The 2018 farm bill should guarantee payments to farmers “to reduce acreage when prices fall below the cost of production,” says the second-largest U.S. farm group, the National Farmers Union. At the NFU’s annual meeting in San Diego, 136 delegates from 33 states approved a special order for a farm bill to help farmers and ranchers that responds to the dramatic reduction in commodity and livestock prices since 2013.
To protect farm income, the NFU supports “an adequate safety net that is based on the cost of production and not solely an insurance program,” a criticism of the 2014 farm law that gave the federally subsidized crop insurance program the central role in the farm program and gave grain and oilseed growers the choice of traditional crop subsidies or an insurance-like subsidy based on yield and price. “Loan rates for all crops shall be no lower than the cost of production,” says NFU, and target prices for all crops should be raised from current levels.
The United States abandoned land set-asides when Congress enacted the “Freedom to Farm” law in 1996. Under them, growers were required to idle cropland in order to qualify for crop subsidies. The last paid land diversion was years before that.