VOA慢速英語(yǔ):Congress Has been Debating a New Farm Bill

[00:00.00]From VOA Learning English, [00:01.29]this is the Agriculture Report. [00:04.08]Congress has been debating a new farm bill [00:07.51]-- a huge five-year plan [00:09.90]that includes subsidy programmes for American farmers. [00:14.28]Government payments make up 8% of the income [00:19.00]on farmers growing such major crops as maize, [00:23.31]wheat, soybeans, cotton and peanuts. [00:27.14]That 8% is one of the lowest rates among developed countries. [00:33.47]The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development says [00:38.84]the average among its members is 20%. [00:43.87]One reason for the low payments is high global crop prices, [00:50.19]the subsidies that pays farmers when the markets are down [00:55.52]has not been used much recently. [00:58.90]Grain prices are way up, farmers have earned record [01:04.26]or near record profits in the past few years. [01:08.68]But they still receive about 5 billion dollars per year [01:13.61]in what her called direct payments. [01:16.86]These payments go to farmers whether crop prices are high or low. [01:23.57]Farmers do not even have to grow a crop to get direct payments. [01:29.89]But Congress want to cut 20 to 40 billion dollars from the farm bill. [01:37.19]Even the largest farmers group, The American Farm Bureau Federation [01:43.36]expects that direct payments will soon end. [01:48.05]Mary Kay Thatcher is the chief lobbyist for the group. [01:53.17]"Well, I think politically people feel like [01:55.12]it's farmers getting money for doing nothing." [01:57.45]But there are proposals to increase subsidies [02:01.29]once crop prices go down again. [02:04.37]One version would raise the market price [02:09.74]below which farmers receive a payment, [02:12.73]another version would protect their total income when prices fall. [02:18.66]David Orden is an economist with the International Food Policy Institute. [02:26.27]He says both versions would anger farmers in other countries, [02:31.89]that is because American farmers would receive payments [02:37.32]when farmers in other countries are also dealing with falling prices. [02:43.69]"Right at the point, it was US expense subsidies, [02:46.72]shake their heads and say they are going to US again, [02:49.57]protecting its farmers right at the time, [02:51.56]and we are feeling the pain." [02:52.75]But Agricultural Secretary Tom Vilsack tells VOA [02:56.75]that the payments would not hurt farmers in other countries. [03:01.57]"I am confident that the work has been done up to this point by the US, [03:05.31]the work would be done in the future, [03:07.11]and we will not get into a position where we are doing more than [03:10.24]what the international community will allow." [03:12.38]David Orden says that is probably true, [03:16.10]under World Trade Organizaiton rules, [03:19.28]the United States can spend 19 billion dollars [03:23.72]on the kind of subsidies proposed in the new farm bill. [03:28.30]Mr Orden says American farmers would have to [03:32.68]face an especially bad year to go over that limit. [03:37.50]Negotiators have been working for more than ten years on new WTO rules, [03:44.67]that would lower that limit, [03:46.86]but Mr Orden says no progress is being made. [03:51.29]And that's the Agriculture Report from VOA Learning English, [03:56.86]I'm Steve Ember.

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