Jeanne Merrill | California Climate & Agriculture Network

Senate Passes Farm Bill, No Action on Climate Change

June 14, 2013 by Jeanne Merrill Leave a Comment

One of the CA members of NSAC: Agricultural & Land-Based Training Program (ALBA) uses farm bill funding to support its innovative farm incubator programs.

This week, the Senate passed its version of the farm bill on a vote of 66 – 27 with attention now turning to the House. Few amendments to the bill were included in the final package, leaving behind a number of the sustainable agriculture amendments supported by the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition and its members, including CalCAN. Among those not taken up were amendments relating to climate change and agriculture. We were disheartened the Senate passed on opportunities to support grower efforts to address climate change.

For a breakdown on the ins-and-outs of the bill and next steps, please see the NSAC blog here.

Stay tuned for opportunities weigh in on the farm bill with California House delegates.

Why care about the farm bill? It’s our national food and farm policy and it sets the stage for a whole host of on-the-ground resources in California that support agricultural conservation, organic farming, farmers markets, community supported agriculture and more! But without your voice, large corporate interests will dominate the debate. Click here for more on how you can get involved.

Filed Under: Farm Bill 2013 Tagged With: agriculture, ALBA, climate change, conservation, NSAC

Governor and Legislative Leaders Cut Budget Deal, Delay Climate Investments

June 14, 2013 by Jeanne Merrill Leave a Comment

Governor Jerry Brown offers opening remarks at the conference on Extreme Climate Risks and California’s Future. 2011.

Despite Governor Brown’s recent strong words of warning that climate change will soon be irreversible, the administration and legislative leaders decided to wait another day to invest in climate change solutions. In a budget deal finalized this week, $500 million of the cap-and-trade auction proceeds will be loaned to the state’s General Fund to be paid back to the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund sometime in the future.

The auction proceeds from the cap-and-trade program are intended to be invested in activities that further the state’s climate change goals: reducing greenhouse gas emissions while creating jobs and delivering additional benefits like improved air and water quality and greater resilience to a changing climate. CalCAN supports investments in sustainable agricultural solutions to climate change, including farmland conservation and sustainable agricultural practices that reduce GHG emissions and sequester carbon.

In a recent opinion column in the Modesto Bee, organic dairy and almond producer and CalCAN farmer advisor Ward Burroughs said: “There is no time to waste in unleashing the potential for agriculture to help slow climate change. All eyes are on California as it rolls out its cap-and-trade program, and we have the chance to be a model for others around the world for taking bold and creative action.”

In May, the Governor’s administration released their three-year investment plan for the auction proceeds, which included many of our top priorities. However, he did not see fit to start making those investments this year.

The loan of the cap-and-trade funds happened despite state budget projections from the Legislative Analyst Office of $3.2 billion in additional revenue to the state in FY 2013-14. The Governor took a more fiscally conservative approach to the budget, calling for a budget that relied on more constrained income projections. Such an approach, however, ignores the job creating potential of investing in climate solutions like renewable energy, water use efficiency, and more, and delays the state’s ability to reap the many benefits of protecting our resources, like farmland, from development, which only spurs greater GHG emissions.

The Governor and the legislature will return to the issue in January as the 2014/15 state budget is proposed. CalCAN will continue to advocate for investing in sustainable agricultural solutions to climate change.

Meanwhile, please drop us a line - info@calclimateag.org – on what you think should happen with state’s investments in climate solutions in agriculture. What are your best ideas? We’ll compile and post them here.

Filed Under: AB 32 Implementation, California Policy, Farmer Resources Tagged With: cap-and-trade, Governor Brown, state budget, sustainable agriculture

Crop Insurance for a Changing Climate

January 30, 2013 by Jeanne Merrill Leave a Comment

Guest blog by Adam Kotin, Bay Area Program Associate for Hazon

After more than a year’s work crafting a new five-year Farm Bill, Congress decided to once again put off the hard decisions.

Instead, as part of the last-minute ‘fiscal cliff’ deal, it authorized a 9-month extension of the 2008 farm bill. This extension eschews reform and lacks vital funding for conservation, research, energy, specialty crop and organic programs.

Congress did, however, preserve piles of funding for a major aspect of the farmer ‘safety net’: subsidized crop insurance.

