Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, today we have before us the Agriculture
Reform, Food and Jobs Act of 2012. It is more commonly known as the
farm bill. It is critically important for America's farmers and
ranchers. But it might also be known as the conservation bill, as the
food bill, and, even better, the kitchen table bill because this bill
affects every one of us.
The Agriculture Committee is different from most other committees in
Congress. Our committee room does not have a raised dais. Instead, we
sit around a table just like families across the country do and just
like farmers and ranchers do after a long day of work in the fields. To
write this farm bill, we sat down around our table and we talked to
each other and we listened to each other and we worked in a bipartisan
way to craft a bill that creates jobs while cutting subsidies and
reducing the deficit.
The result of that effort is what is before us in the Senate. It is a
bill that affects every family across the country. The farm bill makes
it possible for many families to come together around their own kitchen
tables to enjoy the bounty of the world's safest, most abundant, and
most affordable food supply.
We are also aware, especially in this very tough economy, that many
of our neighbors, many of our friends, many of our family members are
struggling to put food on their own tables. The farm bill is critically
important to those families as well. As we begin our debate in the
Senate on the farm bill, let us remember the families all across the
country who are counting on us to get this right.
I want my colleagues to also remember that the farm bill is a jobs
bill--16 million jobs. Sixteen million jobs in this country rely on the
continued strength of American agriculture. They are the people doing
the work it takes to put the food on our kitchen tables, not just those
on the farm but those who manufacture, sell farm equipment, the people
who ship the crops from one place to another, the people who have the
farmers markets and local food hubs, the people who work in food
processing and crop protection and crop fertility, not to mention the
researchers and the scientists who worked hard every day to fight pests
and diseases that threaten our food supply.
Throughout this recession, as those 16 million people can attest,
agriculture has been one of the truly bright spots in our economy. That
is why we made such an important effort, such an important bipartisan
effort in this farm bill to support beginning farmers as well. We are
giving them additional support for training, mentoring, and outreach to
ensure the success of our next generation of farmers.
In addition, we are giving opportunities for U.S. veterans who are
interested in pursuing a career in agriculture, and we are creating a
military veterans agricultural liaison within the Department of
Agriculture to educate veterans about farming and connecting them with
beginning farmer training programs. I would also remind my colleagues
that for those who have served and are serving us in Iraq and
Afghanistan, the majority of them--over half of them--are coming from
small towns and rural communities and they are coming home. One of the
ways to provide opportunities for jobs is to support them coming back
to their community by having the opportunity to go into agriculture.
One of the brightest spots in agriculture has been in exports. This
chart shows the incredible growth of agricultural exports over the last
number of years. In fact, total agricultural exports in 2011 alone
reached $136 billion. It is a 270-percent increase just in the last 10
years, an explosion, as we reach out. American agriculture is looked to
and depended upon to feed the families of the world.
Our trade surplus is $42.5 billion. Let me repeat that. We have a
significant trade surplus in agriculture. We cannot say that in much of
any other place in our economy. But in agriculture we are growing it
here at home. The jobs are here at home, and we are exporting it
overseas, which is what I would like to see in every one of our
industries. It is one of the few areas where we have that kind of
success.
We know that for every $1 billion in agricultural exports, we are
creating 8,400 American jobs--8,400 American jobs for every $1 billion
in exports. The investments we make in market development, in access
for our agricultural products overseas, will continue to create jobs
here at home.
As we were writing the farm bill, we also did something that families
all cross the country are doing during these very hard times. We went
through everything we are spending, everything we are spending money
on, and we looked at how we could do more for less. We literally went
through every page of farm policy and agriculture spending through
USDA. This bill represents major reforms that will allow us to focus
fewer resources on the things that create jobs and make the biggest
difference. In other words, we are refocusing. We are cutting the
things that are not important and refocusing on the things that are and
the things that create jobs.
The Agriculture Reform Food and Jobs Act is about cutting subsidies
and creating jobs in America. The reforms in this bill start on page 1
with the repeal of direct payments, countercyclical payments, and the
Average Crop Revenue Election, which has been called the ACRE Program.
We are creating a new approach, a new program that only helps farmers
when there is a loss and only for crops they have actually planted, and
we are strengthening payment limits. We are ending more than 100
programs and authorizations that are no longer needed, and we are doing
all of this in order to be able to cut the deficit by $23 billion.
The most fundamental reform in the Agriculture Reform Food and Jobs
Act is the shift away from direct payments
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and toward risk management for farmers. Throughout this process, we
have been focused on principles, not programs, and the No. 1 principle
is risk management. So we are repealing direct payments. We know
farmers face unique risks unlike those in other businesses.
