Farm lobbies ask Congress to improve commodity programs

By Adam Goldstein
States Newsroom

Farm and commodity trade-association leaders lobbied for updating commodity programs and strengthening crop-insurance programs at a Tuesday hearing of the U.S. Senate Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Committee.

They said crop insurance and the Department of Agriculture’s Price Loss Coverage and Agriculture Risk Coverage programs are not a “true safety net” for farmers, and that crop reference prices must be increased due to declining farm income and increasing costs.

A reference price is the Farm Bill's estimated cost of crop production, used for insurance and other risk-management program. Prices were last updated in the 2014 Farm Bill.

American Farm Bureau Federation President Zippy Duvall told the committee that what he hears most often from farmers about the bill is the need to strengthen and expand federal crop insurance.

Kentucky farmer Caleb Ragland testified (Photo via Morning AgClips)

Caleb Ragland, a row-crop farmer from Magnolia, Kentucky, said crop insurance is one of the main ways his farm stays viable. “Without crop insurance, the risks would be more than many farmers and lenders could handle,” he said. “It certainly would be for me and my family.”

Committee Chair Debbie Stabenow, D-Michigan, asked how to better provide crop insurance options for specialty crop farmers. Duvall said the most important things are that the program is funded correctly and is easy for farmers to use; National Farmers Union President Rob Larew suggested more actively applying a provision of the Federal Crop Insurance Act to encourage adoption and continued use of climate-smart agricultural practices by developing new specialty-crop insurance policies.

Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa asked how Congress might bolster the farm safety net without costing the country more money. Duvall said “I don’t have any suggestions.”

Grassley also asked Larew if owners of commodity farmland should be eligible for safety-net programs if they are not actively farming, since the biggest 10% of farms get 70% of the money. Larew said the NFU supports limiting payments to those truly invested in management and labor.