10/16/08 The one-year fix for the 10-acre rule

Washington Ag October 16, 2008 President Bush this week signed the legislation that temporarily addresses the 10 acre rule dispute. Recall that the new farm bill did not allow farm program payments to be made to producers for parcels with only ten base acres or less. Farm bill report language said producers should be allowed to aggregate small acreages to qualify for payments,but the USDA said no. Amy Paulson, program specialist with the Washington state Farm Service Agency office, explains what the bill Congress passed and the president signed does. Paulson: "As far as I understand it suspended the prohibition for 2008 only. It would allow for producers to sign up their farms of 10 or less base acres for 2008. It would not allow them to combine their farms however." So Congress has another year to make a permanent fix to the dispute. And as Paulson explains, quite a few farms in Washington are affected by the 10 acre rule. Paulson: "We have about 25-hundred farms and that equates to about 17% of our DCP farms statewide." Paulson says a sign up will be announced for producers with ten acre or less base acreages to participate in this year's Direct and Counter Cyclical Payment program. I'm Bob Hoff.