Bradley Outlines Agricultural Policy

October 11, 1999

Democratic presidential candidate Bill Bradley unveils his agricultural policy and calls for $1.32 billion in new spending on farm programs."First-year costs" include spending $5.5 billion to improve farm income, the same amount being spent now on transition payments under the freedom to farm law.

Bradley proposes a "counter-cyclical income stabilization program" that gives farmers direct payments when prices decline below a threshold. Payments would be triggered when prices decline below an indexed ratio of the prices paid for seed, fertilizer, equipment and farm maintenance to prices received for commodities.

Payments would be limited to make sure most of the benefits go to small, independent farmers. Applicants and their families would have to demonstrate they were actively farming, but payments would not be tied to particular crops and would not encourage excess production, Bradley says.

Conservation programs would be expanded under the Bradley plan by $1.25 billion. He would expand the Conservation Reserve Program to 42 million acres with new acreage reserved only for the most environmentally sensitive land. Bradley also supports Sen. Tom Harkin's (D-IA) proposal to compensate farmers if they adopt and maintain a package of at least three conservation practices.

Bradley also proposes to transfer the Packers and Stockyards Administration from USDA to the Justice Department "where mergers and acquisitions will have more rigorous review for possible anti-competitive consequences." He wants enough federal funding for mandatory price reporting and proposes to allow meat processors who meet national hazard analysis and critical control point (HACCP) requirements to ship meat and poultry products across state lines.

He proposes full funding for a rural development program designed to provide money for research, extension and education programs that help farmers develop their communities, develop new technology and develop methods to market their products more effectively and increase domestic and international economic opportunities.

First-year costs for the farm income section are $5.5 billion; expanding conservation programs, $1.25 billion; reducing agribusiness concentration, $7 million and enhancing businesses, $60 million, according to Bradley.

The entire Bradley announcement can be accessed on the Internet at http://www.billbradley.com/bin/article.pl?path=081099/5.