Let me stress that again. I do not know of any business that has the
same kind of risks in market volatility, in weather volatility than our
farmers and ranchers do. It is very fortunate we still have people who
want to stay in that business, given all the risks, weather and market
conditions, which are out of producers' control. They can have
devastating effects. We know that. But the current system focused
around direct and countercyclical payments does not focus on actual
risk and it is no longer defensible or sustainable.
In this current fiscal and political environment, these programs
actually jeopardize our ability to have a real safety net for farmers
and the jobs that depend on them. That is why we are eliminating those
programs and instead strengthening crop insurance as the centerpiece of
risk management in the farm bill.
This is the No. 1 issue we heard from every farmer who has testified
before the committee, whether it was in Michigan or in Kansas or across
the country. Every region of the country we have heard the same thing
loudly and clearly.
The basic foundation of support for producers is crop insurance. We
are expanding crop insurance in the bill to include specialty crops and
others as well. Because while we know crop insurance is the foundation,
it does not work the same. It is not available for every commodity.
That is a commitment we have made to expand crop insurance, including
specialty crops, which are essentially the kinds of crops we are likely
to find in the produce aisle of our supermarket or at the local farmers
market: nuts, vegetables, fruits, and other products.
This is an extremely diverse group of crops, and the bill recognizes
the unique crop insurance needs of specialty crop growers. We are also
taking strides to help young and beginning farmers get started and
succeed in farming. We have made revisions to crop insurance to better
help those new farmers by reducing their crop insurance premiums and
providing additional support when disasters strike.
Supplement crop insurance. This bill creates a simple market-oriented
and risk-based program we are calling ARC, Agricultural Risk Coverage.
ARC represents a significant and historic reform in agriculture policy.
For years, Congress has struggled to balance the needs of different
commodities, different programs. This is solved with the new ARC
Program, which uses the market as a guide and treats every commodity
the same.
The current system essentially amounts to an income transfer from the
Federal Treasury to only certain people, certain farmers, because
payments are made every year without regard to whether the farmer had a
successful year or whether the individual is farming. I say ``certain
people'' because many farmers do not qualify for the help today as
well.
Direct and countercyclical payments are made using what is called
base acres. That is the current system to determine the payments. Base
acres were set using what was planted on the farms back in 1980s. So
these base acres have little relevance to what is actually happening on
many farms today. This change is also very important for new farmers.
We have told beginning farmers this is a very important way to support
them.
Our ARC, on the other hand, the program we have developed in this
bill, uses only the acres a farmer actually plants. It is able to adapt
to free market forces and the decisions made being made on the farm
without interference from those business decisions a farmer makes. We
want the marketplace making the decisions, not the government.
ARC is market oriented. Farmers only get help when the market moves
in the opposite direction from historic price trends farmers use to
plan their business and make planning decisions. The payment amount is
based on actual historic numbers from the marketplace, not from the
Halls of Congress.
Finally, too many current program payments are being made to people
who do not actually farm or already have large incomes. The farm bill
fixes this. Under current law, we say farm payments can only go to
people who are actively engaged in farming. This requirement contained
a loophole, however, known as the management loophole that lets a farm
operation designate managers who are not actually farming, but because
they are listed as managers, they can still get a payment from the
government, and it can allow them to get around the payment limits.
That does not make any sense. Thanks to Senator Grassley, Senator Tim
Johnson, who has legislation in this area--and Senator Grassley is a
member of our committee who has been such a champion on this issue--we
have eliminated that loophole and made sure the payments are going to
people who are actually farming.
This farm bill also reforms the adjusted gross income eligibility
requirement, lowers it substantially, eliminating any payment to
millionaires. Current law includes two AGI calculations, one for farm
income, one for nonfarm income, which is confusing and difficult to
administer. It may allow some people to split their income in a way
that they are eligible for payments they otherwise would not be
eligible for. We close this loophole. We use a single, simple AGI
calculation and restrict the eligibility to those who have less than
$750,000 in AGI.
Finally, the farm bill caps payments at $50,000, less than half of
what a farmer can currently receive. Coupled with closing the
management loophole, the farm bill contains the tightest and strongest
payment limit reforms ever, while maintaining and strengthening the
farm safety net for farmers who really need it. And this is very
important. This is not about eliminating options, it is about focusing
on those who have the most risk and have the most need.
