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Packing up to head homeBy Seymour Klierly With the non-stop news coverage of the financial rescue legislation, you may have missed the news about a quietly passed farm bill technical correction bill. Since sign-up for commodity title programs began earlier this summer, many producers found they were ineligible to receive payments because their operation held less than 10 base acres. If that producer operated several of these small acre farms, they were not allowed to aggregate their operations into one larger unit in order to qualify. This decision by USDA immediately stirred up a hornet's nest and producers by the hundreds began calling and writing their congressmen demanding to know whose idea it was to kick small farmers out of the program. The answer to that question was difficult to find. Apparently this 10-acre payment limit plan came about in the waning days of farm bill conference negotiations. At the time, concern was growing about payments to absentee landowners in New York and other urban areas. Many of these land owners were not engaged in farming and Chairman Peterson wanted to send them a message. However, other members of the conference raised the concern that this provision would affect hundreds of thousands of operations and prevent many "real" farmers from getting any payments. In the end, Chairman Peterson assured the members that "real" farmers would be able to compile their small operations to get above the 10-acre minimum and the provision was added in the bill. When USDA announced that their interpretation of the legal language of the farm bill did not allow producers to aggregate their operations, all of those conference committee members who warned against this very scenario gave a collective scowl to the chairman. In order to fix the mistake, last week Congress passed a bill to delay the implementation of this provision for one year. They hope a new administration will interpret the legal language differently. Passing the fix wasn't easy since now they had to find additional money to cover the cost of the mistake. Once again it was Peterson's idea to take the money out of the crop insurance program. Members on the Senate side were able to delay Peterson's offset to the final year of the farm bill, allowing them time to replace the funds. The commodity title isn't the only section of the new farm bill that has been the subject of calls for technical changes. The livestock title, specifically the country-of-origin labeling (COOL) program, has undergone intense discussions as the program now goes on-line. Four days before the program began, USDA issued two "tweaks" to their guidelines regarding the treatment of meat that was born, raised, and slaughtered in the U.S. Fear had grown in the days just before the "tweaks" that packers would not follow the spirit and intent of the law. This fear led to a long letter from several members of Congress to USDA outlining their concerns. According to the American Meat Institute, this late change will add roughly a billion dollars to the cost to comply with the program. AMI has stated that COOL should not add to the cost of production. The meat industry's research arm has a long history of hiring lobbyists to help advocate on behalf of their members. In fact, AMI once hired the law firm of Wiley Rein, LLC, where current Kansas Senate hopeful Jim Slattery worked for 14 years. Sometimes we forget how small a world D.C. can be. It looks as though Congress will adjourn soon and may not return for a lame duck session. If not, then expect that one of the first agenda items when they return in January in both the House and Senate Agriculture Committees will be an oversight hearing on the implementation of the new farm bill. Harkin and Peterson will want to take quick action on any other problems that arise over the next three months while they are away. 10/6/08 Date: 10/1/08
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