This past spring, as part of a cost-cutting farm bill that would have saved $23 billion over five years, the Senate voted to eliminate the longstanding direct payments program—a move that has been supported by the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) and most conservation-minded organizations for many years. The bill passed out of committee in the House of Representatives did the same, with its additional $12 billion in cuts coming largely at the expense of food stamps and conservation spending.

But House Speaker John Boehner (R – OH) didn’t let the bill go up for a vote, paving the way for the gutless farm bill extension.

Above all, the 2012 Farm Bill debacle revealed a confused and divided Congressional leadership. Many commentators, and indeed many of the politicians whose job it is to pass agricultural legislation, are left wondering, ‘What next?’

The short answer is: we don’t know. Whether or not legislators will be able to pull together a comprehensive new farm bill before the current extension expires is anyone’s guess. But given the current cost-cutting zeitgeist on Capitol Hill, it’s a fair bet to say that any new farm bill will significantly slash all of the major agricultural programs—all, that is, except perhaps crop insurance.

Despite tremendous political pressure, including from the White House itself, rural lawmakers have stood firm in their desires to not just preserve crop insurance but to expand it. Both the House and Senate Farm Bills would have increased overall spending on crop insurance, even going so far as to create a new insurance mechanism for expanded coverage in cases of revenue loss.

The federally-subsidized crop insurance program, begun as a temporary emergency support to Dust Bowl and Depression-era farmers, has effectively become ‘too big to fail’.

The federal government now pays about 62 cents of every dollar in crop insurance premiums, and many farmers say crop insurance is the program they depend upon the most. Following the most recent spates of extreme weather, some say insurance is what keeps them afloat. Farmers’ unions across the country have let it be known that crop insurance is a top priority for the future.

But as the 113^th Congress starts from scratch in 2013, the full cost of a farmer safety net during the United States’ hottest year on record is becoming clear. The taxpayer bill for crop insurance indemnities is expected to top out at around $15.8 billion for the 2012 year, shattering the previous cost of $9.4 billion for 2011 losses.

It is therefore easy to see why farm-state lawmakers are increasingly anxious about crop insurance being a ‘juicy target’ for spending cuts. They point out that indemnities are at an all-time high because the program is so badly needed—after all, high indemnity costs mean farmers are actually relying on crop insurance when extreme weather strikes.

So in the renewed farm bill talks, two things should be heard screaming out for lawmakers’ attention. First, the need for sensible and forward-thinking agricultural spending reform; and second, the need to plan for and address the impacts of extreme weather on our farming systems.

Here’s the good news: when used in tandem with a prudent package of other programs, crop insurance itself might be used to both reduce farm vulnerability and gird our agricultural systems for the future climate.

Insurance mechanisms will almost assuredly play a major role in adapting current social and economic systems to the effects of climate change. It’s insurance companies, by and large, who set the price of risk. They’re also the ones who can encourage you to take preventative action, such as by lowering your premium for driving safely or installing a burglar alarm.

When insurance companies incorporate future climate change risks into their models, people respond to them, as well, by building further away from the rising sea or, say, increasing water use efficiencyin a drought-prone area.

Research in the most recent issue of Science suggests that the global property/casualty insurance industry is actually becoming a vanguard for climate change mitigation and adaptation. Insurers are supporting climate-aware zoning measures and other adaptation measures that build resilience and, ultimately, reduce weather-related losses.

The crop insurance industry might do much the same. A climate-adaptive federal crop insurance program would reward growers who acknowledge future climate risks and plan accordingly. It would extend and expand insurance support to farmers using sustainable practices that build strong, healthy soil and reduce water use when water is scarce. It would, as CalCAN and NSAC have argued, tie conservation compliance to crop insurance, ensuring that farms’ ecological systems are protected. A healthy farm ecosystem can serve as its own form of insurance, softening the effects of heavy floods, droughts, and winds.

At present, organic, sustainable, small-scale farms and many specialty crop growers are largely excluded from government insurance support. Traditional insurance structures favor neither diversification nor small-scale production; the federal farmer ‘safety net’ benefits some farmers over others. The vast majority of farms receiving federal crop insurance subsidies are therefore large commodity producers, whose reliance on off-farm inputs and lack of diversification make them even more vulnerable when extreme weather hits.

