FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE — February 26, 2009

CONTACTS: Reece Langley, (703) 236-1471; David Coia, (703) 236-2300    

The USA Rice Federation today urges Washington to stand by its promise made to American farm and ranch families in the form of the Food, Conservation and Energy Act of 2008 (the Farm Bill) and oppose any further cuts to the safety net.  The Farm Bill is less than a year old and not even fully implemented, and already contains cuts in direct payments.  Moreover, the regulations to carry out the law’s strict new payment limitations and rules for eligibility, just published on Dec. 29, radically exceed statutory requirements and congressional intent.

Current and proposed policies are compounding the already extreme anxiety felt throughout farm country resulting from the economic crisis, the turbulence in commodity prices and production costs, weather-related production losses from the previous year, the ongoing unfair trading practices of foreign competitors, and the threat of a new multilateral trade agreement that threatens to export U.S. agricultural production and jobs to other countries.

Specifically, the fiscal year 2010 budget proposal issued today seeks to phase out the direct payments for farms with annual sales over $500,000, which — based on the most recent USDA Census of Agriculture — represented nearly 75 percent of all agricultural production in the United States.  So, proposing to eliminate those farms from the direct payment program effectively puts at risk a majority of the food, feed and fiber supply in this country by exposing them to the uncertainties of weather, market swings and financial instability without the safety net that direct payments provide.

To put this into perspective, a farm with $500,000 in annual sales could be, on average, a 750-acre rice farm — not a “large agribusiness” by any stretch of the imagination, but rather a typical family farm in the rice-growing regions of the United States.  It is also critically important to note that $500,000 in sales does not translate into $500,000 in farm income.

In addition, we are greatly concerned by the proposal to reduce funding for the Market Access Program (MAP), which is an example of an extremely successful public-private partnership that assists agricultural producers in leveraging industry dollars to further promote agricultural products through the development of export markets.

During consideration of the fiscal year 2010 budget, we are hopeful that Washington will recognize the significant contributions of American farm and ranch families to the economic and national security interests of our country and the fact that U.S. farm policy today represents less than one-quarter of one percent of the total federal budget.