Douglas Schernik gave up on growing cotton this year, after 25 years. Now, the 55 year old farmer relies on his corn and grain sorghum crops for income. "The price wasn't right," said Schernik, who lives on a 90 acre farm in Taylor and farms another 1,600 acres in rural Williamson County. Cotton is a $1 billion business in Texas and one of the top three crops in Central Texas. But it is selling for about 30 cents a pound less than half of what it costs to grow. "That's depression prices," Schernik said, adding that the first pound of cotton he ever sold went for 70 cents. Schernik, sitting at a picnic table as the wind ruffled through rows of corn, hopes the new federal farm bill will provide some relief to small farmers like him, who have been squeezed by the rising costs of farming and low prices for the crops they grow. "Hopefully, it will put some extra cash into our hands," Schernik said. "But as for getting the crop prices up, I don't know if it will do that or not." The bill, which President Bush signed Monday, means $582 million more for Texas farmers, the largest increase of any state. It adds up to an expected $1.15 billion a year through 2007. Only Iowa and Illinois will receive more. Two Texas lawmakers played pivotal roles in crafting and passing the farm bill. Rep. Larry Combest, a Lubbock Republican and chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, wrote the bill with Stamford's Charlie Stenholm, the committee's ranking Democrat. Combest and Stenholm held more than 50 hearings across the country, beginning with Lubbock in 2000. They fought off unfavorