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Maputo, Mozambique, March 1, 2024 – Today U.S. Department of Agriculture Deputy Secretary Xochitl Torres Small visited Mungazine Primary School in Mozambique, a USDA-supported school and school garden through the McGovern-Dole International Food for Education and Child Nutrition Program.

Funding for the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), and three other federal departments, is set to expire at midnight this Friday, March 1, absent congressional approval of a Fiscal Year 2024 (FY24) appropriations bill, or an extension of current funding. Amidst final-hour congressional negotiations to fend off a government shutdown, several policy “riders” have emerged as sticking points in reaching a deal on agriculture spending in particular. A “rider” refers to a non-germane legislative provision tacked onto a must-pass appropriations bill.

The House of Representatives’ FY24 Agriculture Appropriations bill – initially unveiled almost a year ago, in early spring 2023 – includes a number of harmful policy riders on top of deep funding cuts. This post briefly examines several proposed policy riders as Congress seeks to conclude FY24 appropriations negotiations. 

One such policy rider, related to the implementation of rules associated with the Packers and Stockyards Act (P&SA), would effectively prevent the USDA from promoting fair market competition for livestock and poultry growers, both now and in the future. The P&SA was passed in 1921 to combat anticompetitive practices in the livestock and poultry industries as corporate meatpackers and processors (also known as integrators) consolidated and amassed substantial power over producers. Enforcement waned over time and in 2019, almost a century later, just four companies processed 85 percent of beef, 67 percent of pork, 53 percent of chicken, and 55 percent of turkey. 

Congress directed USDA to modernize the P&SA in recognition of this unprecedented market consolidation in the 2008 Farm Bill. But for 15 years, each attempt by any Administration to act on this mandate has stalled. Members of Congress opposed to P&SA reform consistently included riders to annual appropriations bills that obstructed USDA’s ability to make progress.

In 2021, the Biden Administration announced a renewed directive for USDA to strengthen the P&SA in alignment with an Executive Order on Promoting Competition in the American Economy. USDA announced a final rule on promoting transparency for contract poultry growers in 2023 and is expected to soon finalize a proposed rule that protects producers from anticompetitive discriminatory and predatory practices.  

Now, some members of Congress have revived a decade-old strategy to oppose modernization of the P&SA that would promote fair market competition for livestock and poultry growers. Active riders to the FY24 appropriations bill in the House would not just undo USDA’s recent and ongoing rulemaking. They would also prevent USDA from strengthening the P&SA in the future. This would be a devastating blow to the many livestock and contract poultry growers trapped in an anticompetitive industry or in hostile arrangements with integrators.  

Chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture, Representative Andy Harris (R-MD-01), has made the inclusion of this rider a top priority to advance the spending bill to the House floor. The National Farmers Union delivered a joint letter to the House Appropriations Committee leadership earlier this month in opposition to these riders. NSAC and a number of member and allied organizations were signatories to the letter. In addition, Senators Grassley (R-IA) and Tester (D-MT), both farmers, recently penned a letter to colleagues lauding the importance of a stronger P&SA to protect farmers and ranchers and urged members of Congress to oppose any such riders. 

Another proposed rider seeks to restrict USDA’s ability to direct Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) resources toward emergent agricultural needs. This in turn could deal significant blows, both now or in the future, to initiatives such as the Regional Agricultural Promotion Program, the Organic Market Development Grants, the Fertilizer Production Expansion Program, the Local Food Purchase Assistance Program, and the Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities.

The CCC is the mandatory funding mechanism for many federal agricultural programs.  A wholly owned corporation of the United States government, the CCC was created during the New Deal and put into its current statutory framework in 1948.  The CCC is used to fund commodity, conservation, bioenergy, and trade programs included in the periodically re-authorized federal farm bill. 

The House’s FY2024 Agriculture Appropriations bill proposed a restriction on the discretionary use of the CCC, and depending on the precise policy language, this rider could significantly hamper USDA’s ability to respond to emerging agricultural needs. Ultimately, the bottom line is that any inclusion of language that would hinder the Secretary of Agriculture’s flexibility to respond to emerging needs, such as the fracturing of supply chains during the COVID-19 pandemic, has the potential to impact the continued delivery of programs that address acute regional and nationwide needs. 

For example, the USDA made additional funding available to the Local Food Purchase Assistance Program (LFPA) in November 2022 to maintain and improve regional agricultural supply chains. Through cooperative agreements with States, Tribal governments, and territories, LFPA strategically leverages CCC funds to create economic opportunity for local producers and underserved farmers, build local food supply chains, and address food insecurity. This additional funding offers an opportunity to build on the program’s initial success, with projected estimates of more than $1.5 billion in local economic impact. 

Recently, 153 regional LFPA implementers and stakeholders across the nation delivered a letter to Congressional leadership to express their strong opposition to any rider that restricts the Secretary’s current authority to utilize CCC funds. 

Beyond these threats, the House bill also includes several riders that would block USDA from carrying out a variety of its racial equity-focused initiatives, including anything related to Executive Orders 13985, 14035, and 14091, or the creation and establishment of an Office of the Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer. This rider, like the others, is counter to NSAC’s mission and vision.

