Release No. 0194.02

of

Secretary of Agriculture Ann M. Veneman

To USDA Employees

Regarding Farm Bill Implementation

Wednesday, May 15, 2002

Washington, D.C.

MR. PENN:

Good afternoon, everyone. My name is J.B. Penn. I am the Under Secretary for the Farm and Foreign Agricultural Services Mission area. I want to welcome all of you here this afternoon to discuss implementation of the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002, signed into law on Monday.

In the audience today, we have employees from all of the agencies across the Department. We are also joined via satellite by FSA's State Executive Directors who are meeting in Rhode Island and by other USDA employees all across the country via webcast.

On stage with me today are the Honorable Secretary Ann M. Veneman; Deputy Secretary Jim Moseley; Hunt Shipman, the Deputy in Farm and Foreign Agriculture Services on the end; and Jim Little, Administrator of FSA; and Bruce Knight, the Chief of NRCS.

This new farm bill is a very complex law that affects all of USDA's agencies, all of our activities, all of our resources. Many of you joining us here today will be on the front line implementing the provisions of this new law, and throughout the upcoming months, all of us are going to be challenged to ensure timely and effective delivery of services to our farmers and ranchers, and to ensure the integrity of all USDA programs.

We want to use the occasion today to hear directly from Secretary Veneman about her expectations for all of us. If you would, please join me in welcoming Secretary Ann M. Veneman, the 27th Secretary of Agriculture.

[Applause.]

SECRETARY VENEMAN:

'Well, thank you very much, and thank you all for being here. This is a terrific turnout, here in the Jefferson Auditorium, and thanks to all of you who are joining us either by telephone line or broadcast to join in our conference today.

"As you know, just on Monday, the President signed the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002. He signed it almost immediately upon receiving it from the Congress. I know a lot of people were surprised that he got up so early and signed it at 7:45 in the morning, but that was really so that he was out there doing it at the same time that farmers and ranchers were in their pickups and working on their farms and ranches.

"It also gives us the opportunity, here at USDA, to begin implementation immediately because we want to, effectively and efficiently, deliver the new programs and services to this nation's farmers, ranchers and other constituencies around the country.

"This new farm bill is very important for this Department. The new programs are widespread and impact so many sectors--the Farm Service Agency, the Natural Resources Conservation Service, Rural Development, Nutrition, Food Safety, Research, Pest and Disease Prevention and Eradication, and of course our international trade programs.

"As the President said on Monday when he signed the bill, while it's not a perfect bill, the new measure provides support and help for farmers and ranchers and our other constituencies.

"The farm bill is generous and provides a safety net for farmers that helps ensure certainty in the coming years. And, it helps eliminate the reliance on supplemental assistance each year that we have had to turn to for about the past four years. The bill rebalances loan rates, lives within the Congressional Budget Resolution, and it is consistent with our international trade obligations.

"But now the hard work begins, and that is implementing this new farm bill. And that is why we are here today; to talk about the challenges, the opportunities, and the work all of our employees here at USDA will do in getting this job done.

"As you know, the focus now shifts from Capitol Hill to those of us here at USDA. The task before us is to implement the bill as effectively and expeditiously as we possibly can. It is an enormous challenge, but I am confident, from talking to so many of you over the past few months, that we are up to it.

"The new farm bill makes significant changes in farm program structure and funding and will bring much-needed stability to our farmers and ranchers as they conduct their business.

"The new farm law is far reaching in its scope and highly complex in its structure. Many changes were made to existing programs, and several new programs were created as well.

"For our purposes today, I would like to highlight some of the more relevant provisions of the new law.

"First, it continues direct payments based on historical plantings and yields;

"It creates a new system of countercyclical payments based on market prices in relation to target prices;

"It revises and rebalances the loan rates for the marketing loan program for major grains and oilseeds;

"It adds new payment programs for dairy, honey, wool, mohair and pulses, that is, dry peas, lentils and chickpeas;

"It makes significant changes to the peanut program;

"It includes a number of new provisions in the credit title to assist beginning farmers and makes other administrative changes to existing farm loan programs. It provides record level support for conservation, and adds new programs to preserve wetlands and improve soil and water quality on working farms. The conservation program funding totals $22 billion over 6 years.

"These are just the parts related to the farm and conservation programs. The law has 10 titles in all and affects virtually everything we do here at USDA. It is compassionate and provides new support for food stamp and nutrition programs. It provides additional tools to support the expansion of trade for our products.

"There is, for the first time in a farm bill, an energy title that will help us look at agriculture for new and additional renewable sources of energy. It also addresses the need for more value-added agriculture and it invests in this critical area. The bill also invests in more research, animal and plant disease protections, food safety and rural development programs.

"As you know, those are all areas that we discussed in our book that we put out last fall, "Food and Agriculture Policy, Taking Stock for a New Century." They're all important to what the Department does and to our mission. And now we have an opportunity to implement these new programs, to help our nation's food and farm sector.

"Now, I know that many of you in this room have provided significant policy and technical information and advice to the Congressional Committees and the conference committee over the past several months as this bill has been going through the process. You have been involved in numerous meetings and conference calls, and you are expected to respond at a moment's notice. Many of you have spent late evenings, weekends, a tremendous amount of overtime on the part of so many on our staff has gone into helping the Congress craft this new bill.

"For your dedication and for all of your efforts, I want to say thank you. Thank yourselves.

[Applause.]

"We are all very pleased with the contributions that the USDA team made throughout the farm bill process.

"Now I wish I could tell you that the long hours are behind us. But as you know, they're not. Much of the implementation burden now falls to FSA and NRCS, who have the lion's share of the bill's provisions, and I know that all of our employees are up to this task.

