National & World Ag News Headlines House Ag Panel Votes to Suspend 10-Acre Rule USAgNet - 09/23/2008 The House Agriculture Committee approved a bill Thursday that would suspend the so-called "10-acre rule" for two years. The provision bars producers with 10 or fewer acres from receiving farm program payments. Though report language accompanying the farm bill makes it clear that producers should be allowed to aggregate acreage to meet the threshold, USDA has said it will not allow aggregation, excluding thousands of small farmers. In response, at a Thursday mark-up, the Agriculture Committee approved a bill from Chairman Collin Peterson (D-Minn.) that would simply suspend the entire 10-acre provision for two years. The fix was said to cost $20 million, with funds coming from the Risk Management Agency's information technology fund in order to meet pay-as-you-go requirements. It is unclear what will happen with the bill in the full House or the Senate. Discussions about the proper implementation of the new ACRE revenue protection program also continued last week. Senate Agriculture Chairman Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) sent a letter to USDA on the issue along with Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio). A separate letter with a similar message was sent by Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.), Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) and Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.). Copyright © 2010 - USAgNet.com. All Rights Reserved.