Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman plans to ask Congress for more authority over agricultural production. Previous attempts to get more congressional authority have gone nowhere.
"We no longer have the ability to control production when demand falls," he told USDA’s agricultural forum. "In the past I have asked for the authority to extend commodity loans, uncap those commodity loans and seek set-aside authority in limited circumstances. I am once again calling on Congress to work with me to meet these emergency circumstances that farmers and ranchers are facing."
Although he agrees that the $6 billion in emergency aid Congress granted last year was needed, "lurching from one expensive ad hoc relief bill to the next is not the best or most cost-effective way to protect farmers." He also returned to a familiar theme: reforming crop insurance as the main risk management tool for farmers.
Crop insurance needs to be more affordable, especially at higher levels of coverage; policies should cover multi-year losses, not only single year losses; the range of insurable crops needs to be expanded; revenue insurance should be expanded as an "affordable option to more farmers" and a pilot crop insurance program for livestock should be implemented. On-farm storage facilities should be partially government financed, he added, and the private crop insurance companies "should be stepping up to the plate with new risk management tools."