USDA tightens eligibility rules for farm subsidies
Loopholes remain, but the USDA is tightening its crop subsidy rules by limiting who can collect a payment for managing a farm, historically one of its most porous definitions. The new regulation, to be published on Monday, requires people to perform at least 500 hours of management or at least 25 percent of the management work required annually to merit a subsidy check — "a very major advancement," according to a small-farm advocate.
Less leverage for farm payment reform, says Grassley
The USDA has a "glaring loophole" in its farm subsidy rules that allows people to collect up to $125,000 a year in subsidies for providing farm management, said Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, who is trying to get a tougher set of rules into law.
A long-shot attempt to tighten farm-subsidy rules
Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley is blunt about how farm-subsidy reform was watered down in the 2014 farm law. "We were snookered," he says, by the four lawmakers who negotiated the final version of the law. Now he's trying to "eliminate the loophole that was intentionally included in the farm bill."