Dick Lugar: “As many of us have pointed out, current farm programs, including the program we adopted in 1996 and supplemental farm…”

“As many of us have pointed out, current farm programs, including the program we adopted in 1996 and supplemental farm assistance programs we have adopted at least the last 3 years during the summertime, have encouraged overproduction of a small number of selected program crops; namely, wheat, corn, cotton, rice, and soybeans. The effect of our farm bills, intended or unintended, has been to encourage those who are in the five row crops I have enumerated to plant more. This should not have come as a total surprise because we have set incentives in our bill which make it profitable to do that. As I pointed out from my own experience in Indiana, if you send a bushel of corn to the elevator, you are guaranteed to get $1.89 because the last farm bill has a loan deficiency payment program that guarantees that.”