WASHINGTON -- Sens. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., and Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, wrote Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer on July 8 to urge him to write strict eligibility rules for farm subsidies as the administration implements the 2008 farm bill.
USDA already has rules requiring farm subsidy recipients to prove they are "actively engaged" in agriculture by providing either labor or management of the farm, but does not have strong guidelines as to how much labor or management is required and what constitutes labor and managements.
Requirements
In their letter, Dorgan and Grassley urged USDA to adopt a recommendation from a 2003 USDA commission on payment limits that the active personal labor and management requirements be combined into a single criterion "to ensure individuals' contribution to the operation is meaningful and measurable."
Grassley and Dorgan noted that they had adopted these recommendations into a farm bill payment limitations amendment that Congress rejected. Those provisions would require that the total contribution of personal labor and active management be at least equal to the lesser of 1,000 hours per year or a 50 percent commensurate share of the total number of hours required to conduct farming operations and other more technical provisions.
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Dorgan and Grassley said in the letter that these provisions also would make it harder for large farming operations to structure their partnerships to receive more farm subsidies.
Limiting payments
Congress and Bush administration officials long have sparred over who should take the initiative to make sure that farm program payments, particularly large payments, do not go to persons who do not qualify for them. Lawmakers long have contended that previous farm bills have given USDA authority to write strict rules on eligibility for farm programs, but that the agency has not used it because administration officials would prefer that Congress take the heat from big farmers and landowners who do not want their subsidies limited.
In the farm bill debate, Bush administration officials urged Congress to ban subsidies to individuals with incomes of more than $200,000, however Congress established more liberal payment limits, but renewed and emphasized USDA's authority to determine who is an eligible farmer.
The administration's court
The Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, a group that lobbied for the Grassley-Dorgan amendment, said in a news release that the letter puts the issue of payment limit reform "back in the administration's court."
SAC President Ferd Hoefner said that if Bush administration officials "want real, lasting reform, they will use this mandated rulemaking process to close the loopholes and clean up the abusive practices that cost the taxpayers millions while putting family farms at a competitive disadvantage with the nation's largest landholders."