In dairy, we also reform our Nation's dairy policies, replacing the
dairy programs with new, market-oriented programs that allow farmers to
manage their own risk in a manner that works best for them. The dairy
industry suffered serious hardship in 2009, as many of us know--and
certainly the Presiding Officer knows we in Michigan have the same
thing--when milk prices dropped substantially, wiping out many small
and medium-sized dairies. Despite spending $1.3 billion that year, our
current dairy programs weren't able to help many of the farmers in
crisis. In some cases, dairy farms that had been passed down from
generation to generation went bankrupt and, sadly, some farmers even
took their own lives.
Dairy operations across the country are extremely diverse, and the
dairy policies we are setting in this bill recognize that diversity. We
created programs that can be customized by each dairy, and we allow
individual dairies to determine whether to participate in the programs
at all. Two programs will now comprise the dairy risk management
system: the Dairy Production Margin Protection Program and the Dairy
Market Stabilization Program.
The first provides support based on margin--that is, the difference
between the milk price and the feed input costs. This is important
because rising grain prices, coupled with dropping milk prices, can
have a devastating impact on America's dairies. Producers will have to
share in the program's costs--and this is important--but it will allow
them to manage their risk on more of their production at higher
protection levels. We are providing a discounted premium for the first
4 million pounds of milk marketed for each producer--which is somewhere
around 200 to 250 cows--to make sure that small and medium-sized
operations will be able to participate and that all farms will be
eligible.
The second program, the Market Stabilization Program, sends clear
market signals to producers that indicate when they are oversupplying
the market. Dairy is a unique commodity in that it is produced 365 days
a year, cows must be milked daily, the raw product requires further
handling and processing, and there are significant regional differences
in management and marketing. By temporarily reducing a participating
operation's payment for milk marketed by a small percentage when there
is too much supply, the
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margin program removes the incentive for dairies to overproduce during
times of low margins. The program also includes a suspension trigger
based on world prices that ensures U.S. dairies are competitive in the
global market.
Conservation. Throughout this farm bill, we took the same approach as
a family sitting around the table would when they are trying to figure
out cuts in their own budget. We went through every program, again
looked at what was working, what wasn't, looked for duplication and
waste, and we focused on principles, not programs. An excellent example
of that really is conservation.
Farming is measured in generations. Farms are passed down from
children to grandchildren. But a farm can only be successful if it has
quality soil and clean water. One of the farmers who testified before
our committee told us that conservation programs which ``enhance and
protect our natural resource base is a crop insurance program for the
nation.'' I would agree. With a growing global population, it is even
more important than ever that we conserve water and conserve soil
resources. Advances in technology and farm practices have helped our
farmers be more productive than ever before, but no amount of
technology can overcome degraded soils, poor water quality, or a lack
of water.
The farm bill is actually our Nation's single biggest investment in
land and water conservation on private lands in our country. As we went
through every program, we focused on making them more flexible and
easier to use. We have been able to focus 23 different programs into
13. We have reduced it to 13 and put them in 4 primary functions, with
a lot more flexibility for the users.
The first function is working lands--giving farmers and ranchers the
tools they need to be better stewards of the land. The Environmental
Quality Incentive Program--or EQIP--is one of the most important
conservation programs for working lands, providing technical and
financial assistance to farmers, ranchers, and private forest owners to
help them conserve soil and water. This function also includes the
Conservation Stewardship Program, which encourages higher levels of
conservation and the adoption of emerging conservation technologies.
We also continued the conservation innovation grants and the
Voluntary Public Access and Habitat Incentive Program, which allows
private landowners to get added benefits from their lands by opening
them up to hunting, fishing, bird watching, and other kinds of outdoor
recreation. We made these programs more flexible--and this is very
important--and we added a focus on wildlife habitats and made them
easier for farmers to take advantage of.
The second area is the Conservation Reserve Program--very important.
It removes highly erodible land from production to benefit soil and
water quality as well as wildlife habitat. Parts of the Southwest--
certainly my friend and colleague from Kansas knows this--have
experienced record droughts this year. It is stunning what has
happened, and it is the worst since the Dust Bowl era of the 1930s. But
the soil, while it was dry, stayed on the ground because the
Conservation Reserve Program was a part of that change protecting the
soil and air. Our conservation efforts are actually working, and we are
seeing changes even in the worst of times as it relates to the
droughts.
CRP has also been critical in our efforts to rebuild wildlife
populations and to reduce pollution in our streams, our rivers, and our
lakes. We also continued an important transition incentives program to
help older farmers transition their land to beginning farmers.
