The Agriculture and Consumer Protection Act of 1973 (P.L. 93-86, also known as the 1973 U.S. Farm Bill) was the 4-year

farm bill In the United States, the farm bill is the primary agricultural and food policy instrument of the federal government. Every five years, Congress deals with the renewal and revision of the comprehensive omnibus bill. Johnson, R. and Monke, J. (8 ...

that adopted target prices and

deficiency payments In the United States, deficiency payments are direct government payments made to farmers who participated in annual commodity programs for wheat, feed grains, rice, or cotton, prior to 1996. *The crop-specific deficiency payment rate was based on th ...

as a tool that would support farm income but reduce forfeitures to the

Commodity Credit Corporation The Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) is a wholly owned United States government corporation that was created in 1933 to "stabilize, support, and protect farm income and prices" (federally chartered by the CCC Charter Act of 1948 (P.L. 80-806) ...

(CCC) of surplus stocks. (Target prices were eliminated by the 1996 farm bill (P.L. 104-127), but restored by the 2002 farm bill (P.L. 101-171, Sec. 1104).) It reduced payment limitations to $20,000 (from $55,000 set in 1970) for all

program crop The Direct and Counter-cyclical Payment Program (DCP) of the USDA provides payments to eligible producers on farms enrolled for the 2002 through 2007 crop years. There are two types of DCP payments – direct payments and counter-cyclical payments. ...

s. The Act might be considered the first omnibus farm bill because it went beyond simply authorizing farm commodity programs. It authorized disaster payments and disaster reserve

inventories Inventory (American English) or stock (British English) refers to the goods and materials that a business holds for the ultimate goal of resale, production or utilisation. Inventory management is a discipline primarily about specifying the sha ...

; created the Rural Environmental Conservation Program; amended the

Food Stamp Act of 1964 The Food Stamp Act (P.L. 88-525) provided permanent legislative authority to the Food Stamp Program, which had been administratively implemented on a pilot basis in 1962. On August 31, 1964 it was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnso ...

(P.L. 88-525), authorized the use of commodities for feeding low income mothers and young children (the origin of the

Commodity Supplemental Food Program The Commodity Supplemental Food Program (CSFP) provides supplementary United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) food packages to the low-income elderly of at least 60 years of age. It is one of the fifteen federally-funded nutrition assist ...

; and amended the Consolidated Farm and Rural Development Act of 1972 (P.L. 92-419).

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Agriculture And Consumer Protection Act Of 1973 United States federal agriculture legislation Consumer protection legislation