via a special arrangement with Informa Economics, Inc.

Senate chair may provide some details on key issues, timeline

Senate Ag Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) speaks next Tuesday, Dec. 6, at the Farm Journal Forum, being co-presented by Informa Economics, Inc. She will likely discuss “Plan B” for a new farm bill after the Super Committee-linked farm bill strategy failed when the 12-member panel could not reach agreement on at least $1.2 trillion in debt reduction over 10 years.

What will be markup vehicle? Among the many omnibus farm bill issues is whether the farm bill package worked on by Stabenow and House Ag Chairman Frank Lucas (R-Okla.) and their staffs will serve as a markup vehicle ahead, or whether, as Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), Ranking Member on the Senate Ag Committee, who will also speak early Tuesday at the event, the farm bill process should hit restart, beginning with hearings and public and private analysis of various policy options, and not just limited to a select few outside economists, some of whom have consulting contracts with others. (Rep. Collin Peterson (D-Minn.), Ranking Member on the House Ag Committee, will also provide comments at the Farm Journal Forum.)

One murky issue is how much money the coming farm bill will spend – that is, how many billions of dollars will be cut from the farm bill baseline. The aborted farm bill package identified $23 billion in such cuts over 10 years – around $13 billion from commodity programs, $6 billion from conservation spending and $4 billion from nutrition programs (largely via administrative changes).

Direct payments elimination still likely. The Stabenow/Lucas farm bill package would have eliminated the around $5 billion paid out annually in direct payments, and this is expected to be a feature of the “Plan B” or other farm bill proposals.

Pending farm policy issues include the fate of the previously proposed Ag Risk Coverage (ARC), a revenue protection program, or an option to take much higher target prices for most program commodities but not cotton, which wanted a “crop insurance” program of their own called STAX (which, if sources are correct, would mean no payment limits for cotton producers via the STAX approach).

Conservation program consolidation, from around 23 current programs to around 13 to 15, was also part of the Stabenow/Lucas plan, with the maximum acres for the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) phased down over several years from the current 32 million acre level to 25 million acres.

Senate farm bill timeline. Stabenow plans to begin a new round of farm bill hearings in late January or early February, with a new goal of completing a bill in the Senate by early spring – a timeline some sources say may not be reached for the simple reason it has been very hard to get almost anything through that chamber.

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