June 21, 2012
Conservation Compliance Amendment Passes Senate 52-47!
The U.S. Congress voted 52-47 in favor of relinking conservation compliance to crop insurance in the next Farm Bill! This is a huge victory, and we are grateful that Illinois Senator Dick Durbin voted in favor of the amendment. We are also grateful to those of you who responded to our call-to-action and contacted your Senators to support the amendment.
If the House version of the Farm Bill also supports conservation compliance, farmers who receive crop insurance subsidies will have to control erosion and conserve wetlands. We think that’s more than a fair deal in exchange for the billions of taxpayer dollars that subsidize crop insurance premiums each year.
What’s next? The Senate may vote on the entire Farm Bill later this week, and then the House Agriculture Committee will draft their version of the Farm Bill after the Fourth of July recess. Illinois has three Congressman on the House Agriculture Committee: Hultgren, Johnson, and Schilling. Therefore, we will be calling on you in the near future to contact these legislators and urge their support for conservation compliance in the House Farm Bill.
1 :: Paul :: August 22nd, 2012 at 7:25 am
You have a great website, yet your overtones of commentary is negative to the farming community. That is unfortunate as you are biting the hand that feeds you.
Your comment of ‘taxpayers subsidizing crop insurance’ makes for great sensationalism in these articles, yet you leave out much detail. Farmers pay quite a bit into their crop insurance policies, this is not a gimme from the gov’t. The private insurer’s purchase re-insurance from larger companies and ultimately the gov’t is the final backer if the premiums do not cover it. The gov’t has designed programs that have ultimately kept food prices low for Americans for decades. Americans on average pay 15% of disposable income for food. This is much lower than our counter parts in the EU.
You have a problem with the industry that provides you the bread and drink for your table, yet nearly 80% of the USDA Farm Program budget goes to Link cards and about 26 food programs, to the tune of $100 BILLION a year.
Look at the farm subsidy payments and where they go, the greatest majority of it is towards rice, sugar and cotton farmers.
2 :: sjames :: August 22nd, 2012 at 12:25 pm
Paul, thank you for your comment! You make some good points about equity, costs, and relative scale. As a river conservation organization, our main interests in the Farm Bill are the conservation programs and the conservation compliance provisions. We weren’t trying to sensationalize crop insurance subsidies, but it is true that American taxpayers subsidize federal crop insurance to the tune of about $7 billion annually. We believe that in exchange for these subsidies, farmers should have to follow the good stewardship practices required under Conservation Compliance. The practices typically required under Compliance are not generally considered burdensome, but rather beneficial to the long-term health of the land. For example, erosion has reduced substantially thanks to Compliance. With the looming departure of direct payments (which are tied to Compliance), we feel it is important for crop insurance to be linked to Compliance. We don’t “have a problem with the industry” – we have a problem with pollution!!