NASDA Thinks $13 Billion Needed for Farm Relief

September 10

The National Association of State Departments of Agriculture has proposed $13 billion for farm relief this year. The plan includes income and natural disaster payments and emergency conservation, trade and economic development spending.

A general breakdown of expenditures includes $8 billion for income disaster payments, including $201 million for the cotton Step 2 program and $400 million for crop insurance assistance; $3.6 billion for natural disaster payments and $1.4 billion for conservation, trade and economic development.

In a letter to Senate and House leadership of both parties, NASDA President Cary Peterson says the Senate's $7.4 billion package "does not address the increasing number of states and counties being declared disaster areas on an almost daily basis." USDA also should be given the authority to use appropriated money to pay for transporting feedstuffs and grain to disaster areas.

NASDA also called for making permanent the Emergency Livestock Program. The organization also plans to propose crop insurance reforms and long-term farm policy changes for Congress to consider "with the end result of avoiding the need for an annual disaster package."

"Our agricultural prosperity has been heavily dependent on exports," says Peterson, "which accounted for about 25% of farm income and for an estimated 30% of all U.S. crop acreage in 1998. Export value has declined from the record of $60 billion in fiscal year 1996 to a projected $49 billion in fiscal year 1999."

That decline, he adds, "can be attributed mainly to the recent financial crisis in key overseas markets which caused prices to drop dramatically in the domestic market. Dismal prices combined with increasing and spreading drought conditions have left America's farmers in a situation not seen since the Great Depression."