On June 21, 2012, the U.S. Senate passed its version of the Farm Bill, entitled the “Agriculture Reform, Food and Jobs Act of 2012” (S. 3240) with a bipartisan vote of 64-35. As a member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, I played a major role in drafting this important piece of legislation, which saves taxpayers more than $23 billion when compared to current law. While not perfect, this Farm Bill will help strengthen family farms and ranches, and provide sound conservation measures and tools that will enhance land and natural resource stewardship.  

South Dakota’s number one industry is agriculture, which is why our state needs an effective Farm Bill. Since first being elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1996, as a member of the Agriculture Committee I helped draft the 2002 Farm Bill and in 2005 as a member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, I helped craft the most recent Farm bill. In both the House and Senate, I have fought hard to promote South Dakota’s agriculture economy and to protect the way of life for South Dakota’s farming families by actively engaging in creating sound Agriculture policies.

The Senate-passed 2012 Farm Bill achieves many of my goals by saving more than $23 billion while providing a strong safety net, improving the Conservation and Forestry Titles, and preserving and strengthening crop insurance. The Commodity Title in this Farm Bill used the reform-minded legislation I introduced in September of 2011, the Aggregate Risk and Revenue Management Act of 2011 as a framework. As my legislation proposed, the Senate Farm Bill eliminates the Direct and Counter-cyclical Payment Program, Average Crop Revenue Election Program, and Supplemental Revenue Election Program and replaces these programs with a new Average Risk Coverage (ARC) program.

Common-sense changes were made that strengthen the Conservation Title, including the consolidation of 23 conservation programs into 13, while reauthorizing the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) and the Conservation Stewardship Program, two conservation programs very important to South Dakota producers. I also offered an amendment during the Senate Agriculture Committee’s markup of the Farm Bill, which was accepted by the committee, to discourage native sod and grassland conversion by those who use federally subsidized crop insurance to guarantee a profit from this land rather than relying on the land’s actual productive capability.  The Congressional Budget Office projected my Sodsaver amendment would save nearly $200 million over the next 10 years. 

Additionally, I was able to get an important provision included in the Forestry Title based on legislation I introduced in March of 2012, the National Forest Emergency Response Act, to combat the growing pine beetle infestation in the Black Hills and other national forestland. This provision requires the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Secretary to, within 60 days of passage of the Farm Bill, to name at least one National Forest in each state, at the request of the Governor, as a special pilot project to more effectively address the pine beetle epidemic. I also cosponsored with Senator Mark Udall’s (D-CO) an amendment adopted during Senate floor debate of the Farm Bill, which authorizes an additional $100 million for each Fiscal Year 2013 through 2017 for pine beetle treatment.

In light of the current drought conditions, I have been pressuring the Secretary of Agriculture to release CRP acres in South Dakota for emergency haying and grazing.  More than 550,000 acres were subsequently released by the Secretary to help South Dakota’s grazing and forage livestock producers.