TIFTON, Ga.–The Georgia Peanut Commission is encouraging Congress to reject the President’s Fiscal Year 2011 budget proposals to eliminate storage payments for peanuts and payment limitation reductions. Both the peanut storage payments and the compromise language for payment limitations were part of the 2008 Farm Bill agreement.

“ The current program’s safety net does not cover all the costs associated with producing peanuts,” says Armond Morris, chairman of the Georgia Peanut Commission. “To eliminate a significant part of the peanut program in the middle of a farm bill does not seem to be good agricultural policy. We are hopeful that Congress will reject the president’s proposals. If approved, this proposal would be devastating to American agriculture.”

In the report language released Feb. 1, 2010, the administration proposes to eliminate payments to cotton and peanut producers that compensate them for their cost of storing their commodities that are put under loan with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The administration also proposes to limit farm subsidies to farmers by reducing the cap on direct payments by 25 percent, and reducing each of the adjusted gross income (AGI) commodity payment eligibility limits for farm and non-farm income by $250,000 over three years.

“ I am highly disappointed in the president’s budget proposals to further reduce support for America’s peanut farmers. During the past several years, the peanut industry as a whole has made major concessions,” says U.S. Rep. Sanford Bishop, Jr., D-Ga. “In the 2002 Farm Bill, producers saw a price support system of $610 lower to $355 per ton. The agricultural budget proposals released yesterday will further erode our farmers’ safety net and that is unacceptable.”

“ The industry cannot continue to sustain these blows and compete in a global market,” Congressman Bishop adds. While I support the efforts of the president to restore fiscal responsibility, I cannot support these reductions in the storage and handling of our peanuts, or any other measure that would put a burden on our production agriculture.”

The president’s proposed budget for the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Environmental Protection Agency can be seen in entirety online at http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/Overview.