FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: March 28, 1996
CONTACT: Dana Hagerty 202/225-2165
WASHINGTON, DC -- Although he helped ensure continuation of the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) and the U.S. sugar program, Congressman Collin C. Peterson (DFL-7th District) will vote against the Farm Bill conference report when it comes to the House floor today. Peterson's biggest concerns include an unfair dairy title which hurts Minnesota dairy farmers and a marketing loan for wheat and feed grain producers that is inadequate.
"I worked hard to see that the reauthorization of CRP and the protection of the sugar program were included in this bill," Peterson said. "In fact, when conferees were meeting on CRP and they wanted to change some of the language, we were directly involved in those changes.
"This bill includes language I authored that will reauthorize CRP through 2002 with a 36.5 million acre cap," Peterson continued. "At the very beginning of this process, the reauthorization of CRP wasn't even included in the Farm Bill -- in fact, I worked to see that two damaging CRP provisions included in the original Freedom to Farm Bill were removed by the House Agriculture Committee.
"During House debate on the Farm bill, we defeated an amendment that would have eliminated the U.S. sugar program," Peterson said. "We then protected the sugar program throughout the conference process. If we had not been able to protect the sugar program, the jobs of hundreds of thousands of American workers would have been jeopardized, and the sugar program would have been put at the mercy of the erratic, highly subsidized world sugar market.
"However, I am still opposed to this Farm Bill because of the dairy title and the lack of an adequate marking loan," Peterson continued. "The original dairy section of the farm bill was solid reform that farmers in the Upper Midwest desperately need. The dairy language was defeated by a Northeast and California amendment of the House floor. The conference committee made further revisions which improved the bill some but added a provision allowing a Northeast Dairy Compact which moves us entirely in the wrong direction. The one bright spot for dairy farmers is that the budget assessment will be repealed. There will still be much work to gain the other needed reform.
"The Freedom to Farm transition payments make some sense for grain farmers by protecting the baseline for agriculture. In fact, the transition payments are key to protecting agriculture's federal money during the next two years. However, as these payments decrease, I fear that the 85 percent capped marketing loan will be inadequate in protecting our producers. I worked to keep a higher loan rate without caps to provide a safety net in case prices fall.
"I voted against the bill in the House, and I will vote against the conference report, because of the above provisions. We are still losing dairy farms at an incredible rate, and an increasing number of small grain farmers are struggling to survive."