Abstract
During the period of 1996–2004 discussed in this chapter, agricultural trade policy began to play a more significant role in creating overseas demand for US products. The Federal Agriculture Improvement and Reform (FAIR) Act, enacted in 1996, dismantled much of the existing domestic farm safety net, eliminating acreage reduction requirements, target prices, deficiency payments, and the Farmer Owned Reserve, replaced with fixed direct payments not linked to current production. A portion of farm payments were relinked to production in the 2002 farm bill after the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s weakened export demand and depressed commodity prices.
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Notes
- 1.
The Republican takeover of the House in 1994 represented the first such GOP majority since 1954. The GOP maintained control over the House for 12 years, through the 2006 mid-term election.
- 2.
Pat Roberts was elected to the US Senate in 1997 and in 2015 was elevated to chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, the first person in US history to chair both the House and Senate Agriculture Committees during his career.
- 3.
The bill was known as the Emerson-Combest bill. The other lead sponsor was Representative Bill Emerson (R, MO), who was to die in a plane crash less than a year later, in June 1996.
- 4.
A number of Republican members from dairy, rice, and cotton producing states voted against the reconciliation package.
- 5.
The agricultural research title simply extended existing authorities for two years. Congress actually enacted a stand-alone research title in 1998.
- 6.
The specialty crop acreage figure is based on data reported in the 1997 Census of Agriculture.
- 7.
The formal title of the commodity title, the Agricultural Markets Transition Act, furthered the impression that the decoupled PFC payments were intended to be eventually phased out to a situation in which US farmers would operate without farm support programs.
- 8.
The dairy support price is stated as a price per hundredweight of fluid milk. However, the program is implemented by translating this fluid milk price into prices for cheddar cheese, butter, and nonfat dry milk based on the amount of fluid milk needed to make a pound of each of these products, with the government ready to purchase these products at those stated commodity prices. Butter and nonfat dry milk are made from different components of fluid milk and the support prices for these products reflect that difference and typically stay in a fixed ratio to one another. However, there are times when the market demand for butter and nonfat dry milk may move market prices for these products outside of that fixed ratio. For example, if there is a surge in the demand for butter but not for nonfat dry milk, processors will sell butter in the commercial market and may sell the nonfat dry milk to the government. This provision in the FAIR Act gave the Secretary the ability to adjust the commodity support prices for butter and nonfat dry milk to reduce overall government expenditures on the program while continuing to return the stated support price (as a price for fluid milk) to producers.
- 9.
A more detailed explanation of the Federal Milk Marketing Order Program is found in Chap. 9. California gave up its state marketing order program and adopted a federal order in 2018.
- 10.
The Northeast Compact was allowed to expire in 2001. The dairy provisions in the 2002 Farm Bill were designed to generate similar outcomes as the Compact.
- 11.
The main reason that Senator Jeffords made this move was his disagreement with the Bush administration on the level of federal funding that was to be provided for educating students with disabilities in elementary and secondary schools. Senator Jeffords chaired the committee with jurisdiction over this matter, the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, a role he retained when he switched parties.
- 12.
All the Democrat members of the Committee plus one Republican, Senator Tim Hutchinson from Arkansas, supported the bill in the markup session, which was conducted over a three-day period.
- 13.
The initial floor debate started on December 5, 2001, and was abandoned on December 19, 2001. The second round of floor consideration started on February 6, 2002, and ended with an affirmative vote on February 13, 2002. From beginning to end it took ten weeks to complete, with nearly three weeks actually spent debating on the Senate floor.
- 14.
These veto warnings were contained in documents called Statements of Administration Policy (SAP), routinely issued publicly by the Office of Management and Budget in response to major pieces of legislation.
- 15.
Quota holders were given the option to request the full $0.55 per pound as a lump sum or equal payments of $0.11 per pound over five years.
- 16.
The two former Senators were awarded the 2008 World Food Prize for their efforts in this area.
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Mercier, S.A., Halbrook, S.A. (2020). The New Global Environment: 1996–2004. In: Agricultural Policy of the United States. Palgrave Studies in Agricultural Economics and Food Policy. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-36452-6_16
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