Urge the Obama Administration to Keep Campaign Pledge to Limit Farm Payments

In a reversal of the president’s central campaign pledge on rural policy, the Obama administration has refused to close the biggest loophole in the federal farm payment limitation.

In Linn County, Iowa, candidate Obama said, “Too many family farmers are being squeezed as big agribusiness takes up larger shares of federal subsidies.” He released a rural platform that day pledging immediate action to close loopholes by limiting payments to active farmers who work the land and their landlords – noting that “every president since Ronald Reagan had the authority to close this loophole but failed to act.”

But in January the Obama administration joined its predecessors in failing to act by releasing regulations that continue this gaping loophole. As a result, mega-farms will keep claiming unlimited payments.

Add your name and comment below to urge the administration to reconsider their action.

Dear Secretary Vilsack & President Obama,

We are farmers, ranchers, rural people and grassroots citizens who care about the future of family agriculture and rural communities.

We urge you to fulfill the president’s campaign pledge to issue new regulations that require investors who get farm subsidies to be actively engaged in the farm operation.

Under your new rule, investors count as active farmers as long as they participate in a few conference calls. That enables mega farms to get another set of payments up to the limit for each additional investor in the operation.

Instead individuals should be required to either devote half time to the operation or provide half the labor and management on their
share of the operation to qualify. You don’t need to wait for Congress to act to fix this. You have full authority to end this mockery of federal law on your own. That is change we need.

Unlimited subsidies for mega-farms leave little to invest in the future of rural America. In recent years, USDA spent nearly twice as much to subsidize the 260 biggest farms in 13 leading farm states as it invested in creating economic opportunity for nearly three million people in 260 struggling rural counties in those same 13 states.

Your failure to close this loophole is a repudiation of the central rural policy pledge on which you campaigned – to stop subsidizing mega farms to devour family farms and instead invest in the future of rural America. You promised immediate action to limit payments to active farmers who work the land – noting that “every president since Reagan had the authority to close this loophole but failed to act.”

We write today to ask you to reopen the new regulations and ask that this time you take advantage of your authority to fulfill the
campaign pledge you made to us.

Sincerely,

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