2018 Farm Bill

 

  1. It creates 35 improvements to SNAP, most notably, strengthening and streamlining existing work requirements for capable adults (this excludes seniors, individuals with disabilities, those with children under the age of 6, and those who are pregnant), while increasing opportunities for those recipients. Those opportunities include placement in a fully-funded guaranteed Employment and Training program.
  2. It strengthens rural development including funding for rural broadband. Jobs and economic activity are also promoted as well as help for rural communities deal with the opioid crisis.
  3. Itauthorizes and restores funding to build upon the nation’s $140 billion in annual agricultural exports, while improving U.S. food trade.  It protects our farmers and ranchers against unfair foreign trade practices.
  4. It prioritizes working-lands conservationsby retaining and folding the best features of the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) into a new incentive-based volunteer conservation program, the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP).
  5. It strengthens the farm safety net to help farmers and ranchers weather a 5-year recession, depressed prices and a 52-percent drop in net farm income by reauthorizing and strengthening the Agricultural Risk Coverage (ARC)* and Price Loss Coverage (PLC) ** options.
  6. It streamlines and reduces regulatory burdenson our nation’s farmers and ranchers, including reforms to the Endangered Species Act (ESA), Data Universal Numbering System (DUNS) ***, and System for Award Management (SAM) ****.
  7. It protects crop insurance. This has basically stayed the same.
  8. It protects the health of our nation’s livestockby establishing a new National Animal Disease Preparedness and Response Program.  It also establishes a U.S.-only livestock vaccine bank and enhances the National Animal Health Laboratory Network.
  9. It protects America’s specialty and organic cropsby restoring funding for Technical Assistance for Special Crops (TASC), expanding special crop insurance policies, and supporting marketing and promotion of specialty crops. It also improves the Specialty Crop Research Initiative and the Specialty Crop Block Grant Program and increases funding for the Organic Agriculture Research and Extension Initiative.  It combats illegal imports of fraudulent organic products.
  10. It maintains several provisions to help beginning farmers and ranchersestablish themselves in agriculture.  It enhances access to crop insurance and provides scholarships for agricultural education.  It also establishes the “Commission on Farm Transitions – Needs for 2050”.

*The ARC-CO program provides revenue loss coverage at the county level. ARC-CO payments are issued when the actual county crop revenue of a covered commodity is less than the ARC-CO guarantee for the covered commodity.

**PLC program payments are issued when the effective price of a covered commodity is less than the respective reference price for that commodity. The effective price equals the higher of the market year average price (MYA) or the national average loan rate for the covered commodity.

***In order to register to apply for a government grant, an organization must have a Data Universal Number System (DUNS) number.  The federal government uses the DUNS number to track how federal money is allocated.  Lenders and potential business partners use DUNS to help predict the reliability and/or financial stability of the company in question.

****The System for Award Management (SAM) is a Federal Government owned and operated free web site.  Both current and potential government vendors are required to register in SAM in order to be awarded contracts by the Government.