2008 deadline near for new Farm Bill's SURE program (09/05/08)
| Farm Act Comparisons* | ||
|---|---|---|
| 2002 Farm Act |
2008 Farm Act |
|
| Pages of bill language |
414 | 672 |
| Titles | 10 | 15 |
| Sections / Provisions | 419 | 616 |
| * Source: Informa Economics | ||
Farmers and ranchers are facing more questions than answers as implementation of the 2008 Farm Act approaches. But one certainty is that a Sept. 16 deadline looms for growers to sign up and pay crop insurance-related fees if they want their 2008 crops covered by the Supplemental Revenue Assistance Payments Program (SURE) contained in the new legislation.
Final details and procedures on most other aspects of the Act’s producer-related programs are still being developed. U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) officials are racing to prepare more than 160 regulations needed to implement provisions in the legislation’s 642 pages. Thirty of the rules affect grower programs administered by the Farm Service Agency, and 21 of them are supposed to be ready within 90 days of the bill’s enactment.
| 2008 Farm Act Titles |
|---|
| I. Commodity programs II. Conservation III. Trade IV. Nutrition V. Credit VI. Rural development VII. Research VIII. Forestry IX. Energy X. Horticulture & organic XI. Livestock XII. Crop insurance & disaster XIII. Futures XIV. Miscellaneous XV. Trade & tax provisions |
A desire for information about the Farm Act and its impact brought a record crowd of some 200 producers, extension service personnel, representatives from agribusiness firms, news reporters and others with ag industry ties to the University of Missouri-Columbia campus for a recent day-long seminar on the new legislation, known officially as the Food, Conservation and Energy Act of 2008.
With most of the Act’s regulations still being developed, answers to many questions still are in short supply. What is known, though, is that farmers and ranchers will need to sort carefully through regulations potentially affecting them, including those for SURE and other programs that are new or that have been undergone major change.
SURE is one of five Farm Act programs collectively referred to as Supplemental Agriculture Disaster Assistance. The measures represent the first attempt to provide a permanent disaster aid package instead of the ad hoc emergency assistance plans that Congress periodically has approved in the past.
In addition to SURE, the new plans include:
- Emergency Assistance for Livestock, Honey Bees and Farm-Raised Fish (ELAP), providing relief to eligible producers for losses due to disease, weather and conditions not covered by other programs. Total payments are limited to $50 million yearly.
- Livestock Forage Disaster Program (LFP), providing payments based on monthly feed costs for grazing losses due to drought or fire (on public land).
- Livestock Indemnity Program (LIP), providing indemnity payments equal to 75 percent of market value for death of covered livestock (in excess of normal mortality losses) due to adverse weather.
- Tree Assistance Program (TAP), providing aid to eligible orchardists and nursery growers for trees lost to natural disasters.
SURE provides payments to producers for crop losses in disaster counties and is based on producer participation in a crop insurance program and, when applicable, in a non-insured crop assistance program (NAP). Rather than being commodity specific, SURE offers whole-farm revenue protection.
The new program kicks in for counties the secretary of agriculture declares a disaster area and for all contiguous counties and applies to farms with losses exceeding 50 percent of normal production in a calendar year.
In 2009 and beyond, producers need to purchase crop insurance and/or NAP coverage for all eligible crops. In 2008, producers can qualify for SURE if those costs are paid by Sept. 16.
SURE payments are determined by, among other things, the national season-average price for each affected crop. As a result, eligible growers won’t receive SURE assistance until after the crop year ends. Payments are limited to $100,000 per producer.
While the new disaster programs are supposed to take the place of ad hoc assistance packages authorized by Congress, at least one of the speakers at the University of Missouri program was skeptical that will happen. “Call them (the new programs) a down payment,” said Jim Wiesemeyer, a Washington, DC-based analyst with Informa Economics.
| Following the Money | ||
|---|---|---|
| Continuing pre-2008 Farm Act laws |
With the 2008 Farm Act in place |
|
| Nutrition | $397.1 billion | $406.3 billion |
| Commodity programs | $87.2 billion | $85.5 billion |
| Conservation | $50.7 billion | $54.7 billion |
| All other | $69.2 billion | $67.9 billion |
| Total | $604.2 billion | $614.5 billion |
