There’s a few policy proposals for farmers. Here‘s what I found. The link is in the title.
Eliminate USDA Revenue-Based Crop Insurance Policies
The federal government should not be in the business of insuring price or revenue; agricultural producers, like other businesses, should not be insulated from market forces or guaranteed financial success at the expense of taxpayers. Revenue-based crop insurance is unnecessarily generous and should be eliminated. Taxpayer-subsidized crop insurance should be limited to yield insurance as it was in the past.
Reduce Premium Subsidies in the Federal Crop Insurance Program
Taxpayers pay, on average, 62 percent of crop insurance premiums, but farmers pay only 38 percent for their own policies. This is an unreasonable and unnecessary burden on taxpayers.
The CBO found that reducing premium subsidy rates by 15 percentage points to 47 percent would reduce the number of insured acres (300 million) by just one-half of 1 percent, to 298.5 million acres. It also explained that 1.5 percent of insured acres would have lower coverage levels. This would presumably affect crop insurance participation more than reducing the subsidy to a 47 percent level would, but the CBO notes that “[a]n argument in favor of this option is that cutting the federal subsidies for premiums would probably not substantially affect participation in the program.”4 For participating farmers, this subsidy would also remain very generous.
In addition to reducing the premium subsidy rate, there should also be a limit on the total amount of subsidies provided on behalf of producers to help pay for their crop insurance premiums. The GAO has recommended limiting premium subsidies for farmers to $40,000.
Repeal the USDA Agriculture Risk Coverage and Price Loss Coverage Programs
The ARC and PLC programs are two major subsidy programs that apply to about 20 commodities. On a crop-by-crop basis, farmers can participate in the ARC program or the PLC program. The ARC program protects farmers from shallow losses, providing payments when their actual revenues fall below 86 percent of the expected revenues for their crops. The PLC program provides payments to farmers when commodity prices fall below a fixed, statutorily established reference price.
These programs go far beyond providing a safety net for farmers. Most farmers succeed even though they receive little-to-no taxpayer assistance. If they do receive assistance, it is usually to help with a disaster or crop loss. Yet a small number of producers growing a small number of commodities receive significant amounts of taxpayer dollars, including through the ARC and PLC programs.
According to the Congressional Research Service, from 2014 to 2016, 94 percent of farm program support went to just six commodities—corn, cotton, peanuts, rice, soybeans, and wheat—that together account for only 28 percent of farm receipts.3 Worse still, this assistance is generally not provided to help with actual disasters, but to help ensure farmers meet revenue goals.
The ARC and PLC programs are a major part of this excessive and inappropriate assistance to a small group of favored producers.
Eliminate the USDA Rural Business-Cooperative Service
The Rural Business-Cooperative Service maintains a wide range of financial assistance programs for rural businesses. It also has a significant focus on renewable energy and global warming, including subsidies for biofuels. Rural businesses are fully capable of running themselves, investing, and seeking assistance through private means. The fact that these businesses are in rural areas does not change the fact that they can and should succeed on their own merits just as other businesses must. Private capital will find its way to worthy investments.
The government should not be in the business of picking winners and losers when it comes to private investments or energy sources. Instead of funneling taxpayer dollars to businesses in rural communities, the federal government should identify and remove the obstacles to those businesses that it has created.
Eliminate the USDA Conservation Technical Assistance Program
Congress should eliminate the USDA’s Conservation Technical Assistance Program. Federal taxpayers should not be forced to subsidize advice that landowners should be paying for on their own. In addition, this government intervention could be crowding out private solutions that should be available to private landowners.
The USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service runs this costly program that offers landowners technical assistance on natural resource management. This assistance includes help in maintaining private lands, complying with laws, enhancing recreational activities, and improving the aesthetic character of private land. Private landowners are the best stewards of a given property and, if necessary, can seek private solutions to conservation challenges.
Eliminate the USDA Sugar Program
The federal sugar program uses price supports and marketing allotments that limit how much sugar processors can sell each year. It also restricts imports of sugar. As a result of government intervention to limit supply, the price of American sugar is consistently higher than—and, at times, twice as high as—world prices.
This program may benefit a small number of sugar growers and harvesters, but it does so at the expense of sugar-using industries and consumers. An International Trade Administration report found that “[f]or each sugar growing and harvesting job saved through high U.S. sugar prices, nearly three confectionery manufacturing jobs are lost.” The program is also a hidden tax on consumers: Recent studies have found that it costs consumers as much as $3.7 billion per year.
~bella
