Corn, Soybean Groups Call for Quick Farm Bill Passage

September 11, 2001

The National Corn Growers Association (NCGA) and the American Soybean Association (ASA) have joined the American Farm Bureau Federation to express concerns to members of Congress that amendments would undermine passage of House version of a new farm bill. Of special concern was fear over attempts to move money from commodity programs to other agricultural programs such as conservation. The AFBF made a similar plea earlier.

"We believe that it is necessary to move forward with a House farm bill package as quickly as possible to maintain the additional $73.5 billion in funding as provided in the 2002 Budget Resolution," said NCGA Vice President of Public Policy Bruce Knight. "While both of our organizations have concerns about the details of the legislation, we feel it is important to move forward to secure the additional funds, so we are asking for the bill's prompt consideration on the House floor."

In a letter sent two members of Congress, the two groups said: "We oppose any effort to significantly alter the funding allocations between the different titles of the Farm Security Act. We request that you vote against any amendment that would move to take funds away from the commodity programs and reallocate them to different areas of the bill."

The farm bill is likely to be considered by the House later this week.

In a related move, several commodity group allies joined to oppose conservation-related amendments to the House-crafted farm bill that would reallocate money from the commodity title to the conservation title.

"NCGA is concerned that portions of Rep. Ron Kind's (D-WI) legislation, the Working Lands Stewardship Act, will be offered as an amendment to the House farm bill proposal - the Farm Security Act," said NCGA Vice President of Public Policy Bruce Knight. "The title of the Kind legislation is misleading because the bill increases programs such as CRP that idle land, and does not provide broad access to conservation programs."

In a letter to all House members, NCGA and the other groups stated their belief that the "legislation does not address the needs of agricultural producers on working land, but instead increases programs to take land out of production and does not allow growers facing the most urgent environmental pressures to access the programs."

The agriculture groups that signed the letter noted that under previous farm bills, programs developed under both the conservation title and the commodity title have been created for specific, distinct reasons, and should remain so in the next farm bill. Additionally, programs operating under the conservation and commodity titles should have new sources of funding.

"It is not our desire to see conservation programs replace income support programs under the commodity title of the farm bill," the letter stated.

The letter asks every member of the House of Representatives "to vote against any amendment that would reallocate funds between the program titles as detailed in the Farm Security Act" because altering the distribution of funds as described in the Farm Security Act will not assist growers in meeting economic or environmental pressures.

Groups signing the letter represent corn, soybeans, wheat, barley, cotton, grain sorghum and rice.