10/7/05
As the Senate goes on recess today until Oct. 18, Minnesota Senators Mark Dayton and Norm Coleman will continue to consider how the Senate Ag Committee, of which they are both members, should cut $3 billion from the federal food and agriculture budget in the 2006 budget reconciliation.

The inability of Senate Agriculture Committee chair Senator Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) to assemble enough votes to pass his seriously flawed budget proposal yesterday means that the Committee will be revisiting the ag budget cuts following the October recess. Senator Chambliss, after stating months ago that his agriculture budget cut proposal would be even-handed, decided to target conservation programs for a grossly disproportionate share of the cuts. Even more alarming, the Chairman had decided to single out the most important new farm program in a generation, the Conservation Security Program (CSP), for the bulk of the conservation cuts. We hope that the failure of the committee to come to agreement on Chairman Chambliss’ cuts is a sign that his unfair and unwise proposal will be substantially revised.

The Land Stewardship Project believes there are clear choices for Congressional leaders to make as reconciliation moves forward for the 2006 Agriculture Budget. These include:

- No cuts to the Conservation Security Program (CSP). CSP means more dollars for Minnesota farmers, and better care of the land. More than 700 farmers in Minnesota and 15,000 nationwide have enrolled in this stewardship-focused program in the past two years – and this despite a tardy implementation of the popular new program by USDA in a relative handful of watersheds. Making severe funding cuts now, such as the $821 million proposed by Chairman Chambliss, would severely hamper the effectiveness of this program, reduce the money coming to farmers in our state and region, and decrease the scope of future enrollments.

- Enacting meaningful payment limitations on commodity crop subsidies. Congress should save money by enacting a firm limit on the amount of crop subsidies any one producer can take from the government, as proposed in the Rural America Preservation Act of 2005, introduced in the Senate by Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA) and Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND). Even modest payment limit reform, such as the $250,000 payment cap proposed by Grassley and Dorgan, will save $1-2 billion and would affect only a handful of Minnesota operators. Senator Dayton has endorsed the Grassley-Dorgan bill, while Senator Coleman has not done so yet. We should cut the waste at the top, while keeping important conservation, food and nutrition, and farm support funding that helps millions of people and society as a whole.

- No cuts to food support and nutrition programs. Demands on food support and nutrition programs are at extremely high levels across the state. One impact of hurricanes Katrina and Rita is that these programs will likely be further stressed. Making cuts would only contribute to hunger and malnutrition in our nation.

The Land Stewardship Project is a Minnesota-based sustainable agriculture membership organization. Our mission is to foster an ethic of stewardship for farmland, promote sustainable agriculture and develop sustainable communities. For more information, visit www.landstewardshipproject.org or call 612-722-6377.

 

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