Farm agency considering closing some offices (600 nat'l jobs cut)

http://www.wkyt.com/Global/story.asp?S=3602227

LEXINGTON, Ky. The federal agency handling farm programs is considering closing a third of its Kentucky offices and may buy out or lay off more than 50 workers.

Kentucky Farm Service Agency state director Jeff Hall says about 30 of the current 90 offices might be closed. Hall also says 51 of about 450 jobs might be eliminated as part of a national staff reduction of more than 600 jobs.

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Not that I think the government should subsidize tobacco, but it is interesting to note that they are doing their "free market" bullshit there as well.

I live in a pretty rural county and when my insurance company pulled out of our state (due I think to a string of tornado disaster payouts) my only affordable choice for homeowners was Farm Bureau. They are constantly sending me pro-puke shit. Serious cognitive dissonance. Our state always "talks" about the farm belt problems. The poverty is staggering in the rural areas.

But love that Bushie! :crazy:

and you mentioned Farm Bureau for your homeowner's insurance. Not the same thing, I believe.

FSA, the federal agency the article is about, administers the financial end of contracts for various federal programs for farmers, such as cost share for land improvements which benefit soil conservation and/or maintaining wildlife habitat. It is a department within the US Dept of Agriculture and it does not send 'pro-puke shit'. It is an agency of the federal government. The employees of the office of the FSA in my county are decidedly unhappy with the things going on at the top levels of the Dept of Ag and the WH, as they see, up close & personal how it hits both the people working for the agency and the people the agency serves (farmers/ranchers).

FSA in NOT an insurance company that does homeowners insurance. Farm Bureau is an insurance company from what I googled. They probably have their name as a marketing ploy to make people in rurual areas think they are connected with the government.

I understand the difference in the two. I know they are not the federal government. I guess I was just commenting on how the Farm Bureau (who historically has represented farmers and farming issues prior to going into city homeowner's policies) which is based in North Carolina has a very strong Republican and pro-Bush bias.

I would think their constituents are not very happy with the state of federal programs as relating to them as poor, screwed farmers.

Sorry you misunderstood. I'm beginning to hate typing online, since everyone seems to misunderstand me.

was about. Nothing to do with your insurance carrier.

"since everyone seems to misunderstand.." you, perhaps it is because the topic was one thing and you posted about an all together different thing? Just trying to help you understand why 'everyone seems to misunderstand'.

I posted so that other readers would not mistake the subject, which is the US Dept of Ag, and your complaint against your personal insurance carrier. There is enough effort on the part of the b*sh administration to make the average citizen despise hard working and concerned federal employees without muddying the issue with complaints about private corporations which have nothing to do with the USDA.

There seems to be major effort by the current administration to inhibit many federal agencies thereby making them less responsive to the public. That combined with the administration effort to 'privatize' many government services is seen by a lot of federal employees as a blatant attempt to discredit their efforts and then award contracts for the services they provided to private, for-profit corporations. It is just part of the plan to give $$ from the US Treasury to bush/cheney cronies.

It was my intention that your post not be misunderstood by others as an attack on the subject of the original post, which is a cut in FSA in areas where tobacco farming used to be a bigger part of the local economy.

They are more helpful to conventional corporate farmers than traditional family farmers. Yes, they provide a modicum of support through grants; but largely, they promote the USDA's agenda.

One example:

http://www.icba.org/advocacy/commentlettersdetail.cfm?ItemNumber=743&sn.ItemNumber=1711

ICBA Comments

However, the FSA's proposal to define a "family farm" for loan eligibility purposes as any farm with annual gross farm income not exceeding the greater of $750,000 or the 95 percentile of farms in a given state with sales exceeding $10,000 would arbitrarily define "family farms" and limit participation in farm loan programs by legitimate family farmers. While this definition is aimed at making the application of who is eligible for FSA loans less subjective between states and counties within a state, its implications for eliminating "family farms" from program eligibility could potentially be wide reaching. It is our understanding that the proposal would make ineligible approximately 25,000 farms, including 5,500 full-time "family farms". Therefore, the proposal would immediately make ineligible a significant number of family farms based on gross income.

Because the gross income level is not indexed to inflation, the number of ineligible family farms could grow considerably over time and the real size of family farms eligible for FSA financing would become smaller and smaller. We experience a similar phenomenon on a regular basis in regards to deposit insurance offered consumers by commercial banks. The deposit coverage level, set at $100,000 in 1980, was not indexed to inflation and now has eroded by approximately one-half its original value. In the future, for example, could a farm be become ineligible if family's gross income exceeded the $750,000 threshold because the farmer's wife has an off-farm job?

We also understand that the greatest impact would likely be on dairy, fruit and vegetable, nursery, and some cotton, rice, and peanut farms - namely farms that produce higher value commodities. For example, a 230 cow dairy operator, with a typical per cow production of 20,000 pounds of milk per year, would be ineligible for FSA guaranteed loans under the proposal. Often in a dairy operation, several members of the same family have joined together for the sake of economic efficiencies. Many of these family owned dairy farms could become ineligible based on gross income even though their net incomes were very marginal.

