June 25, 2012

Mrs. Debbie Neustadt
1261 E23
Des Moines, IA 50317-6447

Dear Debbie:

You have previously shared your ideas and concerns on food, agricultural, and related policies and what our next farm bill should look like. I appreciated hearing from you and would like to share with you my thoughts on the Agriculture Reform, Food, and Jobs Act of 2012, S. 3240, which the Senate approved on June 21, 2012 by a vote of 64-35. I was proud to support it and to have worked on it as a senior member and former chairman of the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Committee.

This bill is an enormously important piece of legislation for Iowa, as it is for our nation. Although the measure is commonly referred to as the farm bill, that name captures just a fraction of what the legislation contains to benefit all Americans and millions of others around the world. Indeed, it is critical for the House of Representatives to act so Congress can send this bill to the President in order to continue and enhance the contributions of agriculture and agriculture-related industries to our nation's economy and to meeting ever-growing global demands for food, fiber, and energy.

The new farm bill is sound, balanced, and bipartisan and will ensure a degree of stability and protection against losses in farm income. I am pleased the bill replaces the direct payments, which are paid in fixed amounts regardless of whether prices and yields are high or low, with a new system to protect against shortfalls in farm revenue, the new Agriculture Risk Coverage (ARC) program. The ARC Program builds upon the Average Crop Revenue Election (ACRE) program enacted in the 2008 farm bill, when I was chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee. I am also pleased that the bill strengthens crop insurance for farmers in Iowa and elsewhere.

The new farm bill continues food assistance for low income families. The bill achieves some savings from spending reductions to food assistance, but it holds these cuts to much lower levels than other proposals that have been made, including the budget resolution adopted in the House of Representatives. Moving forward, I will strongly oppose reductions in food assistance of the magnitude of those proposed by the House of Representatives.

In the past two farm bills we greatly increased assistance to farmers who adopt and maintain sound conservation practices. I am especially proud of the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP), which I authored, and which now has enrolled nearly 50 million acres. This farm bill continues strong support for conservation programs, though I regret that this was done with some reductions in spending.

This bill extends and strengthens the energy titles which we included in the 2002 and 2008 farm bills and it dedicates $800 million in new funding to these energy initiatives. That's important both for helping farmers manage their energy needs and for enabling our agricultural sector to expand domestic production of biofuels and renewable energy for the country.

Finally, the new bill extends and builds on previous efforts to assist farmers markets and local food systems. We have seen in Iowa how new local food enterprises create jobs and economic opportunity. I'm pleased the bill continues efforts to help beginning farmers start and build successful operations.

We now have much work ahead of us in working with the House of Representatives to develop a final bill that can be sent to the President for his signature. It is my sincere hope that we can accomplish this before the end of the summer.

Sincerely,

Tom Harkin
United States Senator