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SAF Joins Other Specialty Crops To Fight for IR-4
| The Society of American Florists
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>> Published Date: 4/25/2012
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The IR-4 program was established by Congress in 1963 to assist domestic growers of fruits, nuts, herbs, ornamentals and other specialty crops in providing information that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) needs to register safe and effective chemicals and technology to protect these high-value crops from insects, diseases and weeds. It’s a program extremely important to hundreds of specialty crops grown across the U.S., including floriculture and nursery crops.
In FY 2012, IR-4 was funded by Congress as a part of the USDA budget, at about $11.9 million, with an additional $4 million provided through ARS to support IR-4’s work. However, the President’s proposed 2013 budget eliminates the separate line item for IR-4, instead combining the program with funds from various IPM (Integrated Pest Management) programs into a new “umbrella” program known as the “Crop Protection Program.”
Specialty crop growers are very concerned about this proposed change. As members of the IR-4 Commodity Liaison Committee, SAF and ANLA are assisting in efforts to educate Congress about the downsides of this new proposal and voice agriculture’s opposition to the plan. We support IPM, but believe that while combining the IPM budget lines into one line might be appropriate, it’s completely inappropriate to include IR-4, which is a very unique program, along with them. Growers are concerned that the identity and responsiveness to growers will be lost if this proposal is allowed to
proceed.
The new Crop Protection Program, strongly supported by the IPM centers, is proposed in the President’s budget to be funded at $29.7 million. The full $11.9 million currently funding IR-4 would be rolled into that amount, yet the proposed budget does not even mention IR-4, so it’s very uncertain whether IR-4 would remain as a viable program performing its current functions. It’s noteworthy that nowhere in the budget proposal are the IR-4 activities given any significant credit or even mentioned.
You can help save IR-4 and its work on behalf of floriculture, nursery and hundreds of other crops and growers across the U.S. by visiting www.saveIR-4.org and add your company’s name to the list of those who oppose diluting this program.
Prospects for Loans Widen During Congressional Action Days
SAF’s push for more access to capital for floral industry and other microbusinesses made a big stride recently, when Rep. Kurt Schrader (D-Ore.) announced he will sponsor a bill that would allow credit unions to extend more loans to companies with fewer than 20 full-time employees.
During a breakfast at SAF’s Congressional Action Days, just before attendees left for their appointments with legislators, Schrader shared the news of his support for the bill, soon to be introduced in the House.
The bill would exempt certain brick-and-mortar “Main Street” businesses from the cap in current law that limits credit unions to loaning a maximum of 12.5% of their total assets to commercial members.
Schrader, a fruit and vegetable farmer and veterinarian before he was elected to Congress and joined the House Small Business and Agriculture committees, told CAD attendees he identifies with the risks small businesses take.
“When you go to your banker, or talk to folks here in Washington D.C., you might as well be from Mars in some cases,” Schrader said. “You’re always the last person, right, on the payroll to get paid?”
Schrader described the Restore Main Street’s Credit Act to CAD attendees as “thoughtful,” “straightforward” and “simple,” adding jokingly that it is “something that Congress people don’t have to think a whole lot about.”
SAF took the issue to Capitol Hill through the National Main Street Business Coalition it formed in December, which represents more than 150,000 businesses belonging to the National Association of Convenience Stores, Retail Bakers of America, North American Retail Dealers Association, American Specialty Toy Retailing Association and National Newspaper Association.
SAF Senior Directory of Government Relations, Corey Connors told CAD attendees that independent businesses of their size have not been directly helped by previous attempts to address the problem, such as the “Troubled Asset Relief Program,” and the “Small Business Lending Fund.”
“We sustain local tax bases,” Connors said. “We contribute to the economy in different ways,” yet cash flow is a challenge due to the sales peaks and valleys of the floral industry, so florists need access to capital.
“A lack of available credit risks stalling a nascent economic recovery,” Schrader said in a letter to other potential co-sponsors. Unlike medium and large businesses, which have begun to get loans, small businesses are “still suffering,” Schrader said. Banks often aren’t interested in loaning relatively small amounts to very small companies, he said, but credit unions are “excited” about doing business with them.
If retail florists, growers and wholesalers aren’t already credit union members, it’s likely they could fairly easily join one, Connors said.
The act “looks like a modest change,” Schrader told CAD attendees, yet “it could make a huge difference for you. It could open up another avenue for you to make sure you can get all the opportunities you can to have access to credit.” GT
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