05/10/06 USDA releases 1st Farm Bill paper

Farm and Ranch May 10, 2006 Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns this week released a risk management analysis paper, the first in a series of papers the USDA says is intended to provide factual information for discussion of the 2007 Farm Bill. Secretary Johanns says the risk management paper has three options; the first is leave things as they are; Johanns: "The second option is to replace marketing assistance loans and counter cyclical payments with a program that pays producers based upon revenue shortfalls. One goal of risk management is to stabilize revenue and this was the theme I did hear in Farm Bill forums. Our current programs are focused on stabilizing price rather than reimbursing producers based on income shortfalls. For example, under our current system a producer whose crop is affected by drought has less production and therefore receives less. If that producer's payments were determined by a target revenue level he would be guaranteed some support in this situation." Johanns says the third option in the paper is to phase price support programs. Johanns: "We could then use the savings to address many of the ideas we heard in the forums, expanding crop insurance coverage, funding farm savings accounts or expanding conservation programs, rural development initiatives or other worthwhile programs." The next theme paper will be on conservation. I'm Bob Hoff and that's the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information