Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue steered clear of a farm bill squabble on Tuesday that has Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley considering a vote against the bill because it would relax crop subsidy limits. Perdue said the farm program is “a great investment” that keeps U.S. food prices low and that it’s his job to carry out the farm bill, not to write it.
“I think that’s what representative democracy is all about,” Perdue told reporters. “Congress writes the farm bill and we’re going to do the best job implementing it we can.” With rare exception, Perdue has stayed out of the farm bill debate beyond offering USDA’s analytical powers to lawmakers and they have given him a free hand in reorganizing USDA operations.
Senate and House negotiators deleted the only farm subsidy reform before them—Grassley’s language to restrict subsidies to farmers, their spouses and one “manager” per farm—and reportedly decided to make nieces, nephews and first cousins of farmer eligible for up to $125,000 a year in farm supports.
“I believe they have made existing law worse. Where does this end? Are you going to have third cousins collecting payments?” said Grassley during a teleconference. A long-time exponent of focusing farm supports on family-size farms, Grassley voted against the 2014 farm law because negotiators gutted his proposal for tighter subsidy rules. “I’m still cogitating” whether to vote against the 2018 bill too, he said.
With the elimination of a House Republican proposal for stricter SNAP work requirements, the $87 billion-a-year farm bill will be mostly status quo legislation. Minnesota Rep. Collin Peterson, one of the four lead negotiators on the bill, told home-state reporters the 2018 bill will look a lot like the 2014 law, which expired on September 30.
“Given what we’re facing with the price situation and the tariffs, I am worried that this bill is not going to be good enough to get us through what we’re facing,” he said during a news conference in Moorhead, Minnesota. “I hope I’m wrong.”
The land-idling Conservation Reserve would expand to 27 million acres, a 3 million-acre increase, under the 2018 bill, paid for by reducing the annual rental payment to land owners. The green-payment Conservation Stewardship Program will remain in place despite a House GOP plan to phase it out, said Peterson. Dairy subsidies will be strengthened, to the benefit of smaller producers. “Hopefully, we’ll give the safety net dairy farmers need to stay in business.”
Food stamps, conservation, and farm subsidies were the three major areas of dispute in the farm bill. Congress could pass the bill as soon as next week.
Peterson told reporters in the Twin Cities that Congress may need to take a look in 2019 at how to help struggling farmers, said broadcaster KCCO. Peterson is expected to chair the House Agriculture Committee next year.