The Senate Agriculture Committee approved a $955 billion farm bill on Tuesday, the first step toward completing an overhaul of the nation’s food and farm policy that was derailed last year when the House failed to vote on its version of the bill.
The new bill, which was approved 15 to 5, is expected to save $23 billion over the next 10 years by eliminating or consolidating hundreds of agriculture programs.
“Because the Agriculture Committee worked across party lines to streamline programs, we were able to save tax dollars while investing in initiatives that help boost exports, help family farmers sell locally and spur innovations in new biomanufacturing and bioenergy industries,†said Senator Debbie Stabenow, Democrat of Michigan and chairwoman of the committee.
The full Senate is expected to take up the bill next week.
The new farm bill is nearly identical to the legislation passed by the Senate last year. It leaves in place several Depression-era programs like supports for American sugar growers that set prices and limit imports. The bill would also provide relief to the nation’s cattle and poultry producers, who were left unprotected last year during the worst drought in 50 years after several farm programs expired.
The most significant change in the bill is the end of direct payments to farmers and farmland owners, who have traditionally been paid whether they grow crops or not. The program costs about $5 billion a year.
The new farm bill would use the savings from eliminating direct payments to increase financing for crop insurance, a federally subsidized program that pays 62 percent of the premiums for farmers and covers decreases in crop yields or revenue. Several conservative groups and environmental organizations oppose crop insurance, which they say amounts to income protection, rather than protection against crop losses due to drought or other natural disasters. Senators did, for the first time, add conservation requirements and set income limits for the recipients of crop insurance.
While some environmental groups praised the bill for making farmers who receive crop insurance comply with conservation measures, others said they were disappointed.
“The committee left the full Senate a lot of work to do,†said Scott Faber, vice president of government affairs at the Environmental Working Group, a Washington-based research organization. “They failed to rein in unlimited crop insurance and have exposed the taxpayers to more cost for the benefit of some of the most profitable agribusiness.â€
One of the biggest differences between the 2013 version of the Senate farm bill and the one passed last year is the addition of price supports for peanut and rice farmers. Last year, those farmers, who have long depended on direct payments, said the Senate bill would not provide adequate protection for them.
Senator Pat Roberts, Republican of Kansas, objected to the supports for rice and peanut farmers, saying they amounted to an “income transfer program, not a risk management tool.â€
“I don’t know how we can justify this,†he said.
The most contentious fight during the hearing was over cuts to food stamps. The Senate bill would reduce the food stamp program by about $4.1 billion. Ms. Stabenow said most of the cuts would come from a program overhaul. But Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, Democrat of New York, said the reduction in financing for the program would cause millions to go hungry.
“I don’t believe that we should balance the debt on the backs of families who are just hungry,†Ms. Gillibrand said.
Ms. Gillibrand offered an amendment that would have taken money from the crop insurance program to make up for the cuts to the food stamp program, but withdrew it. She said she would take up the measure when the bill moved to the full Senate. Several Republican senators tried to introduce amendments that would have changed the eligibility requirement for food stamps, but the amendments were defeated or withdrawn.
The House begins work on its version of the farm bill on Wednesday.
