Agriculture Reform, Food, and Jobs Act of 2012
Floor Speech
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Mrs. SHAHEEN. Madam President, I am pleased to join my colleague from Pennsylvania in supporting his amendment. This is the last opportunity for a bipartisan amendment to reform sugar subsidies that are costing consumers $3.5 million a year and losing 20,000 jobs a year in this country.
This amendment maintains the current sugar program but rolls back the additional subsidies that were provided for sugar in the 2008 farm bill.
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Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, I ask permission to engage in a colloquy with the Senators from Michigan and Vermont, Senators Stabenow and Leahy. I wish to address a problem that affects many farmers and agricultural producers in States, including New Hampshire, with significant forest cover. Agricultural producers face tremendous development pressures as the value of land increases. As chairwoman of the Agriculture Committee, I know Senator Stabenow has a great familiarity with this issue.
Ms. STABENOW. I thank my friend, the senior Senator from New Hampshire, for bringing attention to this important matter and for her incredible leadership on forestry issues. Since she was first sworn into the Senate, we have worked together on forest conservation efforts, which are so important for the Granite State and the Great Lakes State. As my friend knows, development and sprawl are certainly pressuring our productive agricultural lands. One critical component of the Agriculture Reform, Food, and Jobs Act of 2012, the Agricultural Conservation Easement Program, provides continued funding to allow farmers and ranchers to voluntarily purchase easements on their land to keep it in agricultural use.
Mrs. SHAHEEN. I agree that easement programs are an essential part of the effort to keep land available for agriculture. In New Hampshire, the Farmland Protection Program has provided a crucial backstop against development pressures, but the program has not been as effective as it can be. I know Senator Leahy helped to create the Farmland Protection Program when he was chairman of the Agriculture Committee and his State has used this program very effectively.
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Mrs. SHAHEEN. I thank my friend for making that critical clarification. Agricultural producers in New Hampshire and many other States work primarily on small farms. They may actively use only a small number of their acres at any given time, and the rest of their parcels tend to be forested. We need to ensure that Federal programs are tailored to fit local conditions and doing away with restrictions on forested land is an important part of making NRCS easement programs as effective as they can be.
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Mrs. SHAHEEN. I couldn't agree more. I thank the Senator from Michigan and the Senator from Vermont for engaging in this colloquy to address the importance of allowing agricultural producers who own heavily forested tracts to access NRCS easement programs. This issue is of critical importance to farmers in New Hampshire, Michigan, and many other States.
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