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Pingree celebrates gains made since Farm Bill signing one year ago

Reforms Pingree introduced have dramatically increased opportunities for Maine farmers to grow their operations

Washington, DC, February 6, 2015

Tomorrow, February 7, will mark one year since President Obama signed the 2014 Farm Bill. Today, Congresswoman Chellie Pingree celebrated the many ways the bill has expanded opportunities for Maine farmers over the last year, thanks to several reforms she introduced that were incorporated into the final bill.

“For all the years of hard work it took to reauthorize the Farm Bill, it’s been worth it to see reforms we fought hard for rolled out over the last year. They’re already having a positive impact,” Pingree said. “They’ve helped create more investment opportunities for Maine farmers, made key federal programs work better for them, and helped consumers get their hands on the healthy, local food they want to eat. There’s more work to be done, but I think things are off to a great start.”

Several of Pingree’s reforms have already resulted in a dramatic increase of funding available through programs that assist small- and medium-sized farms and producers like the ones in Maine.

Comparison of funding in programs important to Maine farms.

  • Funding through the Farmers Market and Local Food Promotion program tripled from $10 million to $30 million annually. In 2014, Maine received $450,000 in grants through this program, triple the amount of awards in years past.
  • Assistance to help farmers gain organic certification increased from $5 million to $13 million nationally in 2014—$228,000 of that was available to Maine farmers and producers.
  • $66 million was made available in 2014 through the Specialty Crop Block Grant program (up from $52 million in 2013). Maine received $600,000—a 50% increase over the prior year.
  • Funding for the Value Added Producer Grant program increased from $10.5 million in 2013 to $25 million in 2014. Maine received $471,000 in grants, creating or saving nearly 70 jobs.

Reforms to federal crop insurance for small and medium-sized farms have also begun to be implemented in the last year:

  • New program has been rolled out to help diversified farmers protect their operations by insuring the total revenue of the farm, instead of having to insure each crop individually.
  • A process to assess organic crops at their market value—rather than for the value of conventional crops—for insurance coverage has begun.