The American Soybean Association (ASA) called for prompt approval of a new Farm Bill and outlined specific recommendations for such legislation during testimony today before the Senate Agriculture Committee. ASA President Tony Anderson presented the testimony that described how the previous farm bill has left an “unfinished agenda” that must be considered in the new legislation.

“Unless key issues are resolved, it will be difficult, if not impossible, to move farm policy beyond the role of a safety net for producers facing disadvantageous conditions, both at home and abroad,” said Anderson, a soybean grower from Mount Sterling, Ohio. “Authors of the previous Farm Bill were clear that the overall economic and trade environment of U.S. agriculture needed to be changed to reduce production costs and enhance the competitiveness of U.S. farm exports.”

ASA identified the following areas that still need to be addressed:

• Agricultural trade must be given the same weight in U.S. economic and foreign policy decisions as accorded by our primary international competitors and customers.
• Export assistance and promotion programs authorized by the WTO must be fully and aggressively utilized, as our competitors do.
• Ineffective unilateral economic sanctions that discredit U.S. reliability as a supplier and encourage our competitors to expand production and exports must be rescinded and prohibited.
• Funding for U.S. humanitarian assistance programs must be increased and maintained at a level that reflects the United States’ responsibility to enhance societal, economic, and political stability in developing countries.
• An effective case must be made for modernizing the U.S. transportation infrastructure, including the lock and dam system on the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers.
• Barriers to U.S. farm exports based on non-scientific standards, including restrictions on biotechnology trade, must be challenged and overcome.
• Funding for agricultural research must be restored and increased.
• Unnecessarily onerous regulations that increase agricultural production costs must be either compensated or eliminated.

In addition to establishing conditions that will foster a competitive environment for U.S. agriculture, ASA supports the following objectives in the next farm bill:

• Domestic farm programs should be equitable and balanced among program crops, defined as all loan-eligible crops that can be planted on the same cropland on a farm. No program should favor production of one crop over another.· The primary objective of the next farm bill is to provide adequate long-term price and income support for producers of program crops and other crops that have traditionally received multi-year support under federal farm programs. To the extent additional funding is available, other priorities that are appropriate for omnibus farm legislation should be addressed.
• Provide voluntary incentive payments to encourage improved conservation practices. ASA helped develop and strongly supports the Conservation Security Act (CSA). However, incentives provided under the CSA should not come at the expense of price and income supports.
• Increase funding of export promotion and assistance programs, and of foreign food assistance. Food aid should be based on a minimum annual tonnage commitment, which should not be subject to variations in production and the availability of surpluses.
• Programs established under omnibus farm legislation provide multi-year support to crops that are either produced on the same acreage or that have traditionally received support. These crops are also required to comply with conservation measures, including Sodbuster and Swampbuster requirements. Crops that do not meet these criteria should not be included in the next farm bill. Any assistance required by producers of these crops due to economic or crop losses should continue to be addressed in annual disaster legislation.

Regarding domestic farm programs. ASA supports key elements of the current Farm Bill, such as full and unrestricted planting flexibility, continuation of non-recourse marketing loans, no statutory authority to impose set-asides, and no authority to establish government or farmer-owned reserves for oilseeds. In addition, oilseed producer organizations oppose any limitations on marketing loan benefits, fixed income payments, or any counter-cyclical income support payments.

Oilseed producer organizations support maintaining current oilseed loan rates for 2002 crops, and setting these rates as floors rather than ceilings under the next farm bill. The formula for adjusting loan levels to 85 percent of Olympic average prices in the previous five years should be retained, and discretion should be provided to the Secretary to set loan levels above the floor when prices warrant.

Anderson also presented details of ASA’s recommendations on Production Flexibility Contracts, counter-cyclical income supports, the Foreign Market Development Program, international food aid and more.