Highlights of Farm Bill

The Associated Press
July 27, 2001

Highlights of the farm bill approved by the House Agriculture Committee:

–Fixed payments totaling $5 billion annually to all grain, cotton and soybean farmers based on historical production. Farmers are allowed to update the production records on which the payments are based.

–Additional subsidies for the same farmers based on fluctuations in commodity prices. Farmers would be eligible for two different payments for each crop.

–A new subsidy program for peanuts is created and payments , would be expanded from 34 million to nearly 40 million acres. A new program would be created to protect up to 2 million acres of grasslands, half of which would have to be virgin prairie.

–The Environmental Quality Incentives Program, which subsidizes the cost of manure control and other conservation projects, would receive $1.2 billion a year. Half the money would go to livestock producers, who don't qualify for most other subsidy programs.

–A program that underwrites the cost of advertising U.S. food products overseas would more than double to $200 million annually. Tobacco would become eligible for the subsidies.

–Some $3.7 billion would be added to the federal food-stamp program to expand participation, which sharply declined in the 1990s.