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ASA proposes ’12 Farm Bill plan
The American Soybean Association board has approved a proposed safety net approach for all growers for the 2012 Farm Bill.
ASA President Alan Kemper, a soybean producer in Lafayette, Indiana says their “Risk Management for America’s Farmers” plan would take care of the part that isn’t covered by crop insurance. He tells Brownfield their plan is commodity specific with revenue and yield benchmarks for individual farmers.
“This is not based on county, district or state yields or disasters with that, so, each farmer can tailor it to their own particular farm,” says Kemper
When it comes to overall budget savings, Kemper says ASA members want that to come out of direct payments and/or conservation,
“Our soybean farmers say that they’d rather have the risk management tools of the extra protection on price and yield and if they have to sacrifice some of the conservation payments they would be willing to do that.”
Kemper says he understands their approach is not exactly the same as other commodity groups’ but shares the revenue-based approach of the others. ASA is presenting their plan to the deficit-reduction Super Committee and leaders of the House and Senate Ag Committees.
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