Rather than proposing to use conservation funds to pay for disaster assistance, as the House did back in August, lawmakers should view our nation’s conservation, energy, specialty crop, and organic expenditures as investments in a more climate-resilient agricultural system.

Crop insurance is just one part of the huge farm bill apparatus, but extreme weather events and climate change impacts will continue to push it further to the fore. How crop insurance relates to other farm-level programs in the next farm bill could set our course on issues of climate adaptation for years down the road.

Filed Under: Farm Bill 2013, Farmer Resources Tagged With: crop insurance, drought, farm bill, flood

Governor Brown’s Budget: Roundup on Sustainable Agriculture and Climate Change Priorities

January 14, 2013 by Jeanne Merrill Leave a Comment

Last week Governor Jerry Brown released his budget for 2013-4. California faced stiff budget cuts in recent years as the state grappled with multi-billion dollar deficits in a recession racked economy. With the voters’ approval of Proposition 30, which raises sales tax and income tax on high-income earners, along with the Governor’s proposed cuts to prisons and state courts, Governor Brown says he has delivered the first balanced budget proposal in years. We looked at the budget’s impacts as they relate to our sustainable agriculture and climate change priorities:

Cap-and-trade revenue investments for sustainable agriculture: The state will generate revenue from the auctioning of allowances (aka permits to emit greenhouse gas emissions) under the new cap-and-trade program. Auctions will be held quarterly. The funds will be invested in activities that further the state’s climate change goals by investing in activities that reduce greenhouse gas emissions. CalCAN and our allies have advocated that a portion of the cap-and-trade funds should go towards sustainable agricultural solutions to climate change, including funding for agricultural research, farmland conservation, grower technical assistance and financial incentives for farming systems that provide climate and other environmental benefits. The Governor’s budget states that sustainable agriculture will be considered in the planning process for the cap-and-trade investment plan, due out in May. The inclusion of sustainable agriculture as a possible investment category is an important step forward, and we will continue to advocate for inclusion in the final investment plan.

Farmland conservation: Unfortunately, the Governor’s budget does little for farmland conservation. Like previous years, the budget eliminates state funding for Williamson Act subvention payments. Local government will have to continue to go it alone on the Williamson Act program, which gives landowners a break on their property taxes if they agree to a minimum 10-year contract to keep their land in agriculture or open space. Without state funding, we may have more counties limiting new sign-ups to the program or beginning to cancel Williamson act contracts. The budget also eliminates funding for the California Farmland Conservancy Program, which funded the purchase of conservation easements on agricultural land. Funding is increased for the Farmland Mapping and Monitoring Program, which provides important data on the status of farmland in the state. But without tools to protect farmland, and with new development pressures especially from large infrastructure projects, the Governor’s budget leaves farmland conservation in the dust.

Energy efficiency, renewable energy for agriculture: The Governor’s budget provides over $190 million for EPIC (Electricity Program Investment Charge Program) to fund energy efficiency and renewable energy research and development. The Governor’s leadership made the EPIC program possible to help California continue to advance in energy efficiency and the production of distributed renewable energy generation, but the devil is the details. How EPIC funds will be delivered will be determined this year as the California Energy Commission and the California Public Utilities Commission finalize their plan for the program funds. CalCAN will continue to advocate for access to these programs for small and mid-scale producers to implement on-farm renewable energy and energy efficiency measures.

California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA): The Governor’s budget ends several years of budget cuts to CDFA and increases the general fund allocation to the department to $61.9 million from $60.3 million. Previous cuts eliminated funding for CDFA’s biological control program and other programs. Details are still forthcoming on how the Governor’s proposed budget will shake out for biological control and other sustainable agriculture priority initiatives at the department.

Filed Under: AB 32 Implementation, California Policy, Farmer Resources, Renewable Energy, Uncategorized Tagged With: AB 32, budget, California Budget, cap-and-trade, CDFA, farmland conservation, Governor Jerry Brown

First Cap and Trade Auction – CPUC’s “Climate Dividend” – Investment Plan

November 22, 2012 by Jeanne Merrill Leave a Comment

The results from California’s first cap-and-trade auction were announced this week – nearly $290 million was raised. The first auction included the selling of allowances (aka permits to emit greenhouse gas emissions) to be held by the utility sector and, separately, by the industrial sector.

