1/13/03
TAKE ACTION FOR FAMILY FARMS
AND THE ENVIRONMENT
Call Your U.S. Senators Today!
Dear
LSP member:
ACTION
ALERT
ISSUE:
The U.S. Senate is likely to take up the agricultural funding bill for
2003 very soon - perhaps as early as Wednesday, January 15. An amendment
may be offered to the "FY 03 Agricultural Appropriations Bill"
(as the funding bill is called) to reduce the payment limitation for
the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) from $450,000 per
farm to $200,000 per farm (or possibly some other amount). We need
to support such an amendment, as it would greatly decrease the ill-advised
subsidy of factory farms that EQIP currently delivers.
BACKGROUND:
EQIP is a farm bill conservation program, reauthorized in the 2002 farm
bill. Unfortunately, in 2002, proponents of factory farms in the U.S.
House and Senate made the program into a subsidy program for large-scale
livestock expansion, in part by increasing the payment limit for EQIP
nine-fold - from $50,000 per farm to $450,000 per farm - and by making
the money available for new factory farm expansion and construction.
As a result, in 2002, the USDA has paid out EQIP contracts in the $200,000-$450,000
range going to factory farms. This is a direct taxpayer subsidy to
the industrialization of agriculture and the environmental damage caused
by these huge waste factories. The large payments also mean less
money is available to other producers, so that fewer farmers and ranchers
are able to benefit from EQIP to improve their conservation efforts.
ACTION:
Call the U.S. Capitol switchboard at 202-224-3121 and ask for the
phone number for your two U.S. Senators. Then call your Senators'
offices and urge each of them to support a $200,000 payment limitation
for the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) during consideration
of the agricultural appropriations bill. If you call and get an
answering machine, leave a message telling your Senator you want them
to support payment limitations on EQIP funding at no more than $200,000,
and leave your name and town. If you are a farmer, let them know that
as well.
MAKE THESE KEY POINTS:
•
Conservation programs should promote conservation, not factory farm
expansion. Unless EQIP is changed, taxpayer dollars will subsidize increased
factory farm production, which will drive down livestock prices and
hurt family farmers, while contributing to groundwater and surface water
contamination, air pollution, and increased health risks for neighboring
residents.
•
We need action now on the appropriations bill so the new limit on how
much any one operation can get is in place before all the 2003 EQIP
money ($700,000,000) is spent.
•
The reduced payment limit will ensure that many more livestock and other
farmers will be able to receive EQIP funding.
•
This is a clear waste of taxpayers' dollars, at a time of much greater
needs. Cut EQIP, and start with decreasing the amount that any one livestock
operation can get to an absolute maximum of $200,000.
This is an urgent message, as the Senate may be acting very soon
on the agricultural funding bill.
Please
call on Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday, January
13 - 15, if at all possible.
In
Minnesota: Senator Norm Coleman (202) 224-5641
Senator Mark Dayton (202) 224-3244
In
Wisconsin: Senator Russell Feingold (202) 224-5323
Senator Herb Kohl (202) 224-5653
In
Iowa: Senator Chuck Grassley (202) 224-3744
Senator Tom Harkin (202) 224-3254
In
South Dakota: Senator Tom Daschle (202) 224-2321
Senator Tim Johnson (202) 224-5842
In
other states: Capitol Switchboard (202) 224-3121
For more information, or to tell us what you heard back from your Senators,
contact Mark Schultz
or Mike McMahon
at LSP's Policy Program 612-722-6377.
