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The Farm Service Agency (FSA) is the United States Department of Agriculture agency that was formed by merging the farm loan portfolio and staff of the Farmers Home Administration (FmHA) and the Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service (ASCS). The Farm Service Agency implements agricultural policy, administers credit and loan programs, and manages conservation, commodity, disaster, and farm marketing programs through a national network of offices. The Administrator of FSA reports to the Under Secretary of Agriculture for Farm Production and Conservation. The current administrator is Zach Ducheneaux. The FSA of each state is led by a politically appointed State Executive Director (SED).
The Federal Agriculture Improvement and Reform Act of 1996, known informally as the Freedom to Farm Act, the FAIR Act, or the 1996 U.S. Farm Bill, was the omnibus 1996 farm bill that, among other provisions, revises and simplifies direct payment programs for crops and eliminates milk price supports through direct government purchases.
The Agricultural Act of 1954 is a United States federal law that, among other provisions, authorized a Commodity Credit Corporation reserve for foreign and domestic relief.
The agricultural policy of the United States is composed primarily of the periodically renewed federal U.S. farm bills. The Farm Bills have a rich history which initially sought to provide income and price support to US farmers and prevent them from adverse global as well as local supply and demand shocks. This implied an elaborate subsidy program which supports domestic production by either direct payments or through price support measures. The former incentivizes farmers to grow certain crops which are eligible for such payments through environmentally conscientious practices of farming. The latter protects farmers from vagaries of price fluctuations by ensuring a minimum price and fulfilling their shortfalls in revenue upon a fall in price. Lately, there are other measures through which the government encourages crop insurance and pays part of the premium for such insurance against various unanticipated outcomes in agriculture.
In the United States, the Acreage Reduction Program (ARP) is a no-longer-authorized annual cropland retirement program for wheat, feed grains, cotton, or rice in which farmers participating in the commodity programs were mandated to idle a crop-specific, nationally set portion of their base acreage during years of surplus. The idled acreage was devoted to a conserving use. The goal was to reduce supplies, thereby raising market prices. Additionally, idled acres did not earn deficiency payments, thus reducing commodity program costs. ARP was criticized for diminishing the U.S. competitive position in export markets. The 1996 farm bill did not reauthorize ARPs. ARP differed from a set-aside program in that under a set-aside program reductions were based upon current year plantings, and did not require farmers to reduce their plantings of a specific crop.
The Agricultural Act of 1956 created the Soil Bank Program, addressed the disposal of Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) inventories of surplus stocks, contained commodity support program provisions, and contained forestry provisions. The Soil Bank Act authorized short- and long-term removal of land from production with annual rental payments to participants. The Acreage Reserve Program, for wheat, corn, rice, cotton, peanuts, and several types of tobacco, allowed producers to retire land on an annual basis in crop years 1956 through 1959 in return for payments. The Conservation Reserve Program allowed producers to retire cropland under contracts of 3, 5, or 10 years in return for annual payments. The Soil Bank Act was repealed by Section 601 of the Food and Agriculture Act of 1965. The Conservation Reserve portion of the Soil Bank was a model for the subsequent Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), enacted in 1985.
In United States federal agriculture legislation, the Agricultural Act of 1970 initiated a significant change in commodity support policy.
The Agricultural Market Transition Act (AMTA) — Title I of the 1996 U.S. farm bill — allowed farmers who had participated in the wheat, feed grain, cotton, and rice programs in any one of the five years prior to 1996 to enter into seven-year production flexibility contracts for 1996-2002. Total national production flexibility contract payments for each fiscal year were fixed in the law. The AMTA allowed farmers to plant 100% of their total contract acreage to any crop except fruits and vegetables, and receive a full payment. Land had to be maintained in agricultural uses. Unlimited haying and grazing and planting and harvesting alfalfa and other forage crops was permitted with no reduction in payments. AMTA commodity support provisions were replaced by the 2002 farm bill, a six-year farm bill.
The Agriculture and Food Act of 1981 was the 4-year omnibus farm bill that continued and modified commodity programs through 1985. It set specific target prices for 4 years, eliminated rice allotments and marketing quotas, lowered dairy supports, and made other changes affecting a wide range of USDA activities. The next year this farm bill was amended to freeze the dairy price support level and mandate loan rates and acreage reserve provisions for the 1983 crops. Again in 1984, amendments were adopted to freeze target prices, authorize paid land diversion for feed grains, upland cotton, and rice, and provide a wheat payment-in-kind program for 1984.
