Following the release of President Obama’s proposed FY2016 budget earlier today, the American Soybean Association (ASA) drew attention to multiple areas in which the association saw potential dangers and opportunities in the proposal.

Atop the list of ASA’s concerns is language in the proposed budget that would make disabling cuts to crop insurance programs. Specifically, the president’s budget requests $16 billion in cuts to the farm program over 10 years, the bulk of which would come from reductions in the portion of crop insurance premiums subsidized by the federal government.

“Crop insurance is the cornerstone of the farm safety net,” said ASA President and Brownfield, Texas, farmer Wade Cowan. “Farmers spend approximately $4 billion a year of their own money to purchase insurance from the private sector, which is far more efficient and effective than government-run delivery systems. Attacking farmers’ most important risk management tool only weakens the bipartisan farm bill that Congress carefully crafted after years of deliberation and more than 40 hearings.”

Additionally, Cowan noted ASA’s concern with specific elements of the president’s proposed tax policy, namely a plan to increase taxes on inherited property and assets, which the president maintains would only impact a small percentage of taxpayers, but ASA counters would disproportionately impact farmers, whose wealth resides in infrastructure, rather than liquid assets.

“Soybean farmers are extremely concerned with the president’s tax proposal, and we’re in the process of assessing how the policies proposed will impact our operations,” said Cowan. “While we don’t yet know what exemptions there will be for businesses like ours, we encourage the president’s team to take into account the unique land-based and capital-intensive nature of our industry. Remember, the assets of farm families and rural communities are more often in tractors and grain bins than in stocks and mutual funds.”

ASA did call attention to several aspects of the proposed budget that soybean farmers support, including the proposal’s full funding of the Market Access Program and Foreign Market Development program, which the industry uses to help access new and growing export markets. Also, the association noted its strong support for the president’s $478 billion commitment to infrastructure investment, particularly in the form of freight rail corridors, ports and inland waterways.

“We’re very encouraged to see not only a commitment to expanding our reach to new and existing trade partners, but also a down-payment on the domestic infrastructure improvements that help us to get American soybeans to our customers abroad faster and more economically than our foreign competitors,” added Cowan. “These two provisions are a strong acknowledgement of the importance of trade issues in the larger policy discussion, and we’re happy to see them in the president’s budget.”