Newly passed farm bill doesn't offer much to Valley farmers

A new provision to the farm bill offers growers direct relief from severe weather such as drought. But the program doesn't have much to offer to Valley farmers.

The U.S Department of Food and Agriculture widened a safety net for federally insured crops hit hard by severe weather.

Barry Bedwell of the California Fresh Fruit Association says the "actual production history" provision allows farmers to throw out "bad years" when determining yields for crop insurance.

Bedwell said, "If you have a natural disaster including impacts of such things as drought and you have production that is less than 50% of your 10-year average you can exclude it."

But U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced the provision which takes effect next spring involves specific crops.

Vilsack explained, "Corn, soybeans, spring wheat, cotton, grain sorghum, rice, barley, canola, sunflowers, peanuts and popcorn. These crops represent roughly 75% of applicable acreage that is currently insured."

Bedwell says most Valley growers don't grow federal program crops so they won't be able to take advantage of the provision.

"Specialty crops represent about half of the agricultural production in the United States and yet many times we've seen these types of programs focused only on the program crops," said Bedwell. "We've for instance have talked about the need for quarantine insurance."

Quarantine insurance could be used in cases where crops can't be shipped out of areas under quarantine due to pest infestation or disease.