1998 Accomplishments—Year at a Glance

Our USDA successes for 1998 included—

Expanding opportunities and assistance for America’s family farmers
• President Clinton fought for and won a strong emergency assistance package for America’s farmers—one that includes 40 percent more funds than the original bill he vetoed. Nearly $3 billion in assistance reached farmers before Thanksgiving, and an additional $3 billion will be distributed before spring 1999.
• USDA’s Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) made commodity loans of about $7.2 billion to producers, $1.6 billion higher than last fiscal year. To offset lost farm income, CCC will also make about $2.8 billion in loan deficiency payments, and marketing loan gains on 1997 and 1998 crops.
• Using sound science, USDA broke through 77 barriers stifling U.S. farm trade, enabling $2.2 billion in threatened and new agricultural trade opportunities to take place. Carrying out President Clinton’s Food Aid Initiative, the Department began purchases of more than 185 million bushels of wheat for donation to hungry people around the world. We increased by 40 percent—to $4 billion—the export sales registered under our export credit guarantee programs. This enabled U.S. exporters to complete sales of 201 million bushels of wheat, 227 million bushels of corn, 104 million bushels of soybeans, and nearly 2 million bales of cotton.
• USDA led successful discussions with Canada about access for U.S. wheat, cattle, hogs, and other trade issues. USDA opened the Taiwanese market for U.S. pork, poultry, and beef—and reopened Brazil’s market for U.S. wheat.
• USDA’s Farm Loan Program provided over $2.1 billion in assistance to over 26,000 family farmers in FY 1998. About $367.1 million of these funds helped 3,186 minority and women farmers. And more than $490 million in direct loan assistance benefitted over 7,000 beginning farmers this fiscal year, a 6-percent increase.
• USDA responded quickly when farmers suffered devastating losses, approving disaster designations for counties in 43 States. The Department made over $97.5 million in low-interest emergency loans and disbursed $26.5 million in emergency conservation funds. USDA provided $22.9 million in emergency benefits to farmers with uninsurable crops, $2.8 million to orchard and vineyard owners, and $4.9 million to livestock producers.
• USDA added economic and legal expertise to strengthen investigations of anticompetitive practices that hit small farmers and ranchers hardest.
• To help avert a repeat of 1997’s gridlock in rail transportation, USDA hosted a National Summit on Agricultural Transportation, which set the groundwork for a comprehensive plan to meet agriculture’s long-term transportation needs. The Department also created an early warning system to anticipate demand for railcars by grain shippers.
• USDA proposed the first rule on national standards for organic foods, using the Internet in an unprecedented public review and comment process. The Secretary also offered a proposal to reform Federal dairy policies.
• For the first time, USDA—not the U.S. Bureau of the Census—conducted the census of agriculture. And, for the first time, all farmers on American Indian reservations were counted.
• USDA took new steps to improve the safety net for farmers, expanding crop insurance to new crops and new areas. More than $1.4 billion in crop insurance indemnities—a record—were paid out to farmers.

Creating jobs and helping to revitalize rural America
• USDA helped 68,000 rural Americans buy homes and created or saved 215,000 rural jobs in 1998. The Department invested more than $9 billion in rural development projects. In FY 1998, USDA invested $4 billion to help rural Americans buy or build single-family houses, making the dream of home ownership a reality for 68,000 households.
• USDA also helped renters, spending $219 million for loans and grants for the construction of 3,942 affordable apartment units and the repair or upgrade of 5,682 apartments in rural areas. USDA provided $545 million to help low-income rural renters.
• USDA provided $286 million in loans and grants to build or expand community facilities that benefit more than 2.7 million rural residents. These investments include more than $110 million for 147 rural health care facilities, $13 million for 46 child care centers, and $36 million for 262 fire and rescue facilities. Another $54 million helped develop other community resources, including job training facilities, libraries, and courthouses.
• At $60 million, USDA loans to rural cooperatives nearly doubled this year. The Department has earmarked $200 million for funding co-ops in 1999.
• USDA provided $1.3 billion in loans and grants to build or improve 1,021 water and sewer systems, helping to bring clean, safe drinking water to more than 2 million rural Americans.

