Agricultural News
New Study Analyzes Differences Between Senate, House Farm Bills
Tue, 01 Oct 2013 16:16:47 CDT
A new farm bill analysis by the Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute at the University of Missouri provides one of the first in-depth looks at the Commodity Titles of both the Senate and House passed farm bills. The FAPRI analysis was done at the request of the Senate Ag Committee staff- and looks at what the federal farm safety net may look like and how much it will cost depending on which direction the conference report takes. (You can read the study by clicking here.)
FAPRI concludes the two bills have much in common and the consequences of the two bills would be similar in many respects. Both bills replace a Direct Payment program that makes payments that are not tied to current prices or production levels with new programs that offer support linked to current levels of production and prices. Average levels of federal farm program spending would be reduced under both bills, and most commodity market impacts would be relatively small.
--The program changes examined in this report reduce estimated 10-year net budgetary outlays by $18.1 billion under the Senate bill and $12.6 billion under the House bill. Estimates of the net budget savings of the same provisions by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) are $16.4 billion for the Senate bill and $15.9 billion for the House Committee bill.
--The Supplemental Coverage Option accounts for much of the difference in the estimated costs of the two bills, as the Title I provisions are estimated to have very similar net budgetary impacts.
--The House and Senate bills provide different projected levels of support to producers of particular commodities. For example, the House bill provides more support than the Senate bill to rice, barley and peanuts, while the Senate bill provides more support than the House bill to corn and soybeans. Area and production estimates reflect these differences in projected benefits.
--Program benefits will be very sensitive to market conditions and producer participation decisions, as the various programs provide protection against different types of financial risk.
--Under each bill, average net farm income would decline slightly relative to what would happen under a simple continuation of current farm programs. Impacts on consumer food prices would be very small.
Other provisions of the bills, such as changes in dairy and nutrition programs, are not examined in the FAPRI report. The Conservation Reserve Program, the Renewable Fuel Standard and World Trade Organization would all be impacted by both versions of the farm bill, but only in minor ways, the report concludes.
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