{
  "id": "RL30847",
  "type": "CRS Report",
  "typeId": "REPORTS",
  "number": "RL30847",
  "active": false,
  "source": "EveryCRSReport.com",
  "versions": [
    {
      "source": "EveryCRSReport.com",
      "id": 315762,
      "date": "2001-04-09",
      "retrieved": "2016-05-24T20:25:17.760941",
      "title": "Agriculture: Previewing the 2002 Farm Bill",
      "summary": "Federal farm support, food assistance, agricultural trade, marketing, and rural development\npolicies\nare governed by a variety of separate laws. However, many of these laws periodically are evaluated,\nrevised, and renewed through an omnibus, multi-year farm bill. The Federal Agriculture\nImprovement and Reform (FAIR) Act of 1996 ( P.L. 104-127 ) was the most recent omnibus farm bill,\nand many of its provisions expire in 2002, so reauthorization will be an issue for the 107th Congress.\n The heart of every omnibus farm bill is farm income and commodity price support policy --\nnamely the methods and levels of support that the federal government provides to agricultural\nproducers. However, farm bills typically include titles on agricultural trade and foreign food aid,\nconservation and environment, domestic food assistance (primarily food stamps), agricultural credit,\nrural development, agricultural research and education, and marketing-related programs. Often, such\n\"miscellaneous\" provisions as global warming, food safety, and animal health and welfare are added. \nThis omnibus nature of the farm bill creates a broad coalition of support among conflicting interests\nfor policies that, individually, might not survive the legislative process.\n The scope and direction of a new farm bill will be determined by a number of contributing\nfactors, including financial conditions in the agricultural economy, the federal budget, and\ninternational trade developments, among others.\n Among the thorniest issues will be future farm income and commodity price support. The\nAgricultural Market Transition Act (AMTA), Title I of the 1996 farm bill, was designed to provide\ngradually declining fixed payments to producers of major crops (grains and cotton), while giving\nthem more flexibility to plant in response to market signals, among other provisions. However,\nunanticipated, persistently low commodity prices and 3 years of multi-billion dollar  ad\nhoc  emergency farm aid packages to supplement the assistance programmed through the 1996\nlaw have\nraised questions about its effectiveness. Many have expressed preference for a more reliable method\nof supporting farm income than  ad hoc  laws, and are pushing for a variety of changes\nto accomplish\nthat in a new bill. Questions of equity (e.g, who should get aid and how much), program cost,\nimpacts on trade competitiveness and the environment are among the considerations in this debate.\n The economic prosperity of the U.S. farm sector is heavily dependent upon exports, so the\nprovisions of a new bill reauthorizing farm export and foreign food aid programs also will be of keen\ninterest. These provisions also might become a venue for providing guidance regarding farm sector\ngoals and objectives to U.S. officials negotiating a new multilateral round of agricultural trade\nreforms, as well as several new bilateral and regional agreements. Moreover, the agricultural credit,\nresearch, conservation, domestic nutrition assistance, and rural development titles will bring an array\nof interests into the debate, and their issues and concerns could prove no less contentious.",
      "type": "CRS Report",
      "typeId": "REPORTS",
      "active": false,
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          "url": "http://www.crs.gov/Reports/pdf/RL30847",
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      "topics": []
    }
  ],
  "topics": [
    "Domestic Social Policy",
    "Foreign Affairs"
  ]
}