As of this past Monday.
With the expiration of the 2014 farm bill, major programs such as crop insurance and SNAP, formerly known as the food stamp program, will continue because they are either permanently authorized in other laws or funded by appropriators.
Other programs such as the Conservation Reserve Program, which provides 10- and 15-year contracts to farmers who take environmentally sensitive land out of production, continue to operate but cannot make new agreements or award new grants. The Natural Resources Conservation Service issued guidance on Sept. 21 to state offices that after Sept. 28, they would maintain current agreements but cannot cannot enter into new ones.
Another 39 so-called orphan programs identified by the Congressional Research Service would lose authorization and mandatory funding on Oct. 1. Programs to aid military veteran entering farming, trade promotion and small rural businesses shut down with the farm bill’s expiration. -
Roll Call
Whatever you might be seeing from Big Processing's propagandists, and from corporate "news" media, the vaunted NAFTA "renegotiation" is in fact mostly the same old suckage for farmers everywhere in North America. (Sorry about the color in this blockquote. Easiest way to go is just to click and read.)
The reworked NAFTA agreement entrenches agribusiness control over supply chains, seeks to streamline approval and trade of controversial agricultural biotechnology products, fails to protect consumers’ right to know what’s in their food and where it is produced, and worsens the devastating impacts of climate change.
IATP and our allies in farming communities in the United States, Canada and Mexico have demanded a different kind of trade deal for decades. We want trade rules that support strong, sustainable and fair food systems and rural economies.
This reworked agreement achieves none of this. -
Common Dreams
So who is to blame for the Farm bill failure ?
ReplyDeleteWell, if you saw the press release from Karin Housley, you know -- "Housley: Tina Smith can’t deliver on farm bill"
Hmmm ... let's see, the Senate passed its version 86-11 on June 28th.
You may recall that the House failed to pass its version and eventually got enough Republicans to allow their version to go for a conference committee after a 213-211 vote.
So, why blame the Senate ... must be that wannabe-Senator Housley likes the House provisions on food stamps ... except, that was voted via an amendment ... and was rejected 68-30.
The problem belongs with the House ... and if elected Housley would only make things worse.
Your readers might appreciate the interpretation of the re-branded NAFTA by Ernesto Zedillo, a professor of international economics and politics at Yale University, was president of Mexico from 1994 to 2000 as published in the Washington Post ... with somethings that have not been publicized enough ... like what happens if Mexico/Canada do exceed auto production rules "vehicles failing to fulfill those rules would simply pay the low, most-favored-nation tariff of 2.5 percent as long as total exports do not exceed an agreed reasonable number of vehicles. This means that the tough initial American stance on cars fortunately got watered down."
ReplyDeleteThe article concludes with this little slap to Trump:
"Finally, renaming NAFTA to USMCA, short for United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement — and so named presumably to put America first — would not deserve further comment if the new acronym were not humorous when translated into Spanish. It reads EUMCA. If you take into account that Mexico’s official name is Estados Unidos Mexicanos, then EUMCA could be interpreted as the deal between Mexico and Canada that prevented President Trump from tearing up NAFTA. At the end of the day, it was Mexico and Canada that won the hard-fought battle to preserve most of the original trade deal."