WASHINGTON, March 13, 2017 – As members of Congress meet to consider budget proposals and annual spending bills, a group of 59 farm, environmental, credit and young farmers organizations circulated letters today – urging them to “protect crop insurance and recognize its central importance to farmers, lenders and all of rural America.”
The letters, which were sent to all members of the Budget and Appropriations Committee, as well as Office of Management and Budget Director Mike Mulvaney and Agriculture Secretary-designate Sonny Perdue, aim to remind recipients that the 2014 farm bill made a multitude of cuts to the farm safety net, which includes commodity payments and crop insurance.
The Congressional Budget Office is now projecting that crop insurance will come in more than $20 billion under budget as compared to projected costs when the farm bill passed in 2014.
“An overreliance on savings from the agriculture community in the future will greatly undermine rural economies that have faced an almost 50 percent decline in net farm income over the past three years,” the groups noted in their letter.
The letters were signed by a wide variety of organizations, including American Agri-Women, American Bankers Association, American Farm Bureau Federation, Ducks Unlimited, Farm Credit Council, Specialty Crop Farm Bill Alliance, National Council of Farmer Cooperatives, National Young Farmers Association and others.
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