As Congress seeks to resolve FY24 Appropriations negotiations in the coming days, numerous riders – each of which carries their unique negative impacts – continue to be debated. NSAC believes including any of the aforementioned riders would lead to a less just and resilient food and farm system. Consequently, Congress should pass a clean FY2024 agriculture appropriations bill by keeping these and other riders out of any final deal. 

The post Riders in the Night: Harmful Provisions in the House Spending Bill appeared first on National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.

WASHINGTON, Feb. 27, 2024 – Today, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack offered the following statement upon the Senate’s confirmation of Dr. Basil Gooden as U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Under Secretary for Rural Development.

This week, the US Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Risk Management Agency (RMA) published a directory of crop insurance agents that specialize in selling Whole-Farm Revenue Protection. This resource – which the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) has advocated for – will be an important tool to help farmers locate crop insurance agents who have experience selling Whole-Farm Revenue Protection and Micro Farm insurance in their state. 

The Whole-Farm Revenue Protection (WFRP) program is a novel crop insurance product that offers farmers nationwide the option to insure against revenue loss for their entire operation, including crop, livestock, and nursery production, under a single policy. It is the first insurance policy intended to cover smaller, diversified operations, and even includes a premium discount for crop diversification in recognition of its inherent risk-reduction impact. The Micro Farm option within WFRP offers a streamlined insurance product to producers with an average revenue of up to $350,000. 

Farmers interested in enrolling in WFRP or Micro Farm often report challenges to finding an insurance agent with sufficient knowledge or desire to sell insurance to smaller-scale and diversified operations. Tailoring a WFRP policy to farms that grow a diversity of specialty or organic crops is a more time- and labor-intensive endeavor, and one that agents are not always trained to do.

Despite this common obstacle, a niche market of crop insurance agents has taken root that specializes in selling the product to small, specialty crop, and diverse farmers. RMA’s new directory directing farmers to these agents fulfills an NSAC recommendation to enhance the delivery of the product.

1,135 agents are included on the inaugural list of crop insurance agents that specialize in selling Whole-Farm Revenue Protection. The list of agents from RMA will continue to be updated periodically through April 15, 2024. To be included in the list, crop insurance agents self-identified themselves as willing WFRP and Micro Farm agents. Prior experience selling a WFRP policy was not a prerequisite to inclusion on the list. These agents are licensed to sell in all 50 states, with at least two in every state, and a numerical breakdown by state is below.

Find the full list of agents by state as of February 15th here.

Improving WFRP in the Farm Bill 

The most recent, comprehensive analysis of the performance of WFRP can be found in NSAC’s new report, Unsustainable: State of the Farm Safety Net. NSAC has listened to farmers in the fields since the implementation of WFRP and advocated to strengthen the accessibility and performance of the program. This includes ongoing dialogue with USDA to continually improve the product. A new directory of agents selling WFRP is just one of the positive steps RMA has taken in recent years to expand access to the product, and the next farm bill presents another crucial opportunity to introduce reforms needed to overcome persistent barriers. 

The Whole-Farm Revenue Protection Program Improvement Act (S.2598) was introduced by Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) in July 2023 to streamline access to WFRP and strengthen the product for enrolled farmers. The bill currently has nine co-sponsors, most serving on the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry: Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Peter Welch (D-VT), John Fetterman (D-PA), Tina Smith (D-MN), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Raphael Warnock (D-GA), Michael Bennet (D-CO), and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT). Senate Agriculture Committee Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) was an original champion who pushed to include the development of WFRP in the 2014 Farm Bill.

The WFRP Improvement Act would specifically:

• Authorize the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation (FCIC) to carry out research and development to increase crop insurance participation by farmers marketing to local and regional markets.
• Clarify that producers are permitted to enroll in a WFRP plan in addition to other insurance plans.
• Authorize the FCIC to consider expanding the diversification premium discount to farmers that utilize a resource-conserving crop rotation.
• Direct the FCIC to implement several targeted modifications to WFRP design and delivery to improve effectiveness for specialty crops and diversified farms.
• Reduce paperwork burdens by clarifying that Schedule F tax forms are sufficient to establish historic revenue and that agents only may request additional paperwork if tax records are incomplete.
• Prohibit the adjustment of price and production expectations at the time of submission of a loss claim.
• Apply the streamlined application process introduced in the Micro Farm pilot to producers with at least $1 million in gross revenue, to include all small and mid-sized farms as defined by USDA.
• Raise the annual 35% limit to historic gross revenue expansion to the lower of 100% or $500,000, to allow beginning and scaling farmers to be insured at a level that keeps pace with rapid operational growth.
• Expand the diversification premium discount to apply to producers with at least 10 commodities, encouraging more diverse farmers to enroll in the program.
• Moderate the impact of disaster years by including Noninsured Crop Disaster Assistance Program payouts as historic gross revenue or by establishing a floor to how much historic gross revenue may fall annually.
• Compensate crop insurance agents appropriately for Whole-Farm Revenue Protection sales in a manner determined by the Secretary, overcoming a key barrier for agents who are reluctant or refuse to sell WFRP policies.

NSAC and our members remain committed to advancing provisions in the next farm bill that will expand access to the farm safety net for producers growing fruits and vegetables to feed their communities.

The post Find a Crop Insurance Agent Who Sells Whole-Farm Revenue Protection Near You appeared first on National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.