Federal crop insurance seeks to protect farmers from “unavoidable risk” associated with bad weather, crop disease and insects. The Farm Bill should not be raided.
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“ASA absolutely opposes any effort by Congress to reopen any part of the farm bill as part of budget negotiations, and we implore lawmakers to reject any attempt to target crop insurance or any other farm bill programs for further cuts”, he said.
Other voices in agriculture such as the National Corn Growers Association and the National Association of Wheat Growers also registered their opposition to any planned cuts in the federal crop insurance program. The budget proposal would raise $3 billion to help offset $80 billion in new spending by cutting the maximum rate of return available to crop insurers. “I will continue to oppose any attempts to cut crop insurance funding or to change crop insurance program policies”. “Speaking frankly, our farm economy is simply not in the shape it was even three years ago when we began the process of writing the farm bill”.
“This type of action circumvents the consensus building nature of our system and I think it’s an outrage”, said Hardwick, chairman of the national Cotton Inc. and past chairman of the National Cotton Council. The deal also would take budget showdowns off the table until after the 2016 presidential and congressional elections, a potential boon to the eventual GOP nominee and incumbents facing tough re-election fights. “No”, Abraham said. “But I’m going to do everything I can to make sure the president and the Republican leadership keep their word and fix this problem that they created”.
The additional spending would be achieved by cuts in several other parts of the budget, including Medicare payments to health care providers and in Social Security’s disability program.
Traci Bruckner, Senior Policy Associate at the Center for Rural Affairs, offered a different perspective.
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She added, “Insurance companies have been one of the largest beneficiaries of the subsidized crop insurance program”. Additionally, the bill calls for a cap of 8.9% on the amount that crop insurance companies can earn on retained premiums for the 2017 to 2026 reinsurance years. Then they would seek emergency relief when their crops are devastated by natural disasters or political upheaval and Grassley says that would ultimately cost taxpayers more than the current system.
