[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 12 (Thursday, January 23, 2003)]
[Senate]
[Page S1467]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                POPCORN

 Mr. TALENT. Mr. President, in 1996 the Congress promised 
agriculture producers that they would no longer be penalized for 
heeding market signals and raising crops the market demanded.
  Two-hundred farmers in my home State of Missouri responded to strong 
domestic and foreign demand and planted acres of popcorn. Now, with the 
passage of the 2002 farm bill, these producers are greatly 
disadvantaged compared to farmers that stayed with traditional program 
crops.
  Under the provisions of the 2002 farm bill, producers who opted to 
grow popcorn since 1996 on acreage traditionally dedicated to program 
crops or soybeans are severely penalized if they attempt to update 
their program acreage history or yield history.
  Unless corrected, this will cause a substantial, potential loss to 
both farm income and land value. I believe that this problem should be 
corrected in the most expeditious manner, as the April 15 deadline for 
signup into the new farm programs is quickly approaching. Senator Lugar 
and I have introduced an amendment to allow producers to include 
popcorn in their program base acres. I am grateful to managers on both 
sides for addressing this issue in a managers amendment.
  The correction is simple. Popcorn is simply treated as a variety of 
the traditional corn for the purposes of determining bases and yields. 
I urge my colleges to support my amendment and allow the Department of 
Agriculture to consider popcorn equivalent to corn for the purpose of 
computing base acreage. There are 278,000 acres of land nationwide 
normally devoted to production of popcorn. We should not penalize those 
who farm this land because they believed the promises of the 1996 act. 
Popcorn growers in Missouri and across the Nation deserve equitable 
treatment when determining base acres.

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