Johanns Outlines President Bush’s FY 2007 Agricultural Budget

Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns released details of President Bush's FY 2007 U.S. Department of Agriculture budget, which meets the department's most important priorities, while exercising fiscal discipline to help meet the President's deficit reduction goals.

"The agriculture budget provides funds to protect America's food supply, improve nutrition and health, conserve and enhance our natural resources and enhance economic opportunities for agricultural producers," said Johanns.

Total USDA expenditures are estimated at about $93 billion in 2007, nearly $3 billion below the 2006 level. Roughly 77 percent of expenditures, or $71.3 billion in 2007, will be for mandatory programs that provide services required by law, which include many of the nutrition assistance, commodity, export promotion and conservation programs.

> USDA's discretionary programs account for the remaining 23 percent of expenditures or $21.5 billion in 2007, a decrease of $1.2 billion from 2006. Discretionary programs include the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program; rural development loans and grants; research and education; soil and water conservation technical assistance; management of National Forests and domestic marketing assistance.br>br> The decrease in expenditures are derived from the proposed budget reductions, which include some legislative changes and an assumption that there will not be a need for emergency disaster assistance funding and other emergency supplemental funds that were needed in 2006. The resulting savings enable USDA to fund the nation's priorities.br>br> Additional information regarding the FY 2007 budget proposal is available on the web at http://www.usda.gov/budget./t1>