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After returning from its Columbus Day recess, the Senate is set to finally begin formal debate on its version of the farm bill. Wednesday Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Tom Harkin said he's brokered a deal that he described as "broad bipartisan support." The deal is with the committee's ranking Republican, Sen. Saxby Chambliss of Georgia and Sen. Kent Conrad, D., N., who chairs the budget committee and is a senior Democrat on the agriculture committee.
Apparently allowing farmers to choose between traditional farm programs or a state-level revenue assurance program could save $3 billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office scoring.
Under Harkin's proposal, participants in farm programs would be allowed to plant non-program crops. Coupled with savings provided earlier this month by the Senate Finance Committee, Harkin said his "chairman's mark" next week will offer $4 billion in new funding for conservation programs.
Of that, $1.28 billion is earmarked for the Conservation Security Program — which Harkin plans to rename the "Conservation Stewardship Program." Even though the House bill has no funding for the program, Harkin noted his bill is fully funded and theirs is not. "They will have to come our way" in the Senate-House conference, he predicted. Harkin projects the CSP, which provides "green payments" for conservation practices on working lands, will grow by 13 million acres through the life of the five-year bill.
His proposal also calls for spending $1.2 billion for farm-based energy production — particularly biomass production for cellulosic biorefineries. And, likely as an offset to lifting the plant prohibition, Harkin said funding for fruits and vegetables is "a signature" of the new farm bill in the sense that the energy title was in the spotlight in the 2002 farm bill. The farm bill would expand the current pilot program for school snacks of fruits and vegetables to a nationwide program.
Harkin said committee action will begin next Wednesday.
Policy is one of the most important issues facing farmers today, but often the most difficult to digest. Jacqui Fatka has a passion to decode the often difficult world of agricultural policy into terms understandable for today's ag players.
Fatka joined the Farm Progress team as E-Content Editor in August 2003 after graduating from Iowa State University. Prior to full-time employment with Farm Progress, she interned at Wallaces Farmer magazine, Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley's press office and the Iowa Pork Producers Association and freelanced for National Hog Farmer. She also worked as a public relations consultant with Iowa Industries for the Future, an effort to bring together major players in the biorenewables industry.
Currently Fatka is a staff editor at a sister publication, Feedstuffs. For Farm Futures she regularly tells the story of ongoing agricultural policy changes. Her byline can also be found on management profiles.
Fatka grew up on a grain and livestock farm near Atlantic, Iowa. She currently lives in central Ohio with her husband Eric.
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