On March 28, National Corn Growers Association (NCGA) President Ken McCauley outlined the organization’s farm bill proposal, the National Farm Security Act (NFSA), to the House Agriculture Committee Subcommittee on General Commodities and Risk Management. McCauley told the committee the proposal should be viewed as a viable policy alternative as Congress considers the new farm bill.
According to the NCGA proposal’s cost analysis, the association’s Commodity Title proposal of NFSA is projected at approximately $500 million above baseline. The analysis assumes a level of 75% buy up of individual revenue insurance, a county revenue guarantee at a coverage level of 95% of projected price and a two-year implementation process to allow USDA time to make the necessary changes.
NCGA also recommends implementation of a cap on projected prices used to determine trigger revenues. One option would be to base the cap on a multiplier of loan rates adjusted for basis and historical season average prices. To reduce the effects of market volatility on the program and to provide greater predictability to producers, NCGA proposes to establish projected crop prices as the average of the current year’s revenue insurance price and the previous two years’ prices.
“Making the necessary improvements in the farm safety net outlined in our proposal, corn growers are confident in the potential for long-term savings,” said McCauley. “Our proposal suggests needed changes to the commodity support programs that would help ensure better protection against volatile commodity prices and significant crop losses and would provide permanent disaster assistance.”
NFSA is designed to increase the market orientation of the Commodity Title, enhance the targeting of farm support so that payments arrive when farmers most need assistance and increase the efficiency with which taxpayer dollars are spent supporting agriculture.
In addition, NCGA held a conference call with news media where McCauley and Public Policy Action Team Chairman Steve Pigg presented a cost analysis of NFSA. The NFSA presentation and the NCGA written testimony are available on NCGA’s Web site at www.ncga.com.