# Bush's Farm Bill



## FlashBoomSplash (Aug 26, 2005)

The Bush administration's recent proposals for the next farm bill - due for reauthorization this fall - have been winning accolades and criticisms from some surprising quarters.

Environmentalists have lauded it as an important step in the right direction, even as the largely Republican agricultural community has met many of its proposals - such as a plan to scrap subsidies for any farmer with an adjusted gross income of more than $200,000 a year - with skepticism.

Conservation and energy programs get a boost in the administration's plan, while several billion dollars are cut from payments to some of the nation's largest farmers. In comparison with the 2002 farm bill, the overall bill would spend $10 billion less over the next five years, according to the Department of Agriculture.

"We have some major concerns," says Mary Kay Thatcher, director of public policy for the American Farm Bureau Federation, which bills itself as "the voice of agriculture." "We're supportive of [conservation, energy, and rural development] getting additional funding, but we don't think you ought to reduce farmers' safety net to do that."

One of the most significant elements of the proposed bill would change the countercyclical program - the means by which the federal government helps farmers in an off year. It would go from one that's price-based to one that's revenue-based. That responds to complaints some farmers have had for years that they can face, say, a disastrous drought - which lowers supply of a crop enough that prices go up - and receive no payments.

This way, says Ken McCauley, president of the National Corn Growers Association, "you're actually getting the money to the farmer who needs the support." Moreover, he notes that corn growers - who have seen prices roughly double in the past year - may be heading into an era of higher prices because of ethanol, but they will still shoulder significant risk. "We'll still need a safety net, and a revenue-based one is a good way to go into it," he says.

The American Farm Bureau Federation is skeptical of that shift, noting that what helps a corn farmer in Iowa might not be so good for a corn farmer in a place like Texas. Ultimately, says Ms. Thatcher, she worries this new method would reduce the overall safety net for farmers.

But her major concerns have to do with the new income limits and payment caps, which would limit payments to a single farmer to $360,000. They would also eliminate some of the ways the farmer could get around such limits before, by setting up different "entities" through which he or she was paid.

The new income limit - lowered from the previous limit of a $2.5 million adjusted gross income per farmer per year - would affect about 80,000 farmers, says Chuck Conner, deputy secretary of Agriculture. He says the decision was not a difficult one.

"These are income subsidies, pure and simple," Mr. Conner says. "We maintain that it's an important principle that we not be using these income subsidies for people who are some of the most well-to-do people out there."

Much of the pushback on the new limits is coming from the South, where it's not uncommon for large cotton and rice farmers to earn more than $200,000 in a year.

But some of them say that what may seem an obvious principle - that they make enough already - doesn't take into account the huge amount of risk and debt they need to shoulder, or how much operations can vary from year to year.

"I've been in farming all my life, but we've been in the expanding mode," says Stanley Reed, president of the Arkansas Farm Bureau Federation and a cotton farmer who works 4,000 acres in Marianna, Ark., with his son and daughter. "In the 1980s, we had an opportunity to load up on debt, and had to make land payments. If we'd had limits during that time on what our income could have been [in order to get subsidies], we wouldn't have gotten loans, and we wouldn't have been able to apply the earnings back to the land debt."

But others have applauded the fact that the limits will get subsidies into the hands of those who need it most, and free up some money for other programs: conservation, rural development, incentives and help for new and young farmers, and alternative energy development.

"There's really a groundswell of support on Capitol Hill for a farm safety net that helps more farmers, that is less costly, and that does much more to reward stewardship," says Scott Faber, farm policy director for Environmental Defense in Washington. "The secretary has hit all the right notes." Mr. Faber is particularly pleased about the increased emphasis on helping farmers who are producing for ethanol to develop best practices that minimize erosion and use less fertilizer. He also cites the loans and incentives for farmers to grow feedstock like switch grass for cellulosic ethanol. In addition, farmers who are tempted by the high corn prices to break into new, marginal land wouldn't get subsidies.

Conner says he's been happy with the reception the bill has received so far in Congress and among the key stakeholders. But some expect a battle over several key provisions.

"This is going to be interesting as we watch the debate unfold," says Michael Duffy, an agricultural economist at Iowa State University. "We may start seeing more of a regional push and pull, and regional conflicts, given who's affected."


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## FlashBoomSplash (Aug 26, 2005)

At least conservation has some hope.


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## Ron Gilmore (Jan 7, 2003)

Conservation as many seem to think of it in the form of CRP is dead. I would not be surpised to see it completely stripped from the final bill that gets passed and signed.


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## FlashBoomSplash (Aug 26, 2005)

You know what I dont like CRP anymore. For me its just another thing that makes us depend on the government. Then we all get upset when things go down hill. We need to start doing things on our own. I would love to see a national sportsman stamp. Just like the duck stamp. Charge $50 all the money goes to habitat restoration. Instead of paying people every year a set amount of money have 15 - 20 year easements the land owner gets all the money up front. That way we dont have to worry about inflation. And the people in charge of the money should be voted on by sportsman. We could have a board that votes on where each dollar goes. It could have 2 reps from each state. One for fishing and one for hunting. Thats just a thought. Sorry I got off topic.


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## hunter9494 (Jan 21, 2007)

i agree and have stated the same thing, an additional $50 habitat stamp, each year along with hunting license. but i am wondering if even that is enough to establish an effective program?


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## Skip OK (Jul 16, 2006)

Let's see, if i remember right there are about 17,000,000 peoplewho buy hunting licenses of all types in the US.

If my math is right, at $50 each we'd get about $850,000,000 each year to be allocated for conservation of all types in all 50 states.

Say each state gets an equal share; that makes the PPR ( ND and SD; hey, I'm a duck hunter) get $ 3,400,000 each year. AZ and NM get the same. New England would get three times as much (6 states vs 2).

Now say we allocate the cash by number of resident licenses sold. CA and TX would get big shares; several times what ND and SD combined would get.

Again, as a waterfowler I have a vested interest in having more conservation dollars going to the Dakotas than almost anywhere else in the USA. I don't see a universal hunters stamp doing that.


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## hunter9494 (Jan 21, 2007)

ok, i am sure someone else has a better idea....


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## Skip OK (Jul 16, 2006)

hunter,

I wasn't trying to disparage your idea; if it came across that way I'm sorry.

I was simply trying to point out that by "hitch-hiking" on existing Farm Bill programs we not only get a lot more dollars directed toward what we like, but also that money tends to go into areas that suit at least me.

The downside of this approach is the the funding isn't passed out according to our likes/dislikes. CRP is a good example. If CRP stays active, but the rents allowed are way lower than the market, we the sportsman feel the pinch, even though we the people that want plentiful food at stable prices aren't hurt so much.


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## dakotashooter2 (Oct 31, 2003)

Being dependent on the farm bill for wildlife conservation is a high risk proposition. I think we are about to see how high risk it is. We do need a program that is sustainable and will be there year after year. But that program needs to be in the form of long term easements in the neightborhood of 25, 50 or even 100 years to really lock them in and do some good. 5 or 10 years here and there is never going to be a viable program. when working with farm programs it may take 5 years to develop a habitat which can be destroyed in one year after the contract expires.


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## hunter9494 (Jan 21, 2007)

skip-

it is frustrating, isn't it? i just hope something can be done or organized soon to help preserve habitat in a meaningful way. no offense taken.


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