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NCGA proposes ADAP for ’12 Farm Bill
The National Corn Growers Association (NCGA) has unveiled a proposed commodity title for the 2012 Farm Bill that it says would modify and replace direct payments, work better for farmers and save the government money.
Anthony Bush, a corn, soybean and wheat farmer from Mt. Gilead, Ohio, is chairman of the NCGA’s grower-led Public Policy Action Team. He tells Brownfield, the team’s proposed Agriculture Disaster Assistance Program, (ADAP) would modify the existing Average Crop Revenue Election (ACRE) Program and will be simpler than ACRE, yet remain revenue-based,
“This is designed to work within about 70% of the current direct payment baseline. So, we are, in essence, offering 30% of direct payments up for budget reduction and this is where we feel like we’re, you know, trying to be part of the solution, not the problem.”
Bush says they wanted to give the budget Super Committee of Congress an alternative to direct payments before it just started making cuts.
Developed in partnership with the University of Illinois and NCGA’s chief economist, Bush says ADAP’s guarantee and payments are “closer to the farm level” and would respond more quickly to disasters in crop years like this one than the SURE program does, “We believe the SURE program was just not as adequate a form of risk management as what we can deliver here.”
The Indiana Corn Growers, Ohio Corn and Wheat Growers and Illinois Corn Growers formally support for the ADAP program. Illinois Corn President Jim Reed says farmers need a simpler program like this that – in his words – “works with crop insurance instead of competing against it.”
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