Produce farmers cheer farm bill

[Ron Burgundy]

AP - Fruit and vegetable growers would reap a bonanza in the farm bill passed Wednesday by the House that, for the first time, includes a significant amount of money for them.

Money for traditional commodity subsidies, food stamps and other programs in the $290 billion bill still dwarfs spending on specialty crops — fruits, vegetables, nuts and nursery products, which together account for about half the country's crop value.

Nonetheless fruit and vegetable producers and their allies said they had made an important advance. The bill would spend more than $1 billion directly on specialty crops through grants and other programs, while hundreds of millions more would go for related programs, such as a $1 billion fresh fruit and vegetable snack program for schools.

Senate Democrats calculated the total specialty crop spending in the bill at around $3 billion.

"For the first time the farm bill makes an historic investment in specialty crops especially important to my state of California," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. "The producers who account for more than half of all crop value in the United States are now represented in our farm bill."

California with its grapes, pears, avocados and almonds is the country's top specialty-crop producing state, followed by Florida, Washington, Texas, Oregon, North Carolina, Michigan, New York, Georgia and Arizona, according to the Specialty Crop Farm Bill Alliance

The alliance represents 120 groups of growers and producers that came together over the past few years to lobby for inclusion after the last farm bill, in 2002, once again mostly ignored specialty crops.

"What we've tried to do is create and support programs that are going to help a broad cross-section of our industry," said Robert Guenther, senior vice president of public policy for the United Fresh Produce Association and spokesman for the specialty crop alliance. "Finally we hit the tipping in this farm bill."

The bill passed the House 318-106 despite a veto promise from President Bush. Debate on the legislation began in the Senate, with a vote planned Thursday.

Among the specialty crop spending in the bill:

_$1.02 billion to expand a pilot fresh fruit and vegetable snack program at schools to all 50 states;

_$466 million for specialty crop block grants;

_$377 million for a new program to combat pest and disease;

_$230 million for research on food safety, mechanization, genetics, breeding and other issues;

_$59 million for trade assistance and marketing promotion.

source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080514/ap_on_go_co/farm_bill_produce [link]