In total about 350 entities in California – e.g. oil refineries, large manufacturers, food processors, utilities – will participate in cap-and-trade program. California will hold quarterly auctions and the percent of allowances that are auctioned will increase over time. The funds generated will be invested back into the program with some important exceptions.

The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) recently proposed that 85 percent of the funds generated from the utility auction (about $233 million from the first auction) will be returned to rate payers in the form of “climate dividend” rate reductions. The CPUC estimates the average residential customer in California will receive a rate reduction of about $30 dollars twice a year.

Good climate change policy limits impacts on the poor, including rising energy costs. But the choice of the CPUC to return millions and eventually billions of dollars of auction proceeds in the form of relatively small rate reductions for most, and bigger pay-offs for the largest emitters of greenhouse gas emissions, rather than investing in green infrastructure, home weatherization, energy efficiency and renewable energy, represents a real loss in realizing long-term energy savings and clean energy development.

How the other portion of the auction revenue – funds raised through the auctioning of industrial sector allowances – will be invested will be taken up by the Governor’s administration and the legislature next year.

CalCAN will continue to advocate that by investing in agricultural solutions to climate change the state can achieve important GHG reductions while boosting our rural communities and improving our environment overall.

Filed Under: AB 32 Implementation, California Policy Tagged With: AB 32, auction, cap-and-trade, CPUC

Governor Signs Fertilizer Program Reform Bill

August 29, 2012 by Jeanne Merrill Leave a Comment

At the end of August, Governor Jerry Brown signed into law Assembly Bill 2174, authored by Assemblymember Luis Alejo (D-Salinas). The bill allows technical assistance projects as an eligible category of funding under the Fertilizer Research and Education Program (FREP) of the California Department of Food and Agriculture.

Established more than twenty years ago to address nitrate contamination of groundwater from agricultural sources, FREP is funded by an assessment on fertilizers. The program provides competitive grants for research and education — and now technical assistance projects — to promote the efficient use of fertilizers to prevent groundwater contamination.

The bill comes on the heels of recent report to the state legislature that finds that agriculture is responsible for over 95 percent of the nitrate groundwater contamination found in the Tulare Lake Basin and Salinas Valley. Over 250,000 people in the study areas are without safe drinking water because of nitrate contamination of wells and small water systems. The primary sources of the contamination are synthetic fertilizer and manure applications to cropland. Fertilizer is also a source of nitrous oxide emissions, a potent greenhouse gas.

How growers will grapple with the land stewardship complexities of nitrate leaching comes at a time of declining public investment in technical assistance. The number of county-based UC Cooperative Extension farm advisors is at an all-time low, with many counties closing offices and eliminating positions.

CalCAN supported AB 2174 because it will help move FREP from theory to practice by making available existing funding to translate research findings into on-the-ground assistance for growers to address nutrient management issues specific to their operations. Now UC Cooperative Extension, local Resource Conservation Districts, nonprofits and others can apply for funding for projects to work with growers on developing nutrient management plans that minimize groundwater contamination and greenhouse gas emissions from fertilizer use.

Filed Under: California Policy, Farmer Resources Tagged With: AB 2174, Assemblymember Luis Alejo, fertilizer, FREP, Governor Brown, greenhouse gas, groundwater, nitrate, technical assistance

Climate and economic change: Lessons from Scotland

August 9, 2012 by Jeanne Merrill Leave a Comment

On a recent trip to Scotland, I had the opportunity to sit down with Lyn Matheson with the Soil Association to discuss their work on climate change and agriculture. The Soil Association has a diversity of technical, policy, certification and education programs to support and expand organic food and farming in Great Britain.

Photo courtesy of the Soil Association.

Over a cup of tea and biscuits on a rainy July day in Edinburgh, Lyn described their project The Future Proofing of Scotland’s Agriculture. Recognizing that climate change will have some its greatest impacts on Scotland’s farming sector, the Soil Association of Scotland launched a program of technical assistance for farmers — aimed not just at organic producers, but producers of all kinds — on how they can reduce their carbon footprint and improve their bottom-line. The program, now in its fourth year, aims to “prepare agricultural businesses for the impacts, opportunities and risks that both climate and economic change bring.”

