Senate Passes Farm Bill in Bipartisan Fashion, President Pledges Signature
The Senate passed the Farm Bill on Feb. 4 with a 68-32 roll call, following months of conference and the October 2013 expiration of a significant portion of the legislation’s provisions. President Barack Obama urged passage of the bill repeatedly over recent months, and vowed to sign the $956 billion Agricultural Act of 2014 into law on Feb. 7, said a White House statement. Some agricultural organizations and proponents trumpet the legislation's funding for the Department of Agriculture (USDA) Market Access Program (MAP) that aims to maintain and boost current agricultural export levels.
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“The trade title of the 2014 omnibus farm legislation includes full authorization of annual funding at $200 million for the Market Access Program and $34.5 million for the Foreign Market Development program,” said the American Feed Industry Association in a Feb. 4 statement (here). “MAP, a program administered by USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service forming partnerships between industry associations and businesses to divide costs of overseas marketing and promotional activities, has increased U.S. agricultural exports by more than 400 percent since the program’s creation in 1985.” The USDA said the legislation, particularly MAP, will further expand domestic and foreign markets for U.S. agricultural producers (here).
More than $750 billion of the legislation provides federal food stamp funding as part of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, according to a Washington Post breakdown of the Farm Bill’s appropriations allocations (here). The bill also keeps controversial trade-related programs, including the USDA country of origin labeling and Catfish Inspection Program regimes. Opponents of both programs claim foreign nations will retaliate in defiance of the regulations (see 14012930).