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this is the Agriculture Report. |
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President Barack Obama signed a new Farm Bill |
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into law this month. |
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Under the legislation, |
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the federal government will no longer |
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guarantee automatic payments to farmers. |
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Critics say the law replaces the old payment system |
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with new assistance |
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that may violate international trade rules. |
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The law also includes changes in how the United States |
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helps hungry people around the world. |
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From VOA Learning English, |
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The new Farm Bill ended $5 billion a year |
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in automatic payments to farmers. |
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The president said the law sends a message to people |
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who have abused the system. |
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"This bill helps to clamp down on loopholes |
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that allowed people to receive benefits year after year |
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whether they were planting crops or not. |
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And it saves taxpayers hard-earned dollars |
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by making sure that we only support farmers |
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when disaster strikes or prices drop," the president said. |
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The new legislation expands programs |
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that protect farmers from bad weather or low crop prices. |
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It raises the lowest price growers will be paid for some crops. |
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And it offers a taxpayer-supported insurance program to farmers, |
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the program guarantees that their wages |
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do not drop much from year to year. |
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Dan Sumner is an economist with the University of California, Davis. |
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He told VOA on Skype that the new Farm Bill could cause problems. |
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"That's the kind of assurances that the U.S. government |
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is willing to provide that most farmers in the world, |
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in fact, don't have access to," he said. |
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He adds that with the help of the government, |
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American farmers can produce and export more crops, |
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but he warns that could hurt crop prices. |
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"That drives down world prices and it's a little tougher |
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for farmers in developing countries to compete with that," Sumner said. |
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U.S. government subsidies pushed down |
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world cotton prices in the early 2000s, |
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the United States lost an international trade dispute over those payments. |
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Dan Sumner says the new Farm Bill could re-open that dispute. |
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But groups representing growers say |
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trade rules do let governments |
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pay a limited amount of subsidies to farmers. |
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Dale Moore is the chief of policy at one of those groups |
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- the American Farm Bureau Federation. |
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"We're pretty confident that it would take an extremely bad situation |
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for us to even come close to violating those particular limits, |
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something the United States hasn't come close to in years," said Dale Moore. |
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Other changes in the Bill should help food aid |
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get to more needy people around the world. |
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Aid groups will be able to spend more of the assistance they receive |
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to buy food from markets near where it will be used, |
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earlier rules forced aid groups to buy food from American farmers. |
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Eric Munoz works for the aid group Oxfam America. |
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"Not only will that save money, |
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but it will help reach people faster. |
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The actual program of buying locally is a much quicker response |
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than buying food from the United States and shipping it," said Eric Munoz. |
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He told VOA on Skype that with the same amount of money, |
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help can now reach more hungry people. |
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And that's the Agriculture Report. |