Scotland’s agriculture is predominantly livestock-based, covering about 75 percent of the country’s land mass. Small grain crops, including barley for whiskey production, make up the second largest commodity group in the country, followed by potato, canola and fruit and vegetable production. The majority of farms are small and mid-sized family operations with the average farm income $60,000 in U.S. dollars.

Some of the questions facing Scotland’s farmers will be familiar to many U.S. producers: how best to improve nutrient management, enhance livestock and forage production, produce renewable energy and cut energy costs. Through workshops and farm visits with tangible examples of successful projects, Lyn brings together farmers, agronomists and other technical experts.

The workshops consistently fill up with farmer participants, some with waiting lists. The reason? According to Lyn, the key is to provide information that can make a difference for farmers now – energy savings, lower fertilizer bills, etc. – while highlighting the long term benefits of making their farms more resilient in the face of a changing climate.

The Soil Association’s program is one piece of multiple-pronged strategy to address climate change and agriculture issues in Scotland. Click here for more details.

Filed Under: Farmer Resources, General Information Tagged With: agriculture, climate change, economic impacts, Scotland, technical assistance

Organic Agriculture Just Got Better at Being Nature-Friendly

August 6, 2012 by Jeanne Merrill 1 Comment

photo courtesy of USDA/NRCS

The following blog post comes courtesy of the Wild Farm Alliance, one of our many partners. The National Organic Program recently clarified their requirements for natural resource conservation on organic farms. This is good news. Increased biodiversity on farms and protection of natural resources come with multiple benefits, including greater resilience to more extreme weather events.

Organic certification agencies now have to show USDA that they are making sure their farmers and others using the USDA organic seal are conserving natural resources. It’s not like this hasn’t been in the regulations since they were first published in 2001, but the buck is finally stopping here.

USDA’s National Organic Program (NOP) updated two sections of their Audit Checklists to include the natural resources standard that requires farmers, ranchers, wild harvesters, and processors to “maintain or improve the natural resources of the operation, including soil, water, wetlands, woodlands and wildlife.” These Checklists are used by the NOP to accredit certification agencies in the U.S. and around the world.

Lynn Coody, of Organic Agsystems Consulting, who assists many organic certification agencies in maintaining full compliance with NOP regulations, says, “I am so pleased that the NOP has finally revised its accreditation checklists so that they clearly prompt collection of information about certifiers’ efforts to check on biodiversity and natural resources during inspections of organic operations.”

Not Done Yet

Ferd Hoefner of the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition says, “Now it could (eventually) get interesting. For the first time, the conservation “in theory” part of organic certification may actually have to mean something tangible. Just how tangible remains to be seen, but this is a very important advance.”

If all goes well, detailed direction from the NOP should be coming out later this year. In May, Wild Farm Alliance (WFA) with the help of many organic certifiers and others, submitted draft Biodiversity/Natural Resource Conservation Guidance for the NOP’s consideration for inclusion in their Handbook. Ideally, the NOP would publish this or something similar soon; so that organic certification agencies clearly understand how they are expected to comply and can smoothly pass their accreditation.

The Ice is Melting

Wild Farm Alliance and others have been trying for years to breakthrough to the NOP, so that they would require compliance of the biodiversity and natural resources conservation regulations. In 2005, with our assistance, the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) adopted a set of biodiversity inspection questions into their model farm plan. That same year, WFA published Biodiversity Conservation guides for organic farmers and certifiers. The NOP continued to ponder, very slowly embracing conservation when in 2008 with a change in leadership, biodiversity made it to third on their priority list, and we cheered. But then it languished amidst all the competing priorities that had accumulated from previous years.

In 2009 to jump-start the process, WFA published a biodiversity conservation compliance guide for certifiers, and the NOSB took a fervent stance recommending that the NOP comprehensively address biodiversity conservation, from farmers and certifiers to the NOP. It wasn’t until last year that the ice started to melt and the NOP published their own Organic System Plan to include a list of practices operators can use to comply with this and other biodiversity and natural resource conservation related requirements.

Organic Operations and Wild Nature Benefit

Not just individuals, but whole populations of species will now benefit from the USDA accrediting only those certifiers who comply with the natural resource standard. Coody states, “As a result of this change, every certified organic operation will now be documenting their efforts to maintain or improve natural resources.”

