Letters continue to farm bill conferees
October 25, 2013 | 12:53 PM
Members of Congress urge beginning farmer provisions
Coalitions of senators and House members on Thursday wrote farm bill conferees letters urging support for beginning farmers and ranchers, including targeted programs that provide new and young farmers with education and training, access to credit, and programs to help them buy land and have access to conservation programs.
The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition released the letters.
Wheat growers write on crop insurance, food aid, payments
The National Association of Wheat Growers on Thursday sent farm bill conferees a letter urging them to oppose both means testing for crop insurance and a linkage between crop insurance subsidies and conservation compliance and favoring the House version of food aid reauthorization and a farm-level trigger for farm program payments.
“Some wheat states have an average county size of 1,500-2,600 square miles or more,” wrote Wheat Growers President Bing Von Bergen, a Moccasin, Mont., farmer.
“The most devastating losses due to a disaster (drought, hail, wind, etc.) are frequently localized, meaning a farmer within one of these very large counties could experience a near total crop loss while his neighbors cut the best crops they’ve ever seen, resulting in no average loss for that county and no safety net for that farmer,” Von Bergen wrote.
“With wheat being grown in some of the largest and most diverse counties in the United States, NAWG feels that only providing a county-level trigger is inadequate for a majority of our growers.”
The group also said that reference prices — another term for target prices — should not be market-distorting.
