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What is the Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC)?
What is "permanent" agricultural legislation?
Q. What is the Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC)?
A. The Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) is a federally owned
and operated corporation within the U.S. Department of Agriculture
created
to stabilize, support, and protect farm income and prices through
loans, purchases, payments, and other operations. All money
transactions
for agricultural price and income support and related programs
are handled through the CCC. Programs that are mandated to be
funded
through the CCC do not require separate appropriations from Congress.
CCC transactions with farmers include (1) direct payments made
to producers under various programs, (2) direct purchases of dairy
products under the dairy price support program, and (3) the
commodity
loans provided under the marketing assistance loans for wheat,
feed grains, cotton, rice, sugar, peanuts, soybeans, and minor
oilseeds.
Temporary, emergency laws have also provided for honey and mohair
loans. Tobacco loans are mandated under earlier legislation.
In the past, the CCC has played a larger role than at present in
facilitating storage, release, and marketing of current production.
This has occurred through operation of the 3-5 year farmer-owned
reserve during 1977 to 1995, for example, and through the accumulation
of commodities under the commodity loan program in years before
1990 when the loan rate was essentially the minimum market price.
Occasionally, the CCC has purchased, sold, and/or transferred commodities
for various uses in support of various feed assistance or consumer
food aid or other programs. The availability of short-term loans
at reasonable interest rates continues to facilitate orderly marketing
by producers within a crop-marketing year by encouraging them to
temporarily store their production in anticipation of future prices
changes. This stabilizes market prices to an important degree.
For additional information see USDA Farm Service Agency's About the Commodity Credit Corporation.
Q. What is "permanent" agricultural
legislation?
A. Permanent legislation refers to those laws that would be
in force to authorize various agricultural programs in the absence
of all
temporary amendments (farm acts). The Agricultural Adjustment Act
of 1938 and the Agricultural Act of 1949, as subsequently amended,
serve as the basic laws authorizing the major commodity programs.
Technically, each new short-term farm act amends the permanent
legislation
for a specified period. The permanent statutory provisions, as
amended over the years, dictate how commodity programs can be
implemented
unless steps are taken to amend, suspend, or repeal parts of them.
The most recent legislation modifying the effect of the permanent
provisions through such actions was the 2002 Farm Act. As usual,
some permanent provisions were left unchanged by the 2002 Farm
Act, and therefore still apply to current programs.
Selected features of permanent legislation include:
- acreage allotments and marketing quotas,
- parity price support, and
- farmer-owned reserve.
For additional information, see The Effects of Failure to Enact a New Farm Bill: Permanent Law Support For Commodities and Lapse of Other USDA Programs (March 2008) and Possible Expiration of the 2002 Farm Bill (January 2008).
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