Farmers decry
Trump plans to cut agriculture subsides
Farm groups and some members of Congress from farm states are decrying proposed cuts to crop insurance and other safety net programs for farmers included in President Donald Trump's budget.
Farm groups and some members of Congress from farm states are decrying proposed cuts to crop insurance and other safety net programs for farmers included in President Donald Trump's budget.
The proposed cuts come even as farmers are
facing their fourth straight year of falling income, and could particularly
affect farm states such as Iowa, Kansas and Nebraska that helped Trump win the
November election.
"Clearly, this budget fails
agriculture and rural America," American Farm Bureau Federation President
Zippy Duvall said in a statement.
The proposed budget would cap the amount
of money the U.S. government provides to help farmers pay insurance premiums and
eliminate insurance coverage for lost revenue when crop prices and per-acre
yields fall. That would reduce the federal insurance program's budget by $28
billion over 10 years.
Trump has also proposed reducing subsidies
to farmers, cutting those programs by $9 billion by decreasing the maximum
income level from $900,000 to $500,000 for a farmer to be eligible. The budget
would also cut 5,263 jobs at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, a 5.5 percent
reduction in staff.
Farmers, economists and agriculture experts
say it is important to support the agriculture sector, which makes up about 11
percent of U.S. employment, or about 21 million jobs, and contributes nearly $1
trillion to the nation's domestic productivity.
"The strength of the agricultural
economy has implications for rural America, but also for the larger U.S.
economy," Robert Johansson, the USDA's chief economist, told senators last
month.
Michigan Sen. Debbie Stabenow, the leading
Democrat on the Senate Agriculture Committee, warned that the proposed cuts
"would have a disproportionate impact on small towns across our country
and leave those communities in crisis."
Nevertheless, some people say there is no
need for farmers to worry just yet.
"What I've been telling farmers is
let's just relax a bit before we panic. It is going to be hard for Trump to get
anything done. That's become really obvious," said Brent Gloy, a former
Purdue University agriculture economist who now works full-time on his family's
corn, soybean and wheat farm in southwest Nebraska, where Trump had strong
support.
Indeed, Republican U.S. Sen. Charles
Grassley, who owns a farm in Iowa and is a member of the agriculture and budget
committees, does not expect the crop insurance cuts to make it through
Congress. Grassley considers Trump's budget a non-starter, much like the budget
proposals of Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, who also suggested
farm program cuts that never materialized.
"Most budgets are dead on
arrival," Grassley said during a recent conference call with reporters.
"I don't say that to be negative about any of the three presidents I've
said it about."
Farmer Harold Wolle, who lives in a
Minnesota county where 55 percent of voters chose Trump, makes the same point
and says it is too early in the process for Trump supporters to be
disappointed.
"We're
fortunate that Congress writes the budget, not the executive branch," said
Wolle, who is president of the Minnesota Corn Growers Association.
Subsidies
for crops and crop insurance have sustained grain farmers in recent years as
prices plummeted for wheat, corn and soybeans thanks to favorable weather that
boosted harvests. The U.S. Department of Agriculture reported in February net
farm income is expected to fall 8.7 percent this year to $62.3 billion, half of
the $123.7 billion income posted in 2013.
The
Trump administration says the proposed cuts help fulfill a campaign promise to
balance the federal budget.
"I
believe the people knew what they were doing when they elected President Trump
president," Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said in conference call
with Iowa reporters. "I see it as an opportunity to demonstrate to the
American people we can do more with less and we will do more with less. We're
going to be winning in the end."
Iowa
farmer Chris Petersen, who voted for Hillary Clinton in November after
supporting Bernie Sanders for the Democratic nomination, actually supports some
cuts to farm subsidies, saying they promote the overproduction of certain
crops.
"I
believe in protecting agriculture and farms of all sizes up to a certain size.
It's a national food security issue," said Petersen, who raises hogs,
cattle and vegetables, which he sells to local residents and restaurants.
"But it comes to a certain point where it's just on steroids basically and
there needs to be more management."
At
the same time, he says Trump supporters from depressed rural areas who thought
they were electing someone who would help them should have known better.
"You
get what you voted for," he said. "People better be thinking about
rural economies, the rural people, jobs, stability and changing things around
so it works better for rural. A lot of people didn't think this out too
good."
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