WASHINGTON — The House Agriculture Committee completed a marathon session early Thursday, approving a five-year farm bill that offers greater protections to Arkansas rice growers than a Senate-approved version.
After opening debate on the bill 17 hours earlier, the committee voted 35-11 to approve the legislation that sets policies for federal agriculture and nutrition programs. Rep. Rick Crawford, R-Jonesboro, the only Arkansan on the panel, voted in favor of the bill.
“The House Agriculture Committee has worked in a bipartisan fashion to craft a fiscally responsible Farm Bill that will work for farm families across the country,” Crawford said in a press statement. “Now that the bill has been voted out of committee, I am hopeful the full House will soon be able to consider this legislation that saves taxpayers money and reduces the nation’s deficit.”
The House bill keeps a price support program that pays farmers when prices fall below certain levels. The target price system is favored by Southern rice and peanut farmers, who objected to the Senate bill that relied on crop insurance and a new shallow-loss program.
The USA Rice Federation is supporting the House version, saying it offers “a meaningful choice of risk management tools for all producers, crops and regions.”
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
The Agricultural Council of Arkansas issued a statement after the vote saying they support the House bill because it “provides certainty for farmers, which will allow them to make long-term investments necessary for maintaining productivity and economic viability.”
The Council urged Congress, as they go forward, to retain the safety-net programs included in the bill noting that changes could put the livelihood of Arkansas’s agriculture industry at risk.
The most hotly debated issue for the panel was food stamps. The bill would reduce the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program by about $1.6 billion a year by tightening rules that states use to determine who can participate.
Crawford said closing the loopholes would not impact Arkansas because the state does not use them. Some Democrats on the panel, however, argued against the plan which quadruples the cuts included in the bill the Senate adopted last month. They said it would throw millions of poor Americans — mostly children and elderly — off food stamps.
The committee rejected an amendment offered by Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., to scrub the food-stamp cuts. Crawford joined 30 other panel members in voting against the amendment.
The panel also narrowly rejected an amendment that would have returned catfish inspection to the Food and Drug Administration rather than move it to the U.S. Department of Agriculture as called for in the 2008 farm bill.
Importers of Asian catfish — mostly Vietnamese Basa — have opposed USDA inspections while American catfish growers have supported it. USDA is working on final regulations to start up the inspection program that would cost about $15 million a year.
Rep. Vicky Hartzler, R-Mo., proposed an amendment to leave catfish inspection with the FDA saying that USDA inspection was duplicative and threatened a trade war. Hartzler noted that the $15 million price tag far surpassed the $700,000 that FDA spends annually on inspection of all fish.
The Senate voted to keep catfish inspection with FDA when they approved their version of the farm bill.
Crawford spoke against the change, saying that the FDA inspection program is inadequate. He cited several studies that found unsafe additives in imported catfish. Crawford also noted that Carol Engel, chairman of the Department of Aquaculture and Fisheries at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, supports USDA inspections.
Engel, who has traveled to Vietnam to review the aquaculture industry, found that most of the fish are raised in the Mekong delta region where factory run-off and human waste is discharged directly into the waters.
The committee voted 25-20 to reject Hartzler’s amendment.
The next step in the legislative process is for the House to consider the bill. If approved, it would then set up a “conference committee” where members of the Senate and House would be tasked with arriving at a consensus bill to bring back to both chambers for an up-and-down vote.
The 2008 farm bill expires at the end of September.
The committee also agreed, by voice vote, to have USDA issue a study on “business interruption insurance” that poultry farmers could use to protect themselves against failures of poultry integrators that can leave them holding chickens and eggs with no buyer to be found. Crawford endorsed the study.
Crawford also supported an amendment aimed at allowing USDA to continue funding programs that have received funds through the Biomass Crop Assistance Program. The amendment was approved by voice vote.
Minnesota Rep. Collin Peterson, the ranking Democrat on the panel, voiced skepticism about the BCAP program, which remains slated for elimination in the House bill.
“The BCAP program was my idea way back when, and it got screwed up by the lumber people who ripped it off for $700 million,” Peterson groused.
USDA recently expanded its BCAP program in northeastern Arkansas to 8,000 acres.
MFA Oil Biomass LLC and Aloterra Energy LLC will sponsor the project to promote the cultivation of giant miscanthus, a sterile hybrid warm-season grass that can be converted into fuel pellets, in farm heating, and bio-based packaging.
MFA Oil Biomass has said the BCAP funding is a critical factor needed to achieve its goal of producing a next-generation, renewable energy crop.
Former state Sen. Tim Wooldridge, a Democrat who ran unsuccessfully for congress in 2010, announced Wednesday that he will lead a coalition of Democrats in support of Crawford’s re-election campaign. Wooldridge is northeast Arkansas project manager for MFA Oil Biomass.