Sens. Brown (D-Ohio), Thune (R-S.D.), Durbin (D-Ill.) and Lugar (R-Ind.) have released a new farm policy proposal which would eliminate direct and counter-cyclical payments and replace the current ACRE and SURE programs with a consolidated revenue protection program called the Aggregate Risk and Revenue Management (ARRM) program.
The marketing loan would be retained.
According to various reports,“the bipartisan Aggregate Risk and Revenue Management (ARRM) program builds on the concept of the Average Crop Revenue Election program and makes it more responsive by determining losses more locally than at current state levels, reduces overlap with crop insurance and simplifies the application and administrative processes, while saving billions of taxpayer dollars.”
In summary, the ARRM Program would: 1) eliminate direct payments and counter-cyclical payments and replace SURE for Commodity Title Crops; 2) cost $28.469 billion (CBO score) and saves $19.810 billion over 10 years (CBO score); 3) provide better protection for farmers by targeting revenue rather than price (uses actual planted acres vs. base acres, a rolling average of revenue and recent market prices and up to date yields to set its guarantee); 4) rely on existing data that the Farm Service Agency and Risk Management Agency (RMA) already share whenever possible; 5) as an initial eligibility trigger, employ Crop Reporting Districts rather than the entire state; 6) use RMA harvest price so payment amounts are determined more promptly; and 7) limit payments to 15 percent of the program guarantee.
There are no payment limitations in the proposal, but it is assumed the current Adjusted Gross Income test would remain in effect.