Senator Lugar's Statement at the FRESH Act Press Conference

Over the past ten years, farm subsidies have gone to just one out of three farmers with only six percent of farms receiving more than 70 percent of that money – namely $120 billion.  Subsidy programs have spurred farm consolidation, violated international trade agreements, and still left most farmers heavily exposed to risk. 

The House of Representatives failed earlier this year to pass a farm bill that reforms these injustices.  When we meet tomorrow, the Senate Agriculture Committee will unfortunately follow suit.  The Committee bill, that is poised to pass, would increase market distorting subsidies.  It risks retaliation against all of our farm exports because it perpetuates a cotton program that repeatedly has been found to violate world trading rules. 

Today, Senator Frank Lautenberg and I, along with Senators Orrin Hatch, Bob Menendez, Susan Collins, Ben Cardin, Sheldon Whitehouse and Jack Reed, are introducing reform legislation that would provide a true safety net for all farmers, regardless of what they grow or where they live.  We want to end out-of-date subsidies and provide for a more equitable and less expensive safety net for all American agriculture.

For the first time, each farmer would receive expanded county-based crop insurance policies that would cover either 85 percent of expected crop revenue or yield, or 80 percent of a farm’s five year average adjusted gross revenue.   These insurance tools already exist, but our reforms would make them more effective and universally used, while reducing administrative costs and saving taxpayer money. 

Savings from these reforms will allow us to provide money for new investments. Our bill provides over the next five years an additional $4 billion for hunger relief efforts, including major improvements in the Food Stamp Program, our nation’s primary safety net for the disadvantaged.  It also expands nutrition programs for disadvantaged children in the summer, when school meals are not available. 

The bill invests $3 billion into specialty crop programs that improve research and marketing opportunities for the majority of American farmers that currently do not benefit from farm programs.

This legislation also focuses on important environmental and conservation programs by providing an additional $6 billion.  These programs encourage farmers and other private landowners to protect environmentally sensitive lands and prevent soil erosion, improve water quality, create wildlife habitat, and reduce greenhouse gasses. 

Our bill expands U.S. worldwide agricultural markets and reduces our dependency on foreign oil by dramatically increasing research and development efforts for cellulosic ethanol and other renewable fuels.

Our bill accomplishes these goals and still comes in under PAYGO limits.  In fact, our bill saves taxpayers $3 billion over the five years.  It also saves the Congress from employing superficial budgetary maneuvers. 

I’ve managed my family’s 604-acre corn, soybean and tree farm in Indiana for the last half century, and I’ve served on the Ag Committee for three decades. We’ve made some headway on reform in these years, but more often we have not.

This year, we want to make a significant constructive difference.  

Our reform proposal is more equitable, produces higher income for farmers, increases farm exports, avoids stimulating over-production, and provides more investment for environmental, nutritional, energy security and research concerns.