Glickman Wants Long-Term Policy from Proposal

February 10, 2000

Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman believes the farmer assistance package announced as part of the fiscal 2001 budget proposal to Congress should represent "a new philosophical direction that can help map a course toward the 2002 farm bill."

In his address to the 2000 Wheat Industry Conference and Exposition in Las Vegas Wednesday, Glickman said, "I see this as more than a stopgap...I consider this not a set of funding levels but a set of ideas."

Congress is expected to consider some legislative alternative to the current policies of the freedom to farm law, although there are no indications the law would be eliminated. Instead it would be allowed to expire on schedule in 2002. House Agriculture Committee Chairman Larry Combest (R-TX) will open hearings on new farm policies soon, and a supplemental income program is expected to be a focus of those hearings.

The administration’s budget proposal includes $6.9 billion in supplemental income assistance targeted at smaller farmers and "to those who actually work the land, not necessarily those who own the land," Glickman said, "in other words, farmers not landlords."

Loan rates would be held at current levels for this crop year, $2.7 billion would be appropriated for increased conservation assistance and a premium discount would be continued for farmers who purchase buy-up crop insurance coverage.

Glickman also promised to announce additional food aid "very soon." In 1999, he told the conference, 8 million tons of wheat and other commodities were shipped to about 50 different countries. "That was almost five times the 1998 tonnage and the highest level of food aid in several years."