News From

The Vermont Congressional Delegation

Fri., Aug. 29, 2002                                                               

Leahy, Jeffords, Sanders Ask USDA
To Rewrite Its ‘Farmer-Unfriendly’
Draft Rules For Dairy Plan

The members of the Vermont Congressional Delegation – Sen. Patrick Leahy, Sen. Jim Jeffords, and Rep. Bernie Sanders – are asking U.S. Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman to correct serious problems in rules her agency has proposed to implement the new national dairy program. 

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) recently announced steps to implement the program in ways that the delegation members say would shortchange dairy farmers and needlessly add to farmers’ paperwork.  They said the Bush Administration wants to impose the strictest possible rules to deny payments to multiple producers on multi-generational family farms and that USDA’s rules would cut retroactive payments to producers on medium-sized dairy operations.  The delegation also criticized USDA’s one-month delay in allowing producers to sign up under the program and asked Veneman to prevent further delays.  The dairy program was enacted through the delegation’s work on the Farm Bill.

They said Congress gave the Bush Administration sufficient flexibility to implement the Farm Bill in farmer-friendly ways.  Instead, they said, there is a concerted effort by the Administration to restrict payments to farmers as much as possible, across the board, and  throughout the Farm Bill.  They said other examples of this ‘farmer-unfriendly’ pattern are USDA’s yield and acreage updates for grain and oilseed producers, and in conservation, where the Administration is refusing to make available $50 million for farmland protection authorized for this fiscal year.

Leahy, Jeffords and Sanders point out that dairy farmers are hurting and urgently need these payments.  Milk prices are nearly one-third lower now than they were this time last year.

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