Almost 5 million acres were organically managed in the U.S. in 2008. With retail sales growing a third from 2008 to 2011 (from $21.1 billion to $31.4 billion), the land managed organically continues to increase significantly, and will now be havens for ecosystem processes that support soil microorganisms important for food safety, native pollinators that are in decline, and beneficial predatory insects, birds, bats, and four-footed creatures that keep pests in check.

More organic lands will be supporting native plants that yield food and cover for these species, and as biodiversity increases, it will lead to an ecological balance between pests and prey. Wetlands and riparian areas will be conserved to help keep water clean for human and wild communities, and will serve as wildlife stepping-stones to wilder landscapes.

Support Is Strong

Former NOSB chair Jim Riddle, stated, “The NOSB adopted a recommendation years ago to strengthen compliance with existing conservation and biodiversity requirements, and we encountered no opposition. I’m pleased that the NOP has finally taken action to make it clear that organic farmers and ranchers must ‘promote ecological balance and conserve biodiversity’ as stated in the definition of ‘organic production’.”

Ever since WFA started working on this issue, we have suspected that the majority of farmers would support biodiversity conservation compliance because they value ecosystem functions, and this has played out in NOSB meetings. Besides, who in their right mind will stand up and say they are against biodiversity and natural resources conservation, without giving themselves and organic a black eye. Many organic companies tout that their practices are nature-friendly. Kashi talks about “farming practices that restore, maintain and enhance ecological harmony,” Nature’s Path discusses “improved farm biodiversity” and Cascadian says their “organic farming methods help protect and nurture the environment.”

There are others who have held the biodiversity conservation banner high for organic agriculture over the years. Independent Organic Inspector Association makes sure biodiversity conservation is covered in their organic inspector trainings, Rodale Institute in their educational efforts, and most sustainable agriculture conferences address some aspect of it every year. Most laudably, some certifiers have been complying with biodiversity regulations since the NOSB first took action in 2005, such as Florida Organic Growers, and others such as the newly merged CCOF/Oregon Tilth, and Idaho Dept. of Agriculture’s Organic Program began complying after that.

USDA NRCS

Another branch of the USDA–Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS)–is more recently supporting organic farmers. NRCS now helps farmers who apply with the cost of certification and have reimbursed them more than 6 million dollars. Currently, WFA is part of a team that is helping NRCS serve organic farmers better, and this includes identifying how best wildlife and biodiversity supporting practice standards can work for organic farms and ranches.

Changing the Landscape

Farming is not done in a vacuum. Whatever a good farmer does, whether organic or not, the farm community notices. Organic farmers are innovators by nature, and their practices often serve as models for others. Accordingly, organic certifier compliance with the natural resource standard should have a rippling effect through U.S. farmscapes. Not that long ago ‘organic’ was a seldom-used word–it was a new ‘way’ of farming–a kind of daydream. Born out of a fire in the bellies of people who care for the land and all its inhabitants, organic climbed to 4.2% of U.S. retail food sales in 2010, and has proven otherwise.

Worthy of the USDA Organic Seal

Now there is a pause before more is issued from the NOP. We are glad to see definitive action taken with the audit checklists and are looking forward to the completion of this process with further direction issued from the NOP. USDA’s program is finally starting to speak up for the soil micro organisms, clear flowing streams, wetlands, woodlands, and wildlife; for biodiversity and natural resources conservation that leads to a resilience in our food systems and ecosystems, and helps these farmers and others market a product worthy of its seal.

Filed Under: Farmer Resources, Federal Policy Tagged With: biodiversity, climate change, National Organic Program, organic, Wild Farm Alliance

Path to the 2012 Farm Bill: Senate Passes its Farm Bill, House Delays

June 21, 2012 by Jeanne Merrill Leave a Comment

CalCAN is one of eleven members of the California Caucus of the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition. We are heartened by the passage of several NSAC supported Senate amendments to the farm bill. Thank you to all of you who made phones, wrote your Senators and made your voice heard. It made a real difference in strengthening the Senate farm bill. Now the farm bill heads to House of Representatives where it will be crucial to defend key conservation, organic, beginning farmer and research programs.

Please see the following blog post courtesy of the hard working advocates at the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.

June 21st, 2012

Today, the Senate passed the Agriculture Reform, Food, and Jobs Act by a vote of 64-35. NSAC supported passage of the bill as amended after three days of Senate debate and voting on amendments.

