The U.S. Department of agriculture has released the proposed rule to limit the farm payments made to non-farmers, as required in the 2014 farm bill.
To see the proposal, Click here .
"Under the proposed rule, non-family joint ventures and general partnerships must document that their managers are making significant contributions to the farming operation, defined as 500 hours of substantial management work per year, or 25 percent of the critical management time necessary for the success of the farming operation," USDA said in a news release.
"Many operations will be limited to only one manager who can receive a safety-net payment. Operators that can demonstrate they are large and complex could be allowed payments for up to three managers only if they can show all three are actively and substantially engaged in farm operations. The changes specified in the rule would apply to payment eligibility for 2016 and subsequent crop years for Agriculture Risk Coverage (ARC) and Price Loss Coverage (PLC) Programs, loan deficiency payments and marketing loan gains realized via the Marketing Assistance Loan program."
USDA specified that as mandated by Congress, family farms will be affected.
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"There will also be no change to existing rules for contributions to land, capital, equipment, or labor. Only non-family farm general partnerships or joint ventures comprised of more than one member will be impacted by this proposed rule," the agency says.
The proposed rule limits farm payments to individuals who are farm managers but are not actively engaged in farm management, USDA said.
"The current definition of 'actively engaged' for managers, established in 1987, is broad, allowing individuals with little to no contributions to critical farm management decisions to receive safety-net payments if they are classified as farm managers, and for some operations there were an unlimited number of managers that could receive payments," USDA said.
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said, "We want to make sure that farm program payments are going to the farmers and farm families that they are intended to help. So we've taken the steps to do that, to the extent that the farm bill allows.
"The farm bill gave USDA the authority to limit farm program payments to individuals who are not actively engaged in the management of the farming operation on non-family farms. This helps close a loophole that has been taken advantage of by some larger joint ventures and general partnerships."
The Center for Rural Affairs released a statement expressing disappointment in the rule.
"The purpose of revising the actively engaged definition was to make farm payment limits more effective," said Traci Bruckner, Senior Associate at the Center for Rural Affairs. "USDA is, however, clearly more interested in defending the interests of mega-farms by preserving loose definitions that will continue to allow the nation's largest farms to avoid meaningful payment limits."
"This is not reform," Bruckner said. "In 2007, while campaigning in Iowa for his first election, President Obama promised to close these loopholes, and so did Vice President Biden. But when given yet another opportunity to fulfill that promise, the White House and Secretary Vilsack took a pass, again."
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USDA is accepting comments on the rule until May 26.
