Dear Representative Lucas,

Oklahoma young farmers ask for your help in the next Farm Bill. In starting our farm businesses, we face significant challenges accessing capital, finding land and managing risk in the face of droughts and extreme weather. For these reasons, we ask you to support the following Farm Bill programs that will help us overcome these obstacles and build prosperous farms that will provide jobs, protect natural resources and feed our friends and neighbors healthy food well into the future. In the 2012 Farm Bill, we ask you to support the provisions of the Beginning Farmer and Rancher Opportunity Act (H.R. 3236), and especially the following programs: Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program The Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program provides essential support for training the next generation of farmers here in Oklahoma and across the country. In Oklahoma, the Kerr Center receives funding from this program for its excellent Oklahoma Beginning Farmer and Rancher Program. We ask that you fully fund this program at $25 million per year. Microloans Access to capital is the number one challenge of young and beginning farmers. The Farm Service Agency can help young farmers overcome this obstacle by lending new farmers small amounts of capital that can be used to jumpstart their businesses. We ask that you support a new FSA microloan program as written in H.R. 3236 or in Senator Harkins Go Farm Amendment (S.A. 2245). This would enable young farmers to receive up to $35,000 in loan monies to start a farm. Individual Development Accounts Practical Farmers of Iowa and other community-based organizations are demonstrating the value of matched savings account programs for new farmers. We ask that you fund individual development accounts, a program authorized in the 2008 Farm Bill at $5 million per year. FSA rule changes Current FSA rules often disqualify experienced growers from receiving direct farm ownership loans. We ask that you reduce the farm experience requirement to 2 years participating in the operation of a farm, as written in the Senate Farm Bill draft. Conservation Reserve Program Transitions Incentive Program Affordable farm land is very hard to find. This is why we ask you to support the Conservation Reserve Program Transitions Incentive Program to help new farmers acquire farmland. Sincerely,