February 4, 2000

Texas Farm Bureau played a big role at this year’s American Farm Bureau Federation annual meeting in shaping the upcoming national debates about the Freedom to Farm Act, according to TFB President Donald Patman.

"We still support ‘Freedom to Farm,’ but we need the opportunity to evaluate it and fine-tune it," said TFB’s new president, who took over the Texas reins from newly elected American Farm Bureau Federation President Bob Stallman. "The newly-adopted resolutions will allow us the flexibility to determine the direction farm policy needs to go in this country."

One important key to this farm debate was a policy introduced by Texas Farm Bureau to support a counter-cyclical type income assistance program.

"This counter-cyclical income assistance would support farm program payments during times of low commodity prices without jeopardizing the concepts of the current farm law or returning to supply management programs," Patman said.

Stallman, who defeated former AFBF president Dean Kleckner in the presidential election, said delegates opposed any return to supply management programs.

"I think we did have some discussion of that in the policy debate and we don’t want to go back there," he said. "However, we do want some flexibility between supporting the FAIR Act, which we do, and not going back to supply management programs of the past, where we can look at some innovative and new ways to assist farmers and ranchers in this country as we go through these tough economic times."

A recommendation by the Texas Farm Bureau that loan deficiency payments be equitable from county to county was also adopted by voting delegates. Equal funding for disaster assistance for livestock on the same basis as crops was also pushed by Texas Farm Bureau and adopted by delegates. Also adopted, at TFB’s urging, were reforms to the crop insurance program that would allow inclusion of livestock, wool and mohair, and support for market loss assistance payments for livestock and other commodities until the farm economy improves.

Not related to farm policy was a measure by the Texas delegation and passed by the delegate body for a flat tax or a consumption tax, as long as it met the following guidelines: it is fair to agricultural producers; it is based on net income; it is implemented simultaneously with the elimination of capital gains and estate taxes; and it is revenue neutral.

On the issue of agricultural mergers, the delegates said "consolidation and the subsequent concentration within the U.S. agricultural sector is having adverse impacts on U.S. family farmers." They called on Congress to review statutes and develop legislation to strengthen antitrust enforcement and asked for the creation of a high-level Justice Department official to focus on agricultural mergers.

In other action, delegates voted to:

• Urge Congress to review and "ensure a workable and reasonable" implementation of the Food Quality Protection Act.

• Ask the Agriculture Department to establish a method to monitor and report trends in farm-to-consumer price spreads for farm commodities.

• Support Option 1A price differentials for Class I milk and regional compacts.

• Support tax incentives for the sale of property to beginning farmers.

• Seek reports on the impact to American farmers before the U.S. agrees to include any new nation in the World Trade Organization, and oppose attempts by competing nations to disguise protectionist trade policies as support for the "multifunctional characteristics of agriculture."