The National Corn Growers Association (NCGA) recently voted to request that Congress require a mandatory base acre update in the upcoming farm bill reauthorization, a proposal which is causing a lot of concern both in Washington DC and around the countryside.
“This was new, certainly surprising to us and a lot of other commodities,” said Bob Redding, during his annual update on peanut policy at the Southern Peanut Growers Conference. “This creates a whole different discussion in the farm bill and it will be very divisive.”
Redding says Dr. Stanley Fletcher, ABAC Center for Rural Prosperity, worked up the numbers on how a mandatory base acre update determined by recent history would impact the peanut industry. “Alabama on peanuts will lose almost have of their base, Georgia roughly 30 percent, Florida and Mississippi also lose,” said Redding.
“Peanuts will lose about 40 percent of their base,” said Dr. Fletcher, and farmers may have to make a decision when it comes to strategy for the farm bill. “What’s more important to you, maintaining your base or getting that reference point higher?” he asked.
