Dateline: October 11, 2001

Thornberry votes for 2001 farm bill

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-Clarendon) voted Friday for a new farm bill designed to strengthen the safety net for American agriculture producers while continuing to give them flexibility to plant what they want to plant.

“This relief has clearly been needed,” Thornberry said. “But we need to get to a point where it doesn’t take an emergency to keep a farmer afloat.”

The measure, HR 2646, The Farm Security Act of 2001, passed the House by a vote of 291 to 120. Among its provisions are:

Commodity Programs - Maintains maximum planning flexibility while providing counter-cyclical protection to help farmers weather adverse market conditions. Retains fixed-decoupled payments, as well as the marketing loan program. Provides producers with the option to update base acreage.

Conservation - Devotes over $16 billion over 10 years to conservation programs. Reauthorizes the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) through 2011 with a 39.5 million-acre enrollment cap. Reauthorizes the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) through 2011 at $1.2 billion annual program level, with livestock producers receiving 50% of annual funding.

Rural Development - Provides $50 million in funding for the Value Added Grants Program to provide grants for start-up farmer-owned value added processing facilities.

“I think it’s important to remember that this bill alone is not all that we need to do. We also need to level the playing field in trade and foreign markets. We’ve also got to continue to push for lower taxes and less regulations, which all too often stand in the way of a producer getting ahead.”

The bill must now be voted on in the Senate.