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Abstract
For the first time in two decades, the Secretary of Agriculture provided the House and Senate Agriculture Committees a farm bill proposal from the Administration. The Administration’s Proposal is a comprehensive revision of the 2002 farm bill with suggested changes to all titles. Four major proposed changes to Title 1 Commodity Programs are analyzed and reported in this Briefing Paper. The four key policy changes analyzed are:
- an increase in direct payment rates,
- a reduction in loan rates for most crops,
- the replacement of the counter cyclical payment (CCP) program with a counter cyclical revenue (CCR) program, and
- a change in eligibility for farm program payments by using $200,000 adjusted gross income (AGI) for a means test.
The economic impact of the Administration’s Proposal on the viability of 99 representative crop, dairy, and beef cattle farms is compared to a base situation of continuing the current farm bill through 2012. This report is a companion to FAPRI-UMC Report #11-07 that contains sector level impacts.