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Definition of 'activelyengaged' still an issue in program payments

The issue of ‘actively engaged’ is back on the front burner.

Three members of the SenateAgriculture Committee want the USDA to establish clear standards for measuring whether a person is actively engaged in farming and thus eligible for farm program payments. Senators Tom Harkin and Charles Grassley of Iowa and Byron Dorgan of North Dakota say an interim rule issued back in Decemberwas vague about the ‘actively engaged’ requirements.

Grassley says they have written Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack asking him to implement tougher rules as required by the 2008 farm bill.

“The interim rule, as written, leaves a big loophole forso-called ‘conference calls’,” Grassley says. “These are farmers that do a conference call and they are not farmers that are involved in the day-to-day operation of the farm.”

Grassley wants local Farm Service Agency offices to rigorously implement the activepersonal management test. Failure to do so, he says, may allow the ‘conference call farmers’, and the farming operations with which they are associated, to qualify for unlimited payments.

“In order for the farm bill to continue to receive broad bipartisan urban andrural support,” he says, “we need to make sure that farm program payments serve as a safety net, rather than a boon to the biggest farmers and non-farmers.”

Grassley and Dorgan have also introduced legislation to cap commodity program payments at 250-thousanddollars, but it died in the Senate Budget Committee. Grassley says he could bring it up again this year during the appropriations process, but he didn’t say if he plans to do that.