The Senate Agriculture Committee voted a new farm bill out of
committee on April 26 by a vote of 16-5. The committee bill saves $23
billion over the next ten years according to budget estimates.
The committee bill includes historic reforms to commodity subsidies.
In addition to replacing automatic direct payments with a shallow loss
revenue-based payment, the bill limits payments to not more than one
farm manager per farm operation. Under current law, mega farms collect
multiple payments worth millions of dollars through passive investors
and landowners who are counted as farm managers.
“We applaud the Senate Agriculture Committee for including common
sense rules to commodity payments and ending years of abuse by closing
program loopholes,” said Ferd Hoefner, policy director for the National
Sustainable Agriculture Coalition. “Thanks to Senator Grassley’s (R-IA)
tireless leadership, the Committee was able to make sure that
hardworking farmers—not mega farms and absentee investors—are the key
beneficiaries of farm programs.”
