Congressman Rick Crawford (R-AR) issued the following statement this morning after the House Agriculture Committee approved H.R. 6083, the Federal Agriculture Reform and Risk Management Act of 2012 by a vote of 35-11:

“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. Now that the bill has been voted out of committee, I am hopeful the full House will soon be able to consider this legislation that saves taxpayers money and reduces the nation’s deficit. Passing the Farm Bill will ensure that American farm families can continue producing the safest, most reliable and abundant supply of food on the planet.”

“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 simply won’t work. The House Farm Bill has received support from numerous agriculture groups including the Arkansas Rice Federation. I am proud to be part of this bipartisan effort that put politics aside in favor of sound policy and I look forward to bringing the bill to the House floor.”

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 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.