National Farmers Organization

800-247-2110 or e-mail: nfo@nfo.org

News Release

Contact: Perry Garner, communications director

…528 Billy Sunday Road, Ames, IA 50010

For Immediate Release

Ag group proposes helping hungry, additional moves to stimulate farm economy

Ames, Iowa (Dec. 17, 2008)— A proposal to help America’s hungry, and stimulate the farm economy, was proposed by National Farmers today. It calls for funds originally earmarked for farm payments to millionaires be used instead, for the purchase of grain, meat and dairy products to help America’s less fortunate.

“As America’s economy worsens, unemployment lines lengthen, and the hungry experience greater hardships, we’d like to see help for those less fortunate,” said National Farmers President Paul Olson. “President-elect Barack Obama has said he would like to limit farm payments to no more than $250,000 for individual farmers, and we’d like to see the remaining earmarked funds used to purchase grain, meat and dairy products to help the hungry.” At the same time, it would help stimulate the ag economy, shrinking along with the rest of American business.

In a separate proposal, the organization also advocates doubling the Farm Service Agency's lending authority for direct and guaranteed farm operating loans. It makes the funds transferable, depending upon demand. National Farmers also recommends increasing commodity loan rates to levels closer to each commodity's production costs, to provide lenders with more security to extend credit to producers for the next year.

“We believe our three-point plan is a truly stabilizing ag stimulus move, one that can be used to help ag commodities discover a price floor,” said Olson. “Once that happens, lenders can properly asses credit risk, and better understand whether a marketing and risk management plan would place a producer in a position to repay their operating loans next year.”

The farm and food complex of the nation's economy provides millions of jobs, located in every state. Any curtailment of farm production because of a lack of adequate financing would cause a marked disruption throughout the country’s economy.

National Farmers is a group marketing and bargaining organization for the nation’s farmers, ranchers and dairymen.

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