PLEASE STOP HELPING: WHAT IS THE FAMILY FARM, AND SHOULD THE USDA TRY AND FIGURE IT OUT FOR US?

摘要

The United States Department of Agriculture, through its Farm Services Agency, is attempting to do what it has avoided doing in the past: it intends to define the family farm. The Farm Services Agency (FSA), makes loans available for purchase of land,livestock, equipment, and operating expenses to family-size farmers when they cannot get credit from commercial lending institutions. The definition being proposed by the USDA would streamline several parts of the FSA's loan paperwork for both the applicant and the government. It would list all abbreviations used in the program documents in one section to make it easier for applicants to look them up. Applicants, farmers, would be given more flexibility and responsibility for planning and completing construction projects, while also decreasing or eliminating the Agency's responsibility to visit sites, participate in scheduling the development, and verify architectural and engineering proficiency. Central to the discussion here, however, is the proposed definition of a "family farm." Current regulations for the program give broad language, allowing for a farming operation's "family" status to be reviewed on its own merits. The USDA has cited inconsistent applications as the reason for proposing a regulatory definition with specific limitations. This proposal, while specific, is a misconstruction of the term "family farm," and such efforts at corralling the family farmer should be abandoned. This is the matter addressed here.