NSP Applauds House Agriculture Committee Farm Bill

The House Committee on Agriculture preliminarily released today its farm bill draft slated for markup next week. On this matter, NSP released the following statement:
 
National Sorghum Producers applauds the direction taken by the House Agriculture Committee in developing a comprehensive and solid farm bill that has a stable foundation and can serve as the new cornerstone for future farm policy.
 
The text released today indicates producers will have the opportunity to choose the policy option that best fits their farm and provides minimum price protection—two components NSP has strongly advocated for from the beginning of this process.
 
“The National Sorghum Producers commends the House Agriculture Committee’s bipartisan commitment to strong U.S. farm policy and to our nation’s farmers and ranchers,” said J.B. Stewart, NSP Legislative Committee chairman. “We are very pleased to be at this point in the 2012 Farm Bill process and we look forward to helping House committee members bring this bill across the finish line.”
 
The House Agriculture Committee’s markup of the farm bill is expected to be July 11.
 
The bill is entitled the Federal Agriculture Reform and Risk Management (FARRM) Act of 2012, and runs 557 pages, considerably shorter than the nearly 1,000-page Senate bill. The bill includes both a Price Loss Coverage (PLC) option and a Revenue Loss Coverage (RLC) option. PLC is a risk management tool that addresses deep, multi-year price declines and RLC addresses revenue losses, similar to the Senate's Agriculture Risk Coverage (ARC) proposal with key improvements. FARRM’s PLC and RLC apply to planted acres up to total base acres on a farm in order to contain costs. Grain sorghum’s PLC reference price was raised from $2.63 per bushel to $3.95 per bushel. The draft also appears to contain several of the positive provisions for crop insurance that the Senate bill contains with some additional ones.  
 
NSP will continue reviewing the text over the next few days, but our initial impressions are good as it includes bankable price protection and a choice between area-wide revenue protection with a price protection similar to the current counter cyclical payment program.