Treatment of Farms With Limited Base Acres

Floor Speech

TREATMENT OF FARMS WITH LIMITED BASE ACRES -- (House of Representatives - September 24, 2008)

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Mr. BOSWELL. Madam Speaker, I appreciate this opportunity. I want to thank my good friend and colleague from North Carolina (Mr. Etheridge) and Mr. Goodlatte and the rest of you for us coming together and correcting this error that's taken place, or this misrepresentation.

As the cosponsor of H.R. 6849, I'm extremely pleased the full House has taken action today so that Iowa and the Nation's small working farmers across the Nation will have an opportunity for an adequate safety net. The legislation suspends a provision in the new farm bill which prohibits producers farming 10 acres or less to receive USDA payments.

Now hear this. When the farm bill was drafted and during the conference process, it was the intent of Congress to allow farmers to aggregate their base acres, to bring them together. This is evident by the Joint Explanatory Statement of the managers that accompanied the 2008 farm bill which clearly states, ``The managers intend for the department to allow for aggregation of farms for purposes of determining the suspension of payments on farms with 10 base acres or less.''

This needs to be corrected. I ask that everybody that would participate to be sure we make this clear and make sure small farmers will be taken care of. The USDA has misrepresented Congress' intent putting thousands of small producers at risk.

I would like to urge my colleagues to support this resolution.

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