Obama getting calls for help from fish farmers
In a mid-January letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Arkansas Sen. Blanche Lincoln continued to push for disaster assistance for farmers impacted by severe storms in 2008, states an article in the Delta Farm Press; Similarly, in a letter to Barack Obama, North Dakota Sen. Kent Conrad and Montana Sen. Max Baucus called on the incoming administration to take quick and decisive action to improve and implement the standing disaster provision in last year’s farm bill. “After all the work that went in to securing the disaster program in the farm bill, we want to ensure that the program will work as it was intended,” Conrad wrote. “By addressing these issues before the program is implemented, we can better insure that only those producers who suffered significant weather-related losses will receive disaster assistance.”
In her missive to Reid, Lincoln called for the emergency agriculture assistance’s inclusion in the economic recovery package Congress is expected to consider early this year. Among its contents: “As you know, agriculture is the economic engine of many rural communities and that is true across Arkansas. Aquaculture, row crop and livestock producers in my state have been confronted with tremendous challenges last year. “Last year farmers’ hopes for a bountiful crop were especially high given favorable prices. Unfortunately, for some, crops were destroyed by natural disasters. Arkansas farmers faced severe flooding in the spring, which destroyed already planted crops or caused delays in planting. Hurricane Gustav’s and Ike’s paths through parts of Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas, and Arkansas devastated a number of producers and their 2008 crops. Midwestern states, like Iowa and others, faced similar circumstances but benefited from additional disaster assistance included in last year’s tax extenders package passed in September. Arkansas, however, was not a beneficiary of the majority of those programs…
“In Arkansas, our aquaculture producers have been pummeled with the doubling of feed costs, coupled with a flood of imported fish. The result has been the loss of thousands of jobs in the Delta, one of the poorest, most underserved areas of our country. Conservative estimates place the number of lost jobs at 1,443 this past year. Sadly, the trend has only continued, with more acres of aquaculture farming falling out of production. Without a minimal investment to provide producers with some support, we can expect further impoverishment in the Delta at a time when help is needed the most.
“I would also like to highlight the potential to help provide a boost to agriculture through an injection of funds into USDA Title IX energy programs of the 2008 farm bill. Our energy independence is increasingly dependent upon the development of sustainable energy solutions in rural America. Robust funding of 2008 farm bill energy programs would provide a much needed short-term boost to rural America in the form of good, well paying jobs. It will also help lay the foundation for a new clean energy economy that will continue to produce jobs in rural America. The farm bill currently provides approximately $1.2 billion in mandated funding for Title IX energy programs from 2009 to 2012. We hope that the economic stimulus legislation will substantially increase the mandatory funding that is available for these programs.”
