‘Murky water’ for farm bill in Yuba-Sutter

July 30--Editor's Note: This is first of two parts looking at local impacts of the 2014 Farm Bill.

For the first time since 2008, Congress passed a farm bill. That was six months ago, but its impacts on Yuba-Sutter, where agriculture rules the economy, are unclear.

The farm bill establishes agricultural and food policy across a number of categories, including horticulture, livestock, conservation, farm credit and rural development. The enacted farm bill, which President Barack Obama signed into law in February, will cost an estimated $956 billion over the next 10 years.

But the fact that the bill was passed doesn't mean that all of its programs were instantly implemented. Regulations and administrative policies are still being written and staff in local Farm Service Agency, Natural Resources Conservation Service and crop insurance offices are still waiting for details about the new bill's provisions.

"We haven't been given all the rules for the programs we're going to be operating under," said Alan Atkins, district conservationist with NRCS.

"It's kind of murky water at this point as far as what you need to do," said Lori Denney, a local crop insurance agent with Denney Insurance Services.

One major change is known: The elimination of the direct payments program, although the details of what will replace it are still being developed, said Val Dolcini, state executive director for the FSA.

Direct payments have been made to farmers of certain crops, including rice, since 1996, based on historic production of the crop.

But the practice lost political support in recent years because recipients did not need to suffer a crop loss in order to receive a payment, according to a farm bill analysis by the Congressional Research Service.

Colusa and Sutter counties were numbers one and two, respectively, in the state in total direct payments, according to the Environmental Working Group farm subsidy database.

Since 2002, there have been $151 million in direct payments in Sutter County. In 2012, about $10 million was paid out, according to the database. Since 2002 in Colusa County, direct payments totaled about $224 million. In Yuba County, that total was $46 million, according to the database.

"(The loss of the direct payment) will have a direct effect. It helped out a lot to sustain the price and keep it so the United States could compete with the world market," said Larry Munger, Sutter County supervisor. "There are so many countries that subsidize their rice industries and can sell it for cheaper and knock us out of the market."

A new system that prioritizes risk management and crop insurance will replace the direct payment system. And while it's not known if it will be a dollar-for-dollar trade-off, the new programs that are in the works are a more taxpayer-friendly safety net for farmers and ranchers because they will not issue payments unless a farmer suffers a loss, Dolcini said.

"In an era with higher commodity prices, it was more difficult to rationalize the direct payments over time," Dolcini said.

Direct payments are being replaced by one of two programs: One will trigger if a farmer's average revenue drops below a threshold, while the other triggers when the value of the crop drops below a certain price, set at $16.10 for rice, said Tim Johnson, president of the California Rice Commission.

"What we're moving from is a program that paid regardless of the price of rice or the yield of a crop," Johnson said. "Growers will go from a period of certainty to a period of having to do some fairly sophisticated analysis to figure out which program to sign up for, then to calculate if they anticipate revenue from the farm bill in any given year."

Most of these provisions will be rolled out this fall or early 2015, Dolcini said. Farmers are encouraged to visit the FSA office, 1521 Butte House Road, Yuba City, to make sure records are up to date and for more information.

CONTACT reporter Andrew Creasey at 749-4780 and on Twitter @AD_Creasey.

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