Congressman Rick Crawford (R-AR) issued the following statement this morning after the House Agriculture Committee released a discussion draft of the Federal Agriculture Reform and Risk Management Act:

“The House Agriculture Committee has worked in a bipartisan fashion to craft a fiscally responsible Farm Bill that will work for farm families across the country. The House Farm Bill is reflective of our farmers’ risks – whatever those risks might be. Unfortunately, the Senate passed a bill that takes a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach to agricultural production, and imposes a Midwestern insurance risk-management model on the entirety of U.S. agriculture. This is unfair to Arkansas producers and won’t work. The House Farm Bill contains responsible price protections for Mid-South agriculture and is fair to every region of the United States – not just a single region.”

“To protect farm families and Arkansas’s rural economy, Congress must work to complete a 2012 Farm Bill before the current legislation expires. Next week the House Agriculture Committee will pass a Farm Bill out of committee. I am hopeful the bill will then move to the House floor for final passage. Passing this bill will ensure that American farm families can continue producing the safest, most reliable and abundant supply of food on the planet.”

The text of the bill can be found at this link. Some of the highlights include:

• FARRM saves more than $35 billion in mandatory funding.
• FARRM repeals or consolidates more than 100 programs.
• FARRM eliminates direct payments, streamlines and reforms commodity policy that saves taxpayers more than $14 billion.
• FARRM improves program integrity and accountability in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) that saves taxpayers more than $16 billion.
• FARRM consolidates 23 conservation programs into 13, which improves program delivery to producers and saves taxpayers more than $6 billion.
• FARRM provides regulatory relief, including H.R. 872, to mitigate burdens farmers, ranchers, and rural communities face.

The House Agriculture Committee will consider the legislation during a business meeting scheduled for Wednesday, July 11.