The NCC joined more than 500 organizations on a letter to the leadership of both the House and Senate budget committees as well as the appropriations committees, which strongly urged them to reject calls for additional cuts to policies within the jurisdiction of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry or of the House Committee on Agriculture.
The letter, on the NCC's website at www.cotton.org/issues/2017/upload/17budletfeb.pdf, was sent by groups representing America's agriculture, nutrition, conservation, rural development, finance, forestry, energy, trade, local government, plant/animal health, agricultural sciences and veterinary medicine, labor, outdoor recreation, equipment manufacturing, cooperatives, hunters, anglers and crop insurance sectors.
The letter emphasized that the 2014 farm bill made a significant contribution to deficit reduction and reminded Members that the "legislation was estimated to contribute $23 billion to deficit reduction over 10 years at the time of passage" and that, "According to CBO, nutrition and crop insurance alone will spend nearly $100 billion less." It went on to state that, "This was the first time a farm bill voluntarily reduced spending before Congress began considering the bill. It was the only reauthorization bill in that Congress that voluntarily offered savings. These difficult cuts resulted from hard choices made to reform and reduce the farm safety net, conservation initiatives, and nutrition assistance."
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