The Food, Agriculture, Conservation, and Trade (FACT) Act of 1990 — P.L. 101-624 was a 5-year omnibus farm bill that passed Congress and was signed into law.
In the United States, deficiency payments are direct government payments made to farmers who participated in annual commodity programs for wheat, feed grains, rice, or cotton, prior to 1996.
In the United States, Tobacco quotas were a supply control feature of federal price support for tobacco. Burley tobacco was subject to marketing quotas and flue-cured tobacco was subject to marketing quotas and acreage allotments. Tobacco quota owners voted every three years on whether or not to continue with price support and marketing quotas. Producers of several minor tobaccos had disapproved federal support. The national marketing quota was calculated according to a formula specified by law that included consideration of intended purchases by domestic manufacturers, average exports over the preceding three years, and reserve stock requirements. The effective quota was the basic quota plus and minus temporary adjustments for allowable previous year under and over marketings. The Fair and Equitable Tobacco Reform Act of 2004 ended tobacco quotas for 2005 crop and subsequent years.
The Food Security Act of 1985, a five-year omnibus farm bill, allowed lower commodity price, income supports, and established a dairy herd buyout program. This 1985 farm bill made changes in a variety of other USDA programs. Several enduring conservation programs were created, including sodbuster, swampbuster, and the Conservation Reserve Program.
The U.S. Sugar program is the federal commodity support program that maintains a minimum price for sugar, authorized by the 2002 farm bill to cover the 2002-2007 crops of sugar beets and sugarcane.
The Direct and Counter-cyclical Payment Program (DCP) of the USDA provides payments to eligible producers on farms enrolled for the 2002 through 2007 crop years. There are two types of DCP payments – direct payments and counter-cyclical payments. Both are computed using the base acres and payment yields established for the farm. DCP was authorized by the 2002 Farm Bill and is administered by the Farm Service Agency (FSA).
A poundage quota, also called a marketing quota, is a quantitative limit on the amount of a commodity that can be marketed under the provisions of a permanent law. Once a common feature of price support programs, this supply control mechanism ended with the quota buyouts for peanuts in 2002 and tobacco in 2004.
The No Net Cost Tobacco Act of 1982 required that the Tobacco Price Support Program operate at no net cost to taxpayers, other than for the administrative expenses common to all price support programs. To satisfy this mandate, sellers and buyers of tobacco were assessed equally to build a capital account that was drawn upon to reimburse the Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) for any losses of principal and interest resulting from nonrecourse loan operations. Other provisions of this law provided for reducing the level of support for tobacco and made various modifications to the marketing quota and acreage allotment programs. No net cost assessments ended when price support was terminated after the 2004 crop.
Marketing assessments are payments in United States agricultural policy. At times, producers and first purchasers of some supported commodities are required to pay assessments as a contribution towards achieving budget deficit reduction targets. Under the 1996 farm bill, assessments were imposed on sugar processors, producers, and first buyers of peanuts. However, the 1996 farm bill eliminated a milk marketing assessment. The 2002 farm bill eliminated the assessments for peanuts and sugar. Tobacco was subject to a no-net-cost assessment on all marketings to offset Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) losses on price support loan operations until support was ended in 2005 under the quota buyout provision.
The United States Food and Agriculture Act of 1977 was an omnibus farm bill. The S. 275 legislation was passed by the 95th U.S. Congressional session and signed into law by the 39th President of the United States Jimmy Carter on September 29, 1977.
Flue-cured tobacco is a type of cigarette tobacco. Along with burley tobacco, it accounts for more than 90% of US tobacco production. Flue-cured farming is centered in North Carolina. Production was limited by national marketing quotas and acreage allotments. The crop was eligible for non-recourse price support loans until 2005, when the quota buyout program ended these programs.
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This article incorporates public domain material from Jasper Womach. Report for Congress: Agriculture: A Glossary of Terms, Programs, and Laws, 2005 Edition (PDF). Congressional Research Service.