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NCGA wants Senate bill tweaked

Although the National Corn Growers Association supports a bipartisan Senate bill introduced to replace direct payments with a revenue-based safety net, there are some things they’d like to tweak. Ohio grower Anthony Bush says his NCGA committee worked closely with his home-state Senator Sherrod Brown, co-sponsor of the Aggregate Risk and Revenue Management Program (ARRM) Bill, along with Senators Thune, Durbin and Lugar.

“We are thrilled that they have taken some of our ideas and incorporated them into a bill that’s going to be put in front of the Super Committee,” says Bush.

But, Bush tells Brownfield there are some differences between “ARRM” and NCGA’s  – Agriculture Disaster Assistance Program proposal (ADAP).

 “The main one there that they did was the 85% of planted acres. We would still like to see that at 100% of planted acres.”  Bush says they might be able to adapt their “ADAP” proposal and still stay at 100% of planted acres, “You know, we want to run these scenarios through our computer models that we have invested in and we are doing that as speak,” says Bush.

Bush calls this a “second tier safety net” and says the NCGA continues to work with the Cotton Council on their proposal which, like NCGA’s, makes crop insurance the cornerstone of the 2012 Farm Bill.

American Soybean Association President Alan Kemper says the ASA Board will be discussing all of the safety net proposals this Thursday and will be releasing its recommendations later this week.

AUDIO: Anthony Bush NCGA (6:00 mp3)

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