Welcome to the Bond County Farm Bureau®
FARM BILL ACTION REQUEST
Please Contact Repersenative Shimkus and both Senator Durbin and Obama requesting they please support passing the farm bill conference report.  Go to the Legislative Action Center button in the lower right side of the web site  Talking points:
  • Please vote for final passage of the farm bill conference report.
 
  • This bill includes a necessary safety net for a farmer that is very important to manage risk during periods of poor production and low prices.  (The current structure of the safety net includes direct payments, counter-cyclical payments and the marketing loan program.  In 2009, an Average Crop Revenue Election program will be offered and this will be the first effort for a revenue based safety net.) 
 
  • This bill will assist both consumers and farmers with substantial increases for nutrition program funding while providing farmers with a production safety net. 
 
  • Conservation programs have been enhanced along with renewable energy and international food aid programs.  The farm bill provides programs that are important to every district in Illinois. 
 
  • Implements key reforms for farm program payment limitations.
 ü  Individuals with more than $500,000 in 3-year Adjusted Gross Income (AGI) of off-farm income will be ineligible to receive direct payments. ü  Individuals with more than $750,000 in 3-year AGI of farm income will be ineligible to receive direct payments.

ü  Direct attribution is required and the three-entity rule is eliminated.

 

ü  Individuals with more than $1,000,000 in 3-year AGI would be ineligible for conservation payments unless two thirds of that money comes from farming.

 

ü  Limits are placed on how much farm loss can be carried over to offset non-farm losses for tax purposes for wealthy Americans.

 
  • Increases spending for the conservation title by $4.5 billion, including additional funding for working lands programs:
 
  • $2.4 billion in additional funds for Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP).
 
  • $1.1 billion in additional funds for the Conservation Stewardship Program.
 
  • Nutrition title funding increases by $10.3 billion.  In addition to increased food stamp benefits, this title also increase funding for the school snack program by more than $1 billion.
 
  • More than $1.3 billion in new mandatory funding is provided to specialty crops.  The bulk of this funding is in the form of block grants to states, but other provisions include technical assistance for specialty crops, farmer’s market promotion, and organic certification cost share.
 
  • The bill scores at $10 billion over the budget baseline, but is fully off-set with customs user fees, which has been deemed an acceptable off-set by House and Senate Democrats and Republicans.  The White House disapproves of the use of this off-set because they want to use it for other legislative priorities, but they have recognized that it is NOT a tax increase.

Bond County Farm Bureau® Crop Watch

Dan Blankenship Reports: 05/12/08
North East Bond county saw considerable field work last week, and some planters were running from dawn to dusk. Many other farmers were waiting to see what the weather would do. I had 2 to 3 inches of rain, and it appears that more is on the way. I hope everything that everyone planted comes up.



Weather for

Last update:

Now

 °

Feels like:
°
  
Humidity:%
Wind: at mph
Pressure:
Dew Point:°
Visibility:
UV Index:

Weather data from weather.com.     Radar from weather.com.

Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /home/bcfb/public_html/index.php on line 80
Today
              
High ° ° ° ° °
Low ° ° ° ° °
Humidity % % % % %
Wind
From
Precip % % % % %

10 day forecast from weather.com.