Budget;
Farm Bill; EPA; Biofuels; and, the Ag Economy- Thursday
Posted
By Keith Good On April 11, 2013
Executive
Branch Budget Proposal- Agricultural Related Issues
DTN Ag
Policy Editor Chris Clayton reported yesterday (link
requires subscription) that, “The budget proposal President Barack
Obama released Wednesday [full budget here, agriculture
section here]
is unlikely to gain any traction in agriculture, particularly
in areas such as cuts to crop insurance or shifts in international
food aid.
“The
president’s proposal — released two months behind schedule — would cut
$37.8 billion from farm programs and crop insurance. That compares to the
Senate Agriculture Committee’s plan for a $23 billion cut in
the entire farm bill last year while the House Agriculture Committee
passed $35 billion in savings.”
Mr. Clayton
added that, “Once again, the administration proposes to eliminate direct
payments, which Congress also is willing to do, but also to include
a disaster program even though Congress let the disaster program expire in 2012.”
With
respect to crop insurance, an Office of Management and Budget overview
from Tuesday stated that, “The 2014 Budget includes several
legislative proposals to reduce the premium subsidies farmers
receive on their crop insurance policies:
“Reduce
the subsidy for producer premiums by 3 percentage points for policies where the
Government subsidizes more than 50 percent of the premium (previous
proposals reduced these by only 2 percentage points). The reduced premium
levels will still provide a reasonable level of subsidy to the farmer, but not
be overly generous, and the safety net will remain intact. This is
expected to save $4.2 billion over 10 years.
“Reduce
premium subsidy by 2 percentage points for revenue coverage that provides
protection for upward price movements at harvest time. This proposal
de-emphasizes the insuring price protection on the futures markets in favor of
insuring expected returns for the actual crop at the time of planting. This is
expected to save $3.2 billion over 10 years.”
The
President’s budget proposal, which included this
graph regarding crop insurance, stated that, “As the chart indicates, crop
insurance subsidies have risen dramatically in recent years.”
Bill
Tomson reported yesterday at the Washington Wire Blog (Wall Street
Journal) that, “The administration’s proposal to cut crop insurance
subsidies is expected to face strong opposition by lawmakers and farm groups. The
Senate voted last year to increase spending on crop insurance by $2.7 billion
over 10 years.”
And Dan
Looker reported yesterday at Agriculture.com that, “Crop
insurance continues to have strong support among members of the Senate and
House agriculture committees. Leaders of both the Senate and House
committees told North American Agricultural Journalists
