Washington - Missouri's two Republican senators urged the Clinton Administration on Friday to finalize a Farm Service Agency loan guarantee program to help pork farmers.
The proposed program, which the U.S. Agriculture Department supports, has been “languishing” at the Office of Management and Budget for the past eleven months, Senators Kit Bond and John Ashcroft said in a letter to President Bill Clinton.
The program would relieve farmers of “burdensome and slow” application procedures for loans, and let growers use existing lender documents when making new loans, the senators said.
“We intend to support continued efforts in Congress to ensure that there are enough funds available to hog farmers for loans and loan guarantees,” they said.
The Missouri senators also expressed disappointment that the Clinton Administration has not yet included pork on the retaliation list against the European Union in a trade dispute over bananas. A total of 42 senators urged the administration last month to include it on the list of possible tariffs against EU products.
In 1998, U.S. pork farmers had operational losses estimated at $2.5 billion because of a plunge in prices, according to a University of Missouri economist.
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