Team 19
Darren Bundy, Zachary Dowd, Becky Dorff, Megan Richards, Katherine Heffernan
Food, Agriculture, Conservation, and Trade Act of 1990 (FACTA)
Public Law 101-624
The farm bill originated during World War II to ensure that we can provide enough food
to our military during wartime. Farmers need protection from corporate power in the marketplace
in order to ensure prices will not fall to a level where they are unable to sustain themselves and
maintain food production. Therefore, farm bills provide this protection by the government as an
anti-trust function. Over time the farm bill has evolved to allow credit to farmers, provide food
stamp programs, as well as promote conservation initiatives. (Marlow)
The Food, Agriculture, Conservation, and Trade Act of 1990 (FACTA) was signed on
November 28, 1990 as a 5-year framework that was to be implemented by the Secretary of
Agriculture to create a market-oriented direction in agriculture to allow for more planting
flexibility as well as pricing. Also known as the 1990 farm bill, FACTA was created as an
extension from previous farm bills amending commodity programs like USDA food stamp,
credit, rural development, and research programs. New programs under FACTA include
marketing of fruits and vegetables, forestry, grain quality, crop insurance and disaster assistance,
organic foods, and global climate change (Pollack 1991). The programs budget was allocated
through the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation act of 1993, which reduced the farm spending to $3
billion over a five-year stint. FACTA was later edited for error in the Food, Agriculture,
Conservation, and Trade Act Amendments of 1991. The Act is comprised a variety of programs
and provisions from the past. Conservation provisions include sodbuster and swampbuster,
agricultural resource conservation programs, and pesticide recordkeeping, as well as new
provisions to organic food standards, the creation of the Rural Development Administration
(RDA), and forestry practices. FACTA has been revised multiple times in accordance to the 5year plan as well as to fix errors (Pollack 1991).
The Food, Agriculture, Conservation and Trade (FACT) Act of 1990 is an extension of
the Agriculture Adjustment Act from the 1930s and is one of many additions or amendments to
the original act (Cain 2004). The Secretary of Agriculture organized the development of the
1990 Farm Bill Conservation Initiatives Work Group (FBCW) during the year of 1989 (Atwood
et. al 1990). The FBCW orchestrated and coordinated all the assigned main groups including the
Soil Conservation Service, US Department of Agriculture, and Environmental Protection
Agency. Also involved were subgroups that the work group coordinated with and put together to
focus in on certain resource issues, for example, water quality, the Conservation Reserve
Program, and wetlands restoration. “These groups developed farm bill goal statements and
specific policy options” (Atwood et. al, 1990, p. 8). The center for Agriculture and Rural
Development (CARD) evaluated some of the national level policy options that were created
directly by the FBCW. CARD used the Agricultural Resources Interregional modeling system,
“to establish baselines for 1990, 1995, and 2000 and to evaluate and test some of the policy
alternatives” (Atwood et. al, 1990, p.8).
Sources
Atwood, J., Johnson, S., Shogren, J., & Thompson, L. (1990, August ). Analysis of 1990 Farm
Bill Conservation Options. Retrieved March 27, 2010, from Econpapers:
http://www.card.iastate.edu/publications/DBS/PDFFiles/90sr43.pdf
Cain, Z., & Lovejoy, S. (n.d.). Choices Article - History and Outlook for Farm Bill Conservation
Programs . Welcome to Choices Magazine Online!. Retrieved March 28, 2010, from
http://www.choicesmagazine.org/2004-4/policy/2004-4-09.htm
Cohen, W., Hug, A., Taddese, A., & Cook, K. (1991). FACTA 1990: Conservation and Environmental
Highlights. Journal of Soil and Water Conservation , 46: 20-22.
Food, agriculture, conservation, trade act of 1990. (2003). The National Agriculture Law Center,
Retrieved from http://www.nationalaglawcenter.org/farmbills/#90
Marlow, Scott. (2007). Farm bill tree. Retrieved from
www.rafiusa.org/docs/Farm%20Bill%20Tree.pdf
Pollack, s. (1991). Provisions of the food, agriculture, conservation, and trade act of 1990.
Agriculture Information Bulletin, 183. Retrieved from
http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/aib624/
http://ww w.card.iastate.edu/publications/DBS/PDFFiles/90sr43.pdf