By TIM ALEXANDER
Illinois Correspondent

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — U.S. senators Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) announced legislation last week that would drastically reform the 2007 farm bill by replacing current price-support programs with a comprehensive revenue protection program.

“The business of farming is very different now than it used to be,” Brown said during a media teleconference call announcing the legislation, adding over the last couple of years he had attended several farm groups’ roundtable discussions in order to ascertain the feelings of Midwestern farmers.

Durbin said that past answers to providing a more efficient safety net for farmers no longer apply. “Our job is to make sure farmers can survive a bad year,” Durbin said during the call. “This legislation combines a new farm program approach with a new approach to crop insurance.”

Current subsidies in the farm bill are based solely on price targets, while Durbin and Brown’s legislation would create a safety net that would protect producers in times of high prices, but poor harvests. The senators said their bill would not cause an additional burden to taxpayers and would put a cap on subsidies awarded to wealthier producers.

The National Corn Growers Assoc. (NCGA) was quick to applaud the senators for introducing the Farm Safety Net Improvement Act of 2007, which advocates a state-level revenue protection program, complemented with individual-level private crop insurance.

However, the legislation was not exactly what NCGA had sought.
“Senators Durbin and Brown are helping take farm policy to a new level by introducing legislation that is forward-looking and emphasizes a market-based farm program,” said Ken McCauley, NCGA president, in a statement released after the teleconference. ”A revenue-based farm policy is one that corn growers have been advocating for the past year, and we are happy this legislation will hit the Senate floor in the coming weeks.”

NCGA has been promoting its own National Farm Security Act Proposal, a county-based revenue counter-cyclical program. NCGA said Durbin’s and Brown’s proposal takes concepts from its plan and applies them to the state level.

A government payment is triggered when a farmer’s actual revenue (price x yield) falls below 90 percent of the forecasted state target revenue for a specific crop, according to information provided by NCGA.

“While NCGA continues to advocate a county-based revenue program for the 2007 farm bill, the Durbin-Brown proposal is a step in the right direction in reforming farm policy. We will continue to work with Congress to pass a farm bill that is fair for all producers, while providing a strong safety net,” McCauley said.

According to NCGA, private insurance is integrated with the state program, operating much like it does now. The insurance covers a farmer’s individual revenue losses beyond what the government covers. Producers should see a significant decrease in crop insurance premiums, NCGA said.

The proposal should see light as an amendment to farm bill legislation originating from the Senate Ag Committee, of which Brown is a member, after the August recess.

During the teleconference, Ralph Grossi, president of American Farmland Trust (AFT), called the legislation a “bold new move and an innovative proposal” that would add “very important improvements to the safety net. (The proposal) will reduce the need for an ad-hoc disaster system and will help deliver payments on a more timely basis.”

Later, AFT issued a press release in which Grossi expounded on the legislation’s impact. “America’s farmers need a real safety net when disaster hits. But the existing subsidy programs are complicated, expensive and leave many farmers unprotected,” Grossi said.

“The Act fundamentally transforms risk management programs to provide better protection, less market distortions and equity across crops – all at no additional costs. It is a real reform that is better for producers and for the public.”

This farm news was published in the Aug. 1, 2007 issue of Farm World, serving Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan and Tennessee.