Fiscal cliff deal affects Farm Bill

From SAF: The fiscal cliff agreement brought with it both good and not-so-good news for the Farm Bill. It included an extension of the current Farm Bill, through September 2013, thereby preventing farm policy from reverting to the underlying permanent 1949 law. That means that two important specialty crop programs supported by SAF — the U.S. Department of Agriculture/Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service research funding ($50 million annually) and the state Block Grants ($55 million annually)  — have been preserved because they were written into the 2008 Farm Bill without 2012 expiration dates.

For other specialty crop priorities, however, the news is not so good. Funding has been changed from “mandatory” to “discretionary” for agricultural research programs that are important to the floral industry, such as the Specialty Crop Research Initiative and the National Clean Plant Network. This means that the money will have to be appropriated through the very contentious annual budget process.

“Failure to get the new Farm Bill done in the last Congress, with bills proposing major savings, is a huge disappointment,” says SAF’s Lin Schmale. “In the current climate, it’s going to be very, very difficult to keep the focus on specialty crops as the Farm Bill has to be renegotiated.”

Click here to read the Specialty Crop Farm Bill Alliance statement.