Third, we focused on regional partnerships. We consolidated four
different programs into one that will provide competitive, merit-based
grants to regional partnerships comprised of conservation groups,
universities, farmers, ranchers, and private landowners to support
improvements to soil health, water quality and quantity, and wildlife
habitat. That is certainly important to me for the Great Lakes--and I
know the Presiding Officer cares about that as well--but it is also
critical for the Chesapeake Bay. And I want to thank our colleagues
from the bay area, certainly Senator Cardin and Senator Casey, who are
on the committee, but also Senator Warner and Members all across the
bay who have been deeply involved in making sure we get this right. It
is also there for other critical areas around the country that have
large-scale regional challenges around conservation.
Finally, I am really proud of the work that was done around
easements. Easements allow landowners to voluntarily enter into an
agreement to preserve wetlands and farmland to protect against
development and sprawl. This year, funding for both the Wetlands
Reserve Program and the Grasslands Reserve Program were was out. So we
streamlined and consolidated to establish an easement program with a
permanent baseline going forward to protect agricultural lands from
development.
This bill also includes a bipartisan sodsaver provision, and I wish
to thank Senators Thune, Johanns, and Sherrod Brown for bringing it
forward, authoring it, and working with us. This provision helps
prevent the plowing up of native prairie. Sodsaver is aimed at
protecting grasslands at high risk of being converted to cropland. This
is not only good for conservation, it saves taxpayers $200 million over
10 years, and it is tied to crop insurance.
I should also say that while the conservation title in the farm bill
is a big win for conservation of our environment, I am proud to say we
have continued to link the commodity title, which I described earlier,
to conservation.
In crop insurance, the sodsaver program creates a penalty if, in
fact, someone is plowing up native prairie. They would lose part of
their discount under crop insurance if they did that. So it is tied
there, and that is very important.
I am very proud of the fact that we received support for our approach
from 643 different conservation and environmental groups in all 50
States. I think that says loudly and clearly that it is possible to
make smart cuts that increase flexibility without sacrificing
effectiveness.
Another area in which we have made significant strides is nutrition
and healthy foods. For too long our Nation's farm bill ignored the
diversity of agriculture and the kinds of healthy foods, such as fruits
and vegetables, that families in America want to put on their kitchen
tables as well. We made significant progress on this front in the 2008
farm bill, with the first-ever specialty crops title, and we have
continued the progress in the Agriculture Reform, Food and Jobs Act.
As I said earlier, as I go to every part of Michigan, I meet people
who have worked all their lives, paid taxes, and never imagined they
would be put in a position where they would need help putting food on
the table for their families. Because of this recession, which has been
way too long in Michigan--it is getting better, but we have been hit
harder, deeper, and longer than anywhere--a lot of families have had to
ask for temporary help. And when they need it, whether it is food
assistance from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which
used to be called food stamps and is now called SNAP, or whether it is
help from a food bank, those families are grateful, and we should be
there when they need that temporary help.
We all expect those programs to have integrity. And as someone whose
State has been hit harder than anyone else's, I want to make absolutely
sure these programs are in place for families who need it, and that
means making absolutely sure every dollar goes to only the families who
need it. That is why we are closing loopholes that allowed lottery
winners--and, unbelievably, we have had at least two instances of this
in Michigan, where someone won the lottery and was able to continue on
food assistance. It is shameful that so many American children go to
bed hungry at night and outrageous that people who have won millions of
dollars in the lottery would be able to continue food assistance. So we
made it absolutely clear that those individuals would be removed from
SNAP immediately.
We are also cracking down on the trafficking of food assistance
benefits. Right now, thanks to the efforts of the last farm bill, fraud
is at an alltime low, but we can do even more. We are
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giving additional resources to monitor and prevent benefit trafficking,
as well as cracking down on liquor and tobacco stores that are
currently allowed to participate in the program.
We are making sure that only people returning to school for career
and technical training are eligible for food assistance, not college
students who are currently at home or being supported by their parents.
Again, with so many families and so many children in need, we can't
afford to divert funds in a way that just shouldn't be there.
We must also ensure that the standards Congress created for SNAP are
followed by the States. We are eliminating a gap in standards that has
allowed 16 States, including Michigan, to give just $1 to people in the
form of energy assistance to help them automatically qualify for
additional SNAP benefits. We know families in parts of the country with
high energy bills are often those who are most food insecure, and that
is why we created the link between food assistance and LIHEAP. But it
is clear Congress never intended for State governments to use this in a
way that could jeopardize additional assistance for families with the
highest utility bills.
