The Farm Bill is on the senate floor this morning getting its final going over. The Farm Bill has some very good changes compared to all the years it went on as is. The following is a summary of the new changes to the S2419 Farm Bill I found on gov.track. I highlighted the items that many people and organizations like The Sierra Club pushed to get through.
· The following summary was for the Passage With Amendment for this bill on 2007-12-14. The bill may have changed since then. It hasn’t.
· -Creates a tax penalty for transactions designed exclusively to avoid federal tax (Sec. 12522).
· -Lowers an income tax credit for ethanol blenders from 51 cents to 46 cents after the sale of 7.50 billion gallons (Sec. 12315).
· -Establishes the Agriculture Disaster Relief Trust Fund to provide disaster assistance for crop losses (Sec. 12101).
· -Ends assistance by the year 2010 for persons who have an average adjusted gross income of $750,000 or more and earn less than two-thirds of their average adjusted gross income from farming, ranching, or foresting (Sec. 1704).
· -Reauthorizes the Federal Food and Nutrition Program, the Commodity Distribution Program, and the Nutrition Information and Awareness Pilot Program (Secs. 4801, 4802, 4803).
· -Extends the Conservation Reserve Program and the Wetlands Reserve Program through 2012 (Sec. 2311, 2321).
· -Establishes programs to provide assistance for improving land for wildlife and forests (Sec. 2313, 2331).
· -Establishes a mandatory labeling of country of origin on meats (Sec. 10003).
· -Increases loan rates for sugar producers (Sec. 1501).
· -Requires the Department of Agriculture to purchase certain dairy products to support their prices, extends the Dairy Export Incentive Program and the Dairy Indemnity Program, and extends the Dairy Promotion and Research Program (Sec. 1601, 1603).
· -Provides a tax credit for energy generated from wind (Sec. 12301).
· -Expands and extends programs that provide credits for renewable fuel production (Sec. 12311, 12312, 12313, 12314).
This Farm Bill doesn’t appear to have any changes since December 2007. The only thing I see missing that is really important is tax incentives for good stewardship of the land, which gives farmers more freedom to rotate the crops of their choice. Our country pretty much locks farmers into 5 crops: corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton, and hay. As a result of all the corn, we end up with high fructose corn syrup in practically everything that’s packaged. One would think the HFCS would have a high enough caloric value to use as fuel instead of dumping it into our food. I bet some farmers in the Tennessee hills know how to make that stuff into high octane.
Look up the different sections in more detail @ http://www.nationalaglawcenter.org/assets/crs/RL34060.pdf
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?tab=summary&bill=h110-2419