12/01/08 Reorganizing the USDA

The US Department of Agriculture could be restructured under the Obama Administration. House Ag Committee Chairman Collin Peterson has been calling for a revamp and former Ag Committee member Charlie Stenholm says it's inevitable because it will give farmers and ranchers the tools they need to get the job done. STENHOLM "One of the most exciting potential positive things for agriculture is a new administration with a new secretary and a new team looking at their views and ideas on how USDA ought to be structured." Stenholm says that USDA can't continue to operate as it has for the past 25 years. STENHOLM "Anybody that's going to be asking for more money to do it the old way I don't think they're going to get it nor should they." Peterson says that crop insurance reform will be on the ag panel's agenda next year after the Government Accounting Office probed financial arrangements between crop insurance companies and their sale agents. PETERSON "You've got the agents in Iowa getting paid two or three times as much as the agents in North Dakota and they're doing half the work that the agent in North Dakota are doing." A GAO official told Congress last year that 40-percent of the almost eleven-billion dollars USDA paid to crop insurance companies since 1997 was retained by the insurance providers rather than being paid to farmers and ranchers. Today's Idaho Ag News Bill Scott