We also note that estimates show the all-milk price for 2004 is projected to exceed $16 per cwt, a much higher price than farmers experienced just a few years ago. This suggests that some of the same dairy farmers who may have been eligible for FSA loans in previous years could suddenly become ineligible within the next year or so. This would be true even though their expenses, driven by higher fuel and feed costs for example, will also have risen dramatically. Thus, we believe that simply using a gross income figure or basing eligibility on the 95th percentile, can be just as arbitrary as FSA feels the current criteria is. In several states with dairies, even using the 95th percentile, up to two-thirds of dairy operations would become ineligible under this proposal. Therefore, the arbitrariness FSA seeks to eliminate would just be redefined and would still exist.

In today's environment of global competition and producing commodities and value-added products for the export market, a proposal that penalizes high-value, low net income operations the most contradicts the market driven trends occurring in the farm sector. Farms continue to become fewer in number but larger in size as they seek to survive in a world market.

Commercial Lenders Depend on FSA Guarantees

Commercial banks are consistently the largest users of FSA's guaranteed loan programs and continue to use the program to provide financing to borrowers who might not otherwise be able to obtain a loan without the guarantee. We point out that the current loan size limitations ($782,000 for guaranteed and $200,000 for direct loans) already create some restrictions on who applies to FSA for financing.

With today's prices for land and equipment and the rising costs of production, loans of this size do not typically finance large farm operations. For example, one banker commented to us on this issue stating, "In many cases in Texas, for a family farm to be economical, the size of the operation is large enough that these limits do not allow the FSA to be an adequate source of financing, especially if the operator has both real estate debt and equipment debt".

The proposed rule also seeks to clarify the meaning of "family members" when determining if substantial labor is provided by the loan applicant or persons related by blood or marriage. The proposal defines "family members" as a spouse, parent, child, brother, or sister. Limiting eligibility to just operations with the relatives named above would certainly cause some "family farms" to be excluded because they may have uncles, grandchildren, or grandparents as partners. This provision should be revised to reflect the various relatives that could be involved in the farm operation.

ICBA was a signatory of the letter sent to FSA by the American Farm Bureau Federation and other organizations calling on FSA to withdraw the proposed definition of a "family farm." In a survey to ICBA's Agriculture-Rural America Committee, one option presented was whether FSA should allow lenders to determine an eligible family farmer based on current FSA criteria. For example, bankers categorized as PLP or CLP lenders have a degree of flexibility in terms of utilizing FSA loan guarantees. This option would have the advantage of not requiring the staffing time currently required of FSA to determine who is an eligible family farmer. However, some bankers suggested that this option could also be abused by certain lenders who may not follow the FSA criteria. Even if this scenario were addressed through some type of FSA audit procedure, several bankers stated their strong desire for FSA to continue determining eligibility in case there is a problem with a delinquency at a later time and other issues.
...

And if the policy makers and Congress want to make life better for corporations, guess how the programs and new laws go? The FSA is the messanger and the messanger is being set up to look bad by the guys at the top of the USDA who set policy. And who are those guys at the top setting policy? Oh yeah, the appointees of W. And the policies? To make the locals hate the federal employees they deal with directly. And the point of that? To make citizens grumble about 'gov-mint workers' so Congress can say, OK, we will contract it out to private corps...

That pretty much makes my point. The administration has an agenda to send money to private corporations, via policy and via privatization. I wanted to make sure the workers don't also get confused with the PRIAVTE insurer the previous poster was complaining about.

Interesting article in the NYT today. Different subject, this was an illegal worker roundup scheme, but it points out one of many problems with this privatization. Corporations with contracts to do 'privatized' work on an USAF base had many illegals doing the work. Gee, that makes a mockery of maintaining Homeland Security, but it makes $$ for the private corporations paying illegals to do government contract work on government installations.

The bush/cheney administration has appointed department heads who will thwart their subordinates' attempts to do good work for the public. They do this to justify taking the jobs and contracting them out to private corporations. Those corporations pay CEOs and also cut corners to save $$ but in the end, with all the problems AND private workers not getting decent pay, job security they end up paying LESS taxes... Well it is a nice littel spiral which results in lower standards for US workers, less benefits, less security, less payroll taxes into the public coffers and with this finding of illegals on US installations, BIGGER chances for any terrorists to get into places where serious damage could be done to military responsiveness... Gads, what a mess. But, as you pointed out, it is for the corporate good.

in another era, helping to destroy what is good about America

them and they think the GOP is fiscally responsible, which is the biggest myth of all.

The OP was referencing the Farm Services Agency, which IS a federal agency and has NOTHING to do with the Farm Bureau the poster got homeowners insurance from and was complaining about.

When you google Farm Bureau, you get insurance agencies. The insurance industry LOVES bushco! But they have nada to do with the topic of the thread.

::sigh:: this is the sort of confusion I feared when the post about Farm Bureau was made. Apples and oranges. The OP is about a cutback in a federal agency in an area where tobacco is not such a big crop anymore. The first reply was a complaint about a private insurance company operating under the name Farm Bureau exactly because it leads people to believe it is something which it is not: an agency of the government operating in rural areas to help farmers.

:banghead:

edits: typos