Ag Policy Blog

A spokesman for Sen. John Boozman, R-Ark., ranking member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, said Thursday that he had no reaction to a letter on the farm bill that Senate Agriculture Committee Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., sent to committee members.

"We don't have a comment on the chairwoman's letter at this time," the spokesman said.

In the letter, Stabenow said she wanted to outline her proposal "for strengthening the safety net in the 2024 farm bill."

"The good news is the 'farm' is on every page of the farm bill," she wrote.

"My vision for modernizing the safety net centers around five key principles:

-- Programs must be targeted to active farmers;

-- We need to provide farmers choices and flexibility;

-- Assistance should be timely;

-- We need to expand the reach of programs to help more farmers; and

-- We need to address the emerging risks farmers face."

Stabenow wrote, "Crop insurance is a key tool that meaningfully advances each of these goals. ... Other tools, while helpful, often take a year or more after a disaster for assistance to reach farmers."

She noted that the 2018 farm bill "provided cotton farmers with a choice between the traditional base acre programs and a highly subsidized and streamlined area-based crop insurance policy," and said, "The next farm bill should give a similar option to all commodities."

On the Agriculture Risk Coverage (ARC) and Price Loss Coverage (PLC) programs, Stabenow said, "The 2018 bill created an 'effective reference price' for PLC that tracks the price of commodities and increases support to farmers in a market-oriented fashion."

"This means that under existing law, half of the program crops and more than 90% of the program acres are going to see an automatic 10%-15% increase in their reference price over the next few years. I am open to proposals that would make sure every covered commodity receives an increase under an 'effective reference price."

Stabenow listed other "improvements" the bill could make, but said, "We're not going to have the bipartisan votes to achieve these improvements if they are paid for by taking money from nutrition programs which help more than 44 million Americans struggling with hunger, or from popular conservation programs, when the climate crisis is hitting farmers' bottom lines every day."

Stabenow noted she has a commitment from Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. "to work with us to find several billion dollars from outside the farm bill to help us achieve our goals. We should not let this opportunity pass."

She concluded, "If we're going to get a farm bill done this spring to keep farmers farming, it's time to get serious. I look forward to continuing our bipartisan work to get it done."

Stabenow letter to Senate Agriculture Committee members: https://www.hagstromreport.com/…

Jerry Hagstrom can be reached at jhagstrom@nationaljournal.com

Follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter, @hagstromreport

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