Nebraska Farmers Union

1305 Plum Street • Lincoln, NE 68502 www.nebraskafarmersunion.org Contact John Hansen Office: 402-476-8815 Fax: 402-476-8859 Cell: 402-580-8815 john@nebraskafarmersunion.org

Nebraska Farmers Union Will Participate in NFU Legislative Fly-In

For Immediate Release September 7, 2010

Lincoln, NE. Nebraska Farmers Union announced that it will participate in the National Farmers Union fall legislative Fly-In in Washington, D.C. Six Nebraska Farmers Union members will meet with the Nebraska Congressional delegation and other members of Congress, and receive briefings from the House Ag Committee, Senate Ag Committee, and the White House. Fly-In participants will distribute and discuss NFU’s position paper on the upcoming 2012 Farm Bill as well as NFU’s current key legislative issues.

The National Farmers Union’s Farm Bill discussions will cover:

• Replacing direct payments that are too small to make a difference when times are bad and hard to justify when commodity prices are high with countercyclical payments that only kick in when commodity prices are below target price levels so that an effective farm income safety net is maintained
• Maintaining current baseline funding for the upcoming Farm Bill, especially since the level of funding for the income safety net was so severely cut last time
• Calling for using farmer owned grain reserves as a supply management mechanism to lower farm program costs while also stabilizing feed, food, and renewable fuel supplies
• Expanding crop insurance
• Improving the SURE (Supplemental Revenue Assistance Payments) disaster program by making substantial partial payments sooner so they coincide with normal crop marketing income
• Making the ACRE (Average Crop Revenue Election) more simple and useful by gearing payment triggers to farm or county production
• Improving the CRP (Conservation Reserve Program) participation by allowing for carbon sequestration payments
• Expanding and improve the Biomass Crop Assistance Program
• Expanding Rural Development program funding and Rural Conservation and Development funding
• Making the funding for USDA technology upgrades mandatory
• Making family farmer based research funding a higher priority

The list of current key legislative issues will include:

• Ensuring a Competitive Marketplace and the proposed GIPSA
• Ending America’s ongoing Dairy Crisis
• Support the expiration of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts enacted under President Bush for the wealthiest taxpayers with incomes individual incomes over $200,000 or couples of $250,000
• Restore estate tax exemption levels at $4 million per individual with a 45% tax rate for estates in excess of the exemption levels while also simplifying the exemption qualification requirements
• Support H.R. 465 and S. 3112 to expand trade with Cuba
• Pass a comprehensive energy and climate bill to head off EPA enforcement of carbon emissions as a part of their Clean Air Act authority and to extend ethanol and biodiesel fuel tax credits as included in the Domestic Manufacturing and Energy Jobs Act of 2010 along with long term support for biofuels infrastructure, pipelines, and blender pumps

Nebraska Farmers Union is the state’s second largest and oldest general farm organization representing over 5,300 farm and ranch families and the rural communities they live in. The mission of Nebraska Farmers Union is to improve the economic well being and quality of life of family farmers and ranchers, and the rural communities they live in.

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