Important Provisions for California in the Senate Farm Bill

The Senate Farm Bill includes S.118, "The Fruit, Vegetable, and Plant Smuggling Prevention Act of 2001," sponsored by Senator Feinstein to strengthen criminal penalties for violating plant quarantine laws. This legislation will protect agriculture from the invasion of foreign species, and make organized smuggling of fruits, plants, and vegetables into the United States a felony.

Under current law, violators are charged low fines for violating plant smuggling laws - simply a minor cost of doing business, not an effective deterrent. This legislation would make it a felony to knowingly and willfully smuggle large amounts of agriculture products into the United States.

The Senate Farm Bill provides the following loan rate, fixed and counter cyclical payment for each commodity:

	Current safety net	Senate safety net Unit
Upland cotton	$0.5648	$0.6855	per pound
Rice	$7.87	$9.31	per hundredweight
Wheat	$2.69	$3.46	per bushel
Corn	$1.76	$2.35	per bushel
Barley	$1.51	$2.19
Oats	$1.00	$1.55

The Senate Farm Bill increases funding for the Market Access Program, which helps develop foreign markets for many California crops. Funding will be increased from $90 million annually to:

Overall, the bill also spends approximately $2 billion on commercial export and food aid programs.

The Senate Farm Bill includes a provision to allow California growers to qualify for Adjusted Gross Revenue Crop Insurance -- a unique risk management tool provided by USDA to give producers a "self-help" option of insuring a potion of their farm income, based upon an average of their last five tax returns. Adjusted Gross Revenue Crop Insurance provides protection against low revenue due to unavoidable atastrophes.

The program was first made available on a pilot basis in 1999. This year is the fourth year the program has been available and now California will join seventeen other states where the program is currently offered. This program will be a real benefit to California specialty crop producers.

The Senate Farm Bill includes a provision that will allow California to join Hawaii, Texas, Louisiana, and Florida as a state with a sugarcane allocation. Growers in the Imperial Valley have been growing cane for about four years with the hopes they would be able to revive a stagnant industry in the Brawley area. Farmers will now be able to grow, refine, and market sugarcane -- adding to California's great and diverse agricultural production.

The Senate Farm Bill increases research funding to combat pest and disease threats and to stimulate scientific advances to keep California agriculture on the cutting edge. For example, the legislation provides $225 million annually for the Initiative for Future Agriculture and Food Systems -- a program that awards research funding to California universities like UC Davis on a competitive basis. (California will receive 15 percent or more of these funds, based on historical allocations.)

The Senate Farm Bill makes credit more accessible to beginning farmers and ranchers. The legislation also makes improvements to various farm lending programs and increases the loan authorization levels.

The Senate Farm Bill provides $2.28 billion over ten years to revitalize rural communities and enhance farm incomes by encouraging sustainable rural business development.

The Senate Farm Bill creates several new programs to help establish new energy markets for agriculture goods. In addition, the legislation provides new research and development to develop important value-added opportunities for producers.

The Senate Farm Bill creates a new "tree assistance program" to pay due to natural disasters. The legislation defines a natural disaster so that losses from pests and disease would qualify for assistance under this section. Vineyards are also covered.