Letter from California Delegation
March 8, 2002
The Honorable Larry Combest
Chairman, House Committee on Agriculture
1300 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
The Honorable Charlie Stenholm
Ranking Member, House Committee on Agriculture
1300 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
Gentlemen:
We are writing to urge you to work to ensure the provisions of the so-called Grassley-Dorgan amendment are not included in the final farm bill conference report. The provisions of the amendment would effectively deny essential financial assistance to commercial-sized farming operations in California when prices are low. The members of our delegation may have different opinions about what constitutes effective farm programs. But we share the concern that it would be untenable for new farm legislation to include provisions that make most California farmers ineligible for financial assistance and loans on a significant portion of their annual production when prices are extraordinarily low, while farmers in other regions of the country receive assistance on every bushel bale, and hundredweight.
California’s farming operations are large, by some standards, because they must achieve economies of scale. Our costs of production per acre are significantly higher than many parts of tha country because of our cropping patterns, land values and input costs. Our farmers can compete because they have adopted new technologies and management techniques that increase the productivity of each acre. It would be highly discriminatory for our producers to be penalized because Congress decides to create a one-size-fits-all limitation on eligibility for benefits based on an arbitrarily selected acreage or faulty perception of what constitutes a "family" farm.
The provisions of the Grassley-Dorgan amendment would not only result in most California row crop farmers being denied benefits, the provisions will also preempt market-based cropping and marketing decisions, encourage excess production of specialty crops and alfalfa, disrupt long-standing tenant-landlord agreements, and require USDA to implement far-reaching and costly regulations.
We appreciate the efforts you and your colleagues have made to craft more effective, predictable long-term farm policy, which was overwhelmingly adopted on a bipartisan basis after exhaustive hearings and debate. We note that some of provisions of the Dorgan-Grassley amendment were debated and rejected during the House deliberations.
We urge you and your colleagues to insist that the final conference report retain the House provisions on payment eligibility and limitations, even though those provisions are restrictive for many of California’s diversified operations.
Thank you for your consideration of our views.
Representatives Thomas, Filner, Thompson, Radanovich, Bono, Ose, Calvert, Hunter, Cunningham, Lewis, Herger, Issa, Doolittle, Horn, McKeon, Farr, Matsui, Capps, Dreier, Royce, and Woolsey