"To assist in the farm bill implementation process, we are announcing today the formation of a USDA Farm Bill Working Group consisting of our key career staff, including our budget director, Steve Dewhurst, and chief economist, Keith Collins, as well as the entire sub-cabinet. It is important that we have representation from each mission area, as well as the various staff offices and throughout our career employees.

"Career employees play such an integral role in the process and have the institutional knowledge that is so important to implementation of all of these programs. While the process has been in place informally for several months, it is important that we all continue to work together with the appropriate mission areas to implement this new bill. The implementation of programs spans across all mission areas of the Department. Numerous new rules and regulations, procedures and delegations of authorities and inter-agency clearances and reports and advisory committees are going to be required.

"So this process will help us better coordinate our activities to set the priorities for what needs to be done most urgently, to facilitate development of regulations and to obtain all the needed clearances expeditiously. In short, our goal is to cut the red tape and get the job done.

"Now, let me mention just a few of the more important aspects of this implementation process. A major feature of this new bill gives producers the option of updating historical acreage bases and yields for 1998, 1999, 2000 and 2001 to determine their future program benefits. This is going to be one of the biggest challenges before us. It requires a significant addition to the producer's database in each county office. It will also require a substantial amount of personal interaction with our producers in our county offices, helping them determine which option is in their best interest. Getting this task completed in a timely manner is critical.

"We've been administering the last year of the FAIR Act while this new farm bill was being developed. We have already provided some $4 billion in direct payments to producers this year. The new law provides some additional direct payments for the 2002 crop year and these will be made in the fall using updated acreage bases.

"The new law also requires, for a first installment of the 2003 direct payments, in December of 2002.

And the new law requires, for the first advance countercyclical payments for 2002 in October, and a second advance in February of 2003. A final payment will be made at the end of the marketing year for each commodity once the final season average price is known.

"The marketing loan program continues to operate largely as before, but with readjusted loan rates for most crops. The new loan rates are applicable immediately to the 2002 harvested crops beginning with wheat, which is now being harvested.

"The new law substantially revises the peanut program, providing a buyout of the quota system that's been in place since the 1930s. It establishes a marketing loan program and now includes peanut growers in the direct payment and countercyclical payment programs that are similar to other program crops.

"This change alone adds to the workload to our county offices, and it will require considerable time with our producers to work through and explain the new program provisions.

"This bill also includes the largest increase in conservation programs ever in a farm bill. It is adding an 80 percent increase in funding for conservation, 85 percent of which will go to addressing conservation concerns on working farmland.

"As you'll recall, in our agricultural policy book we talked about the critical importance of giving producers assistance for working farmlands in the conservation area. But with this good fortune, of course, comes additional work for both NRCS and Farm Service Agency staff. Our service centers will be busy accepting applications for the numerous existing programs, which have received funding increases in this bill. Many of the landowners will require technical assistance from our NRCS staff, and FSA will continue its role of processing payments for conservation programs.

"While I'm on the subject of conservation, I want to welcome officially Bruce Knight, our new chief of the Natural Resources Conservation Service. Stand up, Bruce, be recognized.

[Applause.]

"I recognize Bruce Knight today because it's probably the first time that many of you have had the opportunity to meet him, particularly in his new role, because he's only been on the job two weeks, and look what he's getting into.

"We've been emphasizing greater cooperation among mission areas and agencies throughout my time here, and I'm very pleased to hear that Bruce Knight and Jim Little have already been meeting to discuss how NRCS and FSA can better work together, how they plan to meet regularly, and particularly how they can work together to implement the various farm bill programs.

"I think this is the kind of teamwork we need to foster in this Department, and it's going to be particularly critical as we implement this new farm bill.

"So I encourage all of you to follow the example that's set by our sub-Cabinet and our administrators and work closely with your colleagues in the field and throughout the Department so that we can put together the best programs that we possibly can based upon this new farm bill.

"FSA has already taken a number of important steps to begin the implementation process. They include the launch of a farm bill implementation website, which can be accessed through our website, www.usda.gov. I'm sure all of you are looking at that every day. But this is going to be a very valuable resource, a unique and new resource to help keep the farmers and the public informed about implementation, and it will help relieve some of the burden on the county offices by directing questions and answers to a single source.

"It will be important to continue the development of web-based tools to assist farmers and ranchers in understanding and in delivery of farm programs.

"Implementing e-government which will soon--will soon allow producers to complete and submit some of their forms online, again, will make the workload more efficient.

"Meeting with representatives of selected farm commodity, conservation, and environmental organizations to discuss implementation issues and data availability will be a priority.

"We will also be prioritizing and anticipating policy issues, and we will be developing new forms and fact sheets and posting them online as soon as possible.

"The Farm Service Agency will be training county office staff and informing producers about their bases and yields options.

"Along with direct communications from the county offices, there will be radio spots and other public relations tools to help get the message to producers on the farm bill provisions and the time lines.

"Let me conclude today with three basic points.

"First, and most important, thank you. Thank you to all the USDA employees for their hard work, their extra efforts during the development of this bill. You are truly appreciated for all that you do on behalf of our farmers and our ranchers and our entire Department.

"We face a big challenge in implementing this legislation in a timely manner, but we are prepared and we are up to the task. Your good efforts will, again, be appreciated.

"You've delivered in the past, and you are the experts, the career force that continues to raise the bar and achieve great things.

"Finally, let me say to all producers who may be listening to this: We need your cooperation, your patience, and your support in the coming months. Many of you have already heard directly from your county offices, and please continue to work closely with them to make sure that together we can all get the job done in an efficient, timely, and productive manner.

"It is a pleasure to be here today. Again, thank you to all of you for your help and assistance and your excellent work. And we truly appreciate all your efforts in this process, and we'll work together as a team and get this done.

"Thank you very much."

[Applause.]

#