the first time, with no out of pocket cost for farmers. Unlike current programs, this safety net would protect against unforeseen risks, but would not provide automatic payments to farmers when unneeded, and would not continue to distort domestic and foreign agricultural markets.

 

The FRESH Act would create reforms to commodity programs and crop insurance that would serve a greater number of farmers more fairly and be responsive to regional and national crises that endanger the continuing success of America’s farmers, the sponsors argue. Over five years, these reforms would create more than $16 billion in additional savings that would be available to invest in other farm and food priorities.

 

The five year investments would include an additional $4 billion for hunger relief efforts, including major improvements in the Food Stamp Program, our nation’s primary safety net for the disadvantaged. It also would expand nutrition programs for disadvantaged children in the summer, when school meals are not available. The bill would invest $3 billion into specialty crop programs that improve research and marketing opportunities for the majority of American farmers that currently do not benefit from farm programs.  This legislation also focuses on important environmental and conservation programs and would provide an additional $6 billion. And the bill would target an additional $1.6 billion toward renewable fuels development.

 

The bill achieves savings below the PAYGO budget caps for these programs that would save the taxpayer $3 billion over the five years of the bill. It does so without the Congress employing superficial budgetary maneuvers. 

 

More details about the bill may be found at: www.lugar.senate.gov/farmbill.

 

Additional Senate co-sponsors of the bill include Senators Orrin Hatch, Bob Menendez, Susan Collins, Ben Cardin, Sheldon Whitehouse, and Jack Reed. The bill has been endorsed by: Brighter Green, Club for Growth, Council for Citizens Against Government Waste, Debt Aids Trade Africa (DATA), Environmental Defense Fund, Environmental Working Group (EWG), Grocery Manufacturers Association / Food Products Association (GMA/FPA), Initiative for Global Development (IGD), National Taxpayers Union (NTU), National Urban League, Oxfam America, Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), Taxpayers for Common Sense (TCS), and the William C. Velasquez Institute (WCVI).

Source: Press Release of Senator Lugar