Questions & Answers About the Specialty Crop Farm Bill Recommendations
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| How does the Specialty Crops bill help producers?
A broad coalition of producer organizations, the Specialty Crop Farm Bill Alliance, has worked for more than 18 months to develop consensus on initiatives that improve the competitiveness of producers. Provisions include expanding support of research, bolstered pest and disease programs, enhancing trade opportunities and nutrition programs, and better access to conservation programs. Additionally, the bill calls for block grants to states to address local needs of producers that cannot be efficiently addressed through national programs – in effect, investing in a wide array of local agricultural priorities.
Where will the money for these programs come from?
Specialty crops represented in this proposal constitute about half of our nation’s plant-based agriculture farmgate value, yet the programs in the specialty crop bill would only total about seven percent of farm bill spending. Federal agricultural policies should take into account the high value that specialty crops have in U.S. agriculture, and Congress can provide leadership to develop a farm bill that affords a greater sense of balance between specialty crops and traditional program crops. We appreciate the imperative need to reign in costs, including farm policy spending, and we hope to work with Congress on determining an appropriate and proportionate support level for these proposals, relative to traditional program crop spending, within the framework of the budget resolution.
Why are you proposing these initiatives now?
The specialty crop industry is united in its advocacy of federal policies that enhance specialty crop production and, thereby, address overall agricultural competitiveness. At a time when our nation has an agricultural trade deficit, the growth of specialty crops can offer relief. Specialty crop producers are working together like never before to advocate programs in a variety of areas – such as research, conservation and marketing assistance – that can improve our competitiveness in a global marketplace.
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| Why not participate in the direct payment programs like other producers?
Direct payment subsidies are not a way to make producers more competitive. Specialty crop producers believe in allowing the marketplace to determine our success, and the provisions within this bill, more than anything else, are intended to enhance competitiveness. Direct payments could have WTO implications, creating an unnecessary complication for producers and the marketplace.
Why are the disaster assistance provisions in this bill? Doesn’t Congress address those needs in emergency legislation anyway?
To truly help producers while being as efficient as possible, federal disaster programs must be responsive to the specific needs of specialty crop producers and handlers. Specialty crop growers often work within very narrow market windows, and must react quickly to recover from costly disasters – in many cases before Congress can enact legislation. Further, disaster assistance programs originally designed for other large program crops often do not appropriately fit the needs of injured specialty crop producers.
You’re asking for considerable funding for state block grants, but have those block grants really benefited producers?
State block grants are an important component of our bill because it is difficult for broad national programs to target very specific local needs, such as marketing a unique crop or combating a particular pest. For example, block grants appropriated by Congress five years ago were used in Florida for a wide variety of programs, including training producers on modern food safety practices, research for finding alternatives to methyl bromide, and marketing assistance for citrus. As another example, in Michigan, the apple industry used block grants to fund research that led to fresh apple slices like those sold at McDonald’s.
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| With the delay in the WTO Doha negotiations, do you agree that an extension of current farm bill programs would serve the industry?
Modernizing the farm bill remains a top priority for specialty crop producers. Domestically grown specialty crops need better access to overseas markets, and the delay in WTO agricultural talks likely prolongs that inequitable trade situation. Additionally, specialty crop producers face ever-increasing competition from imports, as well as challenges that threaten the viability of producers – making a revision of farm bill programs that address these needs so very important.
What do you think about continuation of current “program crop” subsidies?
Specialty crop producers have no interest in direct payments now made available to the so-called program crop producers. Our farm bill initiative takes a different approach – instead focusing on research, marketing, conservation, nutrition, pest and disease programs and local-priority block grants as strategies for ensuring a stronger agriculture industry and a healthier America. We ask lawmakers to allocate farm bill resources to these specialty crop priorities in an equitable fashion relative to other crops included in the farm bill.
What about the increased funding for the Market Access Program and the Technical Assistance for Specialty Crops program?
The specialty crop industry depends heavily on exports, which account for about one third of domestic production. The export market supports many producers and in turn many ancillary industries. At a time when the produce industry is facing a net trade deficit, programs that provide assistance in opening and maintaining export markets are more critical than ever before.
The MAP program is a successful public-private partnership. The average industry match is $1.66 for every federal dollar spent on the program. Strong MAP funding is vital to the specialty crop industry’s efforts to maintain and expand exports and to increase grower profitability. The MAP program helps level the playing field for U.S. producers competing against countries with much lower production costs. Market development programs such as MAP are also WTO compliant, which means our competitors are putting more and more funds into similar programs. Therefore, we must increase our investment in market promotion if we are to stay competitive.
The TASC program has been critical in helping specialty crop producers address specific sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) non-tariff trade barriers. However, the program has been oversubscribed and USDA reports receiving many more qualified applications than they can fund each year. The specialty crop industry has unique and specific SPS issues that, if left unaddressed, shut the industry out of a number of export markets.
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| How can you justify keeping the planting restrictions on program acres when you say you favor a competitive marketplace?
The specialty crop industry competes every day in a very dynamic marketplace with domestic and foreign competitors. Producers of non-subsidized crops should not have to compete with producers who receive a government subsidy for past or current activities conducted on those acres. Specialty crop producers operate in a supply-sensitive, volatile price marketplace. Production of specialty crops by subsidized growers would distort those markets. Recent economic research predicts that even a one percent increase in fruit and vegetable planting would result in no less than a four percent decrease in prices. The supply and demand imbalance would quickly depress prices, deteriorate any grower profitability, and ultimately place their survival into jeopardy. Congress must maintain the current status of planting restrictions to continue this fair equity provision to specialty crop producers, and support their efforts to stay in business as a result.
Why is there such a strong emphasis on nutrition spending in a farm policy bill?
The federal government’s new dietary guidelines, issued in 2005, calls for substantial increases in fruit and vegetable consumption for all Americans, yet federal nutrition programs could do much more to make those goals a reality. The new farm bill offers a unique opportunity for Congress to encourage millions of Americans who participate in these feeding and nutrition programs to eat right, and thereby make significant strides in combating chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart disease and obesity.
One of the keys to increasing consumption is making fruits and vegetables more accessible and readily available to the youth of our nation. On any given day, 45 percent of U.S. children eat no fruit at all, and 20 percent eat less than one serving of vegetables – consumption rates far below the 2005 dietary guidelines. In the meantime, childhood obesity is increasing at an alarming rate in the U.S., which is a contributing factor for diabetes, hypertension and heart disease. The 2007 Farm Bill offers an excellent opportunity for our nation to address these problems and encourage improved nutrition for our children. A major policy recommendation for the Specialty Crop Farm Bill Alliance is to expand the Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Snack Program to all 50 states, a program that, in its pilot phase, has proved markedly effective in boosting produce consumption among students.
Other alliance recommendations for increasing fruit and vegetable consumption include a domestic nutrition promotion program, boosting federal commodity purchases, and food stamp initiatives that encourage produce consumption.
What is your number one priority in this bill?
All of the alliance’s policy recommendations are critical and interdependent components of a comprehensive initiative to bolster the overall competitiveness of American agriculture and foster a healthier America. They represent an investment by the federal government in a sector that comprises approximately half of American agriculture’s crop farmgate value, yet the resources allocated to these recommendations represent a very small fraction of current farm bill spending.
What do you think of the federal subsidy program?
Our policy recommendations can be implemented independently of subsidies for other so-called “program crops,” and it is up to Congress and those participating industries to consider the role of those supports in future farm bills. However, the alliance’s recommendations are comprised of a wide range of programs intended to make specialty crop producers more competitive without direct payments to producers.
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