Ahead of final passage, Chairwoman Stabenow (D-MI) said, “There are 16 million people whose jobs depend on the strength of the agriculture economy in our food system.” She spoke about the “significant reforms” in the bill, how the process had been a “very important bipartisan effort,” and the “opportunity” through this vote to vote on deficit reduction.

Ranking Member Roberts (R-KS) echoed Chairwoman Stabenow’s statements, and emphasized how the process had managed to “break the logjam of partisanship” that has recently plagued Congress.

Majority Leader Reid (D-NV) and Minority Leader McConnell (R-KY) both praised Chairwoman Stabenow and Ranking Member Roberts for their bipartisan work on the bill, and both spoke in appreciation for the cooperative and relatively smooth process of the bill through the Senate.

Before voting on final passage of the bill, which had to meet a sixty-vote super majority threshold, Senators debated and voted on a series of non-germane amendments. All of the amendments voted on today had to meet the sixty-vote threshold. The vote on the amendment offered by Senator Sanders (I-VT) to allow states to label genetically engineered foods failed 26-73. An Amendment that would have prohibited aerial inspections of CAFOs by the Environmental Protection Agency also failed to meet the sixty vote threshold.

NSAC supported passage of the final bill because of several amendments passed on day 1 andday 2 of the debate. Most notably, amendments by Senator Brown (D-OH) on rural development and beginning farmers, Senator Chambliss (R-GA) on soil and water conservation, and Senators Durbin (D-IL) and Coburn (R-OK) on crop insurance subsidy limits made significant improvements to the bill. Amendments by Senator Merkley (D-OR) on corp insurance for organic farmers, by Senator Grassley (R-IA) on commodity payment limit reform, and Senator Wyden (D-OR) on farm to school pilot programs also greatly improved the bill.

NSAC thanks all of the farmers and grassroots activists who took action in support of reform and a sustainable farming future — these reforms would not have happened without your calls, emails, and meetings!

And in the House…

While the Senate finished its work on the farm bill for the time being, the House delayed committee markup by a few weeks. House Agriculture Committee Chairman Lucas (R-OK) had been planning to hold markup next week but announced that markup has been pushed back to July 11. The decision came after discussions with Majority Leader Cantor (R-VA), who says he wants to “push the pause button” on the bill and assess the political situation.

Part of the reason for the delay in the House may also be that next week, the full House is debating the FY 13 Agriculture Appropriations bill. Chairman Lucas has said that he anticipates the agriculture appropriations floor debate to be preview of the House floor debate on the farm bill. Most lawmakers anticipate the farm bill floor debate to be the largest unknown in the process, with attempts to reform the bill coming from both the left and right flanks. Because of the anticipated attacks on agriculture spending, Chairman Lucas wants “all hands on deck” and his committee members focused on the appropriations floor debate.

We will keep readers appraised of what is in the Lucas bill when it is released and of course cover the House Committee markup process very closely. Assuming passage of a bill out of Committee by July 13, attention will be squarely focused on the House Republican leadership. To date, they have shown very little interest in taking up the farm bill this year, even though the current farm bill expires on September 30. With so little time left, and with the House of session the month of August and big chunks of September, floor time for the farm bill will be difficult to come by. Whether there is a 2012 Farm Bill or not will largely rest in the hands of the top House Republican leadership.

Filed Under: Farm Bill 2012, Federal Policy

Path to the 2012 Farm Bill: Full Senate Takes Up Farm Bill

June 12, 2012 by Jeanne Merrill Leave a Comment

Blog courtesy of our partners at the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.

This week, the full Senate started its consideration of the Senate Agriculture Committee-passed version of the 2012 Farm Bill — the Agriculture Reform, Food, and Jobs Act (S. 3240). On Thursday, after several hours of floor statements, the Senate voted 90-8 to proceed with the bill’s consideration and begin debating the bill. The eight Senators who voted against the “motion to proceed” on the bill are fiscally conservative Republicans who generally oppose large spending measures.

In a joint statement with Ranking Member Roberts (R-KS) in support of the bill, Chairwoman Stabenow (D-MI) pressed the Senate to pass the bill quickly. “The 2008 Farm Bill is set to expire at the end of September — we must pass this commonsense bill immediately to give farmers the certainty they need to continue growing the economy,” said Stabenow. Roberts stressed the deficit reduction savings included in the bill.

