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Farm bill proposal takes on disease, dairy, indemnities
 


WASHINGTON, D.C. — Animal health and livestock groups said the U.S. House farm bill draft, which incorporates some Senate proposals for animal agriculture, is a move in the right direction for protecting animal health, livestock disaster relief and dairy farm financial health.

The House bill takes a three-pronged approach to funding for animal health programs. Those are an Animal Pest and Disease Program; the National Animal Health Laboratory Network; and the development of a “high-consequence” livestock vaccine stockpile, first focused on foot-and-mouth disease (FMD).

The House draft funds and expands the Animal Pest and Disease Program, which authorizes USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service to grant funds to states to address specific animal health concerns.

“It has been described as a block grant program, but it’s a cooperative grant,” said Lauren Stump, assistant director of Government Relations for the American Veterinary Medical Assoc. (AVMA). “I like to think of cooperative grants between USDA and the states as really working together to achieve those goals and to work with one another on their priorities in those individual locations’ and states’ needs.”

The bill also includes some specific animal health benefits, said Allison Cooke, executive director of Government Affairs, National Cattlemen’s Beef Assoc.

“There’s a couple of items that are very regional for our producers – continuing to research how to eradicate cattle fever tick down in Texas, as well as some financial support going to fight the feral swine issue down South,” said Cooke.

The House bill also provides $100 million for a pilot program to eradicate feral swine.

The National Animal Health Laboratory Network (NAHLN) is valued by veterinarians, and the AVMA hopes to see the program expanded. The House bill provides groundwork for expansion, and NAHLN supporters hope the Senate will get more specific.

“NAHLN is really the premier program for animal disease detection in the U.S.,” said Stump. “Right now, the NAHLN is appropriated funds on an annual basis. But it’s just a fraction, a third, of what the NAHLN needs to be fully functional. We need about $45 million every year for that NAHLN to be as robust as it truly needs to be, both to detect these diseases quickly and to stop them.”

The bill also prioritizes funding for developing a vaccine stockpile, starting with FMD. “Ideally that would have the availability to expand to other diseases of importance in the future, as the House bill has allowed it to do,” said Stump.

The vaccine stockpile is part of $450 million the House farm bill designates for USDA to use to develop programs to deal with animal disease outbreaks.

The bill provides some adjustments to livestock disaster relief programs. It would amend 2014 farm bill language to expand the livestock indemnity program to “cover death or sale loss as a result of diseases that are caused or transmitted by a vector, and that is not able to be controlled by vaccination or other acceptable management practices,” according to the House summary.

The House version also eliminates the payment limitation of $125,000 per year for the Emergency Assistance for Livestock, Honey Bees and Farm-Raised Fish program. A provision in the bill would make Conservation Reserve Program land eligible for grazing, when the livestock assistance program is engaged, during drought.

Dairy details

Perhaps the most significant livestock change is one already underway, adjusting the Margin Price Protection for Dairy Producers (MPP-Dairy). The farm bill draft changes appear to mirror adjustments made to Dairy-MPP in the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018, passed in February.

“While it was certainly well-intended, MPP-Dairy has not proven to be a particularly helpful or effective support for dairy farmers, who have suffered below average returns since 2015,” said Andrew Novakovic, agricultural economist at Cornell University.

The House farm bill draft changes the name of MPP-Dairy to the Dairy Risk Management (DRM) program. It makes the first 5 million pounds of milk produced on a dairy farm eligible for higher coverage levels at lower premiums.

Milk production not covered under DRM is made fully eligible for a comparable crop insurance policy, according to the House Agriculture Committee markup summary. Feed costs are studied to ensure program accuracy, and Class I milk calculations are adjusted.

But those changes are already underway, part of changes to dairy and cotton programs passed as part of the February budget bill. That was negotiated by Sens. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) and Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), the chair and vice chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

“Although the authority of the appropriations committees is limited to establishing amounts of money that can be spent by government agencies for various programs and purposes, it is fairly common for members of appropriations committees to essentially modify or even create programs by assigning funding to do a certain thing in a certain way,” said Novakovic.

The language in the appropriations bill also helps pave the way for expanded revenue protection payments for dairy producers. Similar to crop insurance, Dairy Revenue Protection will allow dairy producers to purchase insurance based on the value of milk production. It will be available later this year.

“This coverage will help shield dairy farmers from unexpected declines in milk prices as well as unexpected declines in milk production, by addressing overall revenue,” said Zippy Duvall, president of the American Farm Bureau Federation.

5/16/2018