New farm bill plan introduced

Farm and Ranch September 27, 2011 New farm bill legislation has been introduced in the U.S. Senate by several corn state lawmakers that would create the Aggregate Risk And Revenue Management or ARRM Program.

The program is patterned after a proposal put forth by the National Corn Growers Association, which says it addresses several concerns raised by farmers regarding the Average Crop Revenue Election or ACRE Program, created in the last farm bill.

This legislation would eliminate the direct and counter-cyclical programs as well as the SURE disaster program and unlike the ACRE program, ARRM would be an annual election program with calculations based on planted acres.

Corn Growers Vice President of Public Policy Jon Doggett explains further.

Doggett: “The price component for establishing the revenue level takes the harvest price which is the price set by the insurance industry for the level of price that you want to protect. It is a five-year Olympic average of revenue, and we go to the crop reporting district rather than the state level in determining the yield component.:

The Congressional Budget Office says Aggregate Risk and Revenue Management Program would save about 20-billion dollars. It was introduced by a bipartisan group of senators, Democrats Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Dick Durban of Illinois and Republicans Dick Lugar of Indiana and John Thune of South Dakota.

I’m Bob Hoff and that’s the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on Northwest Aginfo Net.

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