Upon a successful vote to proceed with debate on the farm bill, the Obama Administration released a statement cautiously supporting Senate passage of the farm bill. The Administration has not advanced its own farm bill proposal, preferring instead to provide “technical assistance” to Congress as it crafts the farm bill. However, the Administration has made its funding priorities clear in current and previous years’ budget proposals. With respect to the bill currently being considered by the Senate, the Administration would make further cuts to commodity and crop insurance programs, and restore cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). In its statement, the Administration also mentioned support for beginning farmers and ranchers, streamlining conservation programs, bioenergy, and agricultural research.

Amendments

With the debate about to begin on the farm bill, Senators have started to file amendments both related and not related to the farm bill. As of Friday afternoon, over 80 amendments had been filed to the bill, and many more are expected to be filed at the beginning of next week. It is very unlikely that all of the filed amendments will be debated and voted on during the floor debate.

The rules governing which amendments get considered are being negotiated by Majority Leader Reid (D-NV) and Minority Leader McConnell (R-KY). There are a number of amendments that were filed that are not relevant to the farm bill. These “non-germane” amendments are on hot-button political issues that could draw the debate on for several weeks. If Reid and McConnell can come to an agreement that would limit or eliminate non-germane amendments, and Senators abide by that rule, then consideration of the bill will continue without another procedural vote. The risk is that without a vote, Senators may disregard this agreement and bring up non-germane amendments anyway.

If Reid and McConnell want to limit debate to only relevant or “germane” amendments, then they will have to vote to limit debate. To do so, they will need sixty votes. To get sixty votes, there will have to be bipartisan support for moving ahead with the farm bill. While we don’t want to make any predictions in this age of extreme partisanship, if there is a big bill that could move ahead with bipartisan support, it would be the farm bill. With a successful vote to limit debate, the Senate would then consider only germane amendments. At that point, the Majority and Minority Leaders often also reach an agreement on the number and order of amendments to be debated.

A number of the filed amendments will make it into a “managers’ amendment.” This is an amendment that includes changes to the committee-passed bill that Chairwoman Stabenow and Ranking Member Roberts have agreed to. The amendment is then voted on by the full Senate and are usually passed without debate. It is unclear at this point whether there will be one managers’ amendment, a series of smaller managers’ amendments perhaps organized by section of the bill, or no managers’ amendment, though the betting is on a series of smaller managers’ amendments.

A large number of filed amendments ultimately will be withdrawn. Senators file amendments that they know have little chance of being debated or passing when they want to make a statement about a priority or use the filed amendment for political purposes.

Finally, some of the amendments filed will actually be debated and voted on. We anticipate that Senators will debate a series of amendments and then stack the votes so that votes on different amendments will occur within a short time frame.

Timeline

It is very difficult to estimate the timeline for debate, and all of our estimates are likely to change.

Chairwoman Stabenow and Ranking Member Roberts have been pushing to wrap up debate on the farm bill by the end of next week. Much depends upon whether or not Minority Leader McConnell supports moving ahead with a bill because bipartisan support is needed to move forward (see above). If there is no vote to limit debate and non-germane amendments are allowed, then the debate could go on for weeks.

We anticipate that Majority Leader Reid will have to file “cloture” on the bill — thus calling for a vote to limit the debate to only germane amendments — and that that will potentially happen on Thursday of next week. If the cloture vote is successful, debate and voting would spill into the week of June 18.

House Action

Chairman Lucas (R-OK) had been saying that the House Agriculture Committee would markup its version of the 2012 Farm Bill during the week of June 18. There have been hints, however, to indicate that he is preferring to wait until the Senate finishes debate on its version of the bill to move ahead with the House’s version. It is therefore starting to seem more likely that the House will markup its version of the bill the week of June 25.

Currently, floor consideration of the farm bill is not on the House’s summer calendar. Senate passage of the bill may spur House leadership to consider adding the bill to its summer agenda. But that is far from a certainty.

June is a very busy month for the farm bill. If you care about the outcomes of the farm bill, sign-up to receive alerts on when to take action in support of a sustainable food and farming future!

Filed Under: Farm Bill 2012, Federal Policy, Uncategorized