Ensuring wise stewardship of the land
• CCC expanded the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program to help six States, protecting New York’s drinking water as well as habitats for endangered salmon and trout in the Pacific Northwest.
• CCC enrolled 211, 917 acres in the Wetlands Reserve Program in fiscal year 1998. This brings the total area that is being restored and protected under the program to 665,447 acres.
• USDA began implementing the Wildlife Habitat Incentives Program in fiscal year 1998. Landowners enrolled more than 670,000 acres in long-term agreements under the new program, in return for technical and financial assistance from USDA.
• USDA provided technical assistance to more than 740,000 farmers, ranchers, other land users, and units of government. As a result of these services, the planning decisions and management applied by resource managers on about 61 million acres of agricultural and other rural land will help to sustain resource productivity and enhance environmental quality.
• USDA provided $17.2 million to 19 States through the Farmland Protection Program, leveraging about $95 million in state and local funds, to preserve endangered American farmland.
• The USDA funds helped acquire permanent easements to preserve almost 45,700 acres in agricultural use. Over the 3 years of the program, more than 127,000 acres have been protected.
• USDA worked with State and local governments and other Federal agencies to begin implementation of the President’s Clean Water Action Plan. Unified Watershed Assessments were completed in every State to identify watersheds with the most critical water quality concerns and to develop strategies to improve water quality in high priority watersheds. In addition, USDA and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency developed a draft Unified National Strategy for Animal Feeding Operations (AFO’s) and released it for public comment. The Strategy identifies national performance expectations for AFO owners that will reduce potential water quality risks posed by animal feeding operations.
• USDA employees at the Camino Real Ranger District in New Mexico won the prestigious Innovations in American Government Award for unifying a deeply divided forest community.
• USDA embarked on an ambitious natural resources agenda for the 21st century, setting clear priorities for scientists and managers and holding them accountable for sustaining the health of America’s forests and grasslands.
• To prevent further damage by the dangerous Asian long-horned beetle, USDA banned untreated solid wood packing materials from China and helped remove more than 2,500 afflicted trees in New York.
• USDA has lifted all Florida Mediterranean fruit fly quarantines, and no Mediterranean fruit flies have been detected in Florida since 1998. The Department is working toward its eradication in California to protect valuable fruit and vegetable crops.
• The Department collected approximately $20 million from 65 recreation fee demonstration projects on national forests and grasslands in 1998. Most of these funds are used to maintain and improve trails, recreational facilities, visitor services, signs, and health and safety features for the forests’ and grasslands’ 800 million visitors.
• USDA researchers developed an award-winning bio-pulping technology that uses wood-decay fungi to soften wood chips, eliminating environmental problems, reducing energy costs by at least 30 percent, and producing stronger paper.
• In 1998, USDA launched a new approach to forest road management to improve service to users, protect environmental values, enhance public safety, reduce damage to the environment, and better serve local transportation needs. A moratorium was proposed on new road construction in certain unroaded national forest areas.

Modernizing our food safety system, using science to ensure safety from farm to table
• USDA implemented HACCP, the new, science-based food safety inspection system, in the Nation’s 300 largest meat and poultry plants. Preliminary data indicate that the new system is already working, reducing Salmonella dramatically in pork and broiler chickens.
• President Clinton established the President’s Council on Food Safety to coordinate resources and policies to better prevent foodborne illness. He also set up the Joint Institute for Food Safety Research to ensure effective coordination of research among food safety agencies and FORC-G to ensure a rapid and effective government response to foodborne illness outbreaks.
• USDA researchers developed an anti-Salmonella spray that may help poultry producers significantly reduce Salmonella contamination on the farm. They also created a new variety of corn that can reduce phosphorous in pig and chicken waste by 50 percent.

Feeding America’s hungry children and families—and promoting food recovery
• USDA nutrition assistance programs helped feed about 1 in 10 Americans. In 1998, nearly 20 million needy people received food stamps to help feed their families. More than half of the 5 billion school meals served to children this year were provided free or at a reduced price. And USDA’s WIC program provided nutritious supplemental foods to 7.4 million at-risk women, infants, and children to help ensure a healthier America.
• Congress passed President Clinton’s legislative proposal to reauthorize child nutrition programs, including an expansion of after-school snack programs so communities can move teens off the streets. The President also successfully fought for restored food stamp benefits for our most vulnerable legal immigrants, including children.
• USDA’s Inspector General’s “Operation Talon” caught more than 3,500 fugitive felons, many of them violent offenders, who were former food stamp recipients.
• USDA employees donated hundreds of thousands of pounds of food to community kitchens, and field-office gleaning efforts delivered tons of fresh produce to families in need.

Aggressively addressing long-standing civil rights issues
• President Clinton and I won congressional passage of a waiver of a statute of limitations, so USDA could settle older civil rights cases. The Department restaffed its civil rights enforcement unit and cut in half the backlog of discrimination complaints. Civil rights training began for all employees.
• The Office of Civil Rights investigated 131 program discrimination complaints in FY 1998. Its investigative unit had been eliminated in 1982, and no more than a handful of cases had been investigated annually since that time.