Just like with commodity programs, we need to make sure the work we
are doing has integrity and is defensible in our current budget
climate, and we do this in a very careful way to make sure we do not
inadvertently hurt families who truly do have significant energy costs.
In addition to increasing accountability, we are building on the
success of programs that reduce hunger and improve access to healthy
fruits and vegetables. We increase assistance for food banks through
the Emergency Food Assistance Program. In 2010 more than 5 million
people visited a food bank, and as we recover from this recession, it
is absolutely critical that these organizations have food in stock to
help those in need.
We are streamlining the Commodity Supplemental Food Program, which
provides food to low-income individuals, to focus on seniors, and we
are moving women and children into the WIC Program, where they can be
better served.
We are continuing the Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program, which was
authored originally by Senator Harkin when he was chairing the
committee, and I was very proud to work with him on that. It provides
free and healthy snacks to schools with a high number of low-income
children, and it has been incredibly successful.
This bill triples our support for farmers markets and gives them
resources to develop local infrastructure such as food hubs. And we are
continuing an effort to give low-income seniors access to healthy
fruits and vegetables at farmers markets and roadside stands.
We are increasing funding for innovative projects such as community
gardens and urban greenhouse initiatives and protecting funding for
programs that improve people's health.
I should say that all of these are done with small amounts of
dollars, but they are very effective.
We are creating a national pilot modeled after Michigan's successful
Double Up Food Bucks, which gives families relying on SNAP the
opportunity to truly be able to buy fresh fruits and vegetables for
their families. We are also authorizing the Healthy Food Financing
Initiative to offer loans and grants to help address the problem of
food deserts in underserved communities.
We increased funding for several organic programs, which, by the way,
is the fastest growing segment of American agriculture. We increased
support for organic research and extension, and we nearly doubled
funding for the organic cost-share program that supports farmers.
This farm bill is a jobs bill, but it is also a food bill, and the
2012 farm bill goes a long way toward making sure every mom and dad can
put healthy, nutritious food on the table for their children.
As we worked through the farm bill around our table in the
Agriculture Committee, we focused on streamlining and consolidating
programs to get the best possible results. I think that is what people
want us to do. I certainly know that is what people in Michigan want us
to do. We certainly see that in conservation, but we also approached
this in every part of the farm bill.
In farm credit and rural development, we are streamlining the
existing laws, removing unused provisions, and making authorizations
more effective and the administration more effective so that when we
have a part-time mayor who is trying to figure out rural development
programs, they can actually do it and they actually use what have been
extremely effective programs for rural communities.
In our research title, we eliminated dozens of unused or indefensible
authorizations but continued the most important research components and
functions, while streamlining operations, improving accountability in
the use of Federal research funds, and creating an innovative, new
research foundation that matches private dollars and leverages Federal
research dollars to get more innovative food and agricultural research.
And I wish to thank my friend from Kansas, Senator Roberts, for his
important leadership in this as well.
We funded important energy programs, invested in specialty crops and
organic farming, as I mentioned, and we have done all of this while
saving the Federal taxpayers $23 billion. We did it around our table in
the ag room, in a bipartisan fashion, working out differences and
arriving at real solutions.
In the coming days, as we get to debate on the farm bill, we will
talk more about specifics, and I will join my colleagues from the
committee in further explaining various aspects of the bill, and we
will continue to work with all of our colleagues to find additional
solutions and to improve the bill so that our farm programs work best
for all of our regions and all of our States.
While I will do everything I can to work out issues with our
colleagues, I wish to stress the important balance we have struck in a
bipartisan effort, the reforms we have undertaken, and the work we put
into making real reforms without hurting families and without hurting
farmers, who are so important to our economic recovery.
I am very proud of the work we have been able to accomplish--it has
been a lot of hard work--and the way we saved American taxpayers $23
billion through these reforms. I would encourage colleagues to look
closely at the work we have done in the bill, to find a way to support
it, to help us send a strong message to all Americans that this
Congress, this Senate can make tough, smart decisions that cut
spending, invest in America, and that we can do it together.
Speaking of doing it together, I could not have done this without my
friend and my partner, Senator Roberts, the ranking member from Kansas.
This has been a long and difficult process, but frankly there is nobody
I would rather have had sitting across the table from me as we worked
out this bill. Too many people look at Washington and only see
dysfunction and partisanship and divisiveness. Yet we on the
Agriculture Committee have found a way to work together for the good of
the country, for 16 million people who depend on agriculture for their
livelihood. That couldn't have happened without Senator Roberts'
leadership and support, and I thank him as we move forward on this
bill.
