Commission proposed deep spending cuts for farm programs

On Wednesday, the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility announced a plan for $3.8 trillion in spending cuts by 2020, including $3 billion a year in farm programs. "Among the cuts to mandatory programs, commission proposes reducing direct payments $22 billion by 2020," Chris Clayton of DTN/The Progressive Farmer reports. The commission recommending cutting "farm subsidies by $3 billion per year by reducing direct payments and other subsidies, Conservation Security Program funding and funding for the Market Access Program."

"With Republicans coming into control of Congress, it will be worth watching to see how much of the commission's proposal will be taken up in the push to cut federal spending," Clayton writes. The commission recommended requiring food processors to pay for safety and inspection services, which it says would save $900 million a year.

"The commission also proposed $200 billion in federal-budget discretionary spending cuts, including eliminating a number of programs in the Rural Utilities Service, saving $500 million by 2015," Clayton writes. While the commission acknowledged RUS has updated its services to focus on broadband, it concluded "The agency also runs a number of programs which are outdated, overlapping, and which provide limited or questionable public policy benefits. These include the Local Television Loan Program among others." (Read more) The agency is the successor of the Depression-era Rural Electrification Administration, and the main financier of rural electric cooperatives.

"The proposal specifically calls cutting the $5 billion a year in fixed payments that go to grain and cotton farmers as well as reducing the Conservation Security Program authored by Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Ia., and subsidies for overseas promotion of U.S. farm products," Philip Brasher of the Des Monies Register reports on the paper's Green Fields blog. "Congress already faces a tough budget situation when it goes to write the next farm bill, given that nearly 40 programs have no funding after 2012. The commission’s proposed cuts would squeeze the farm bill even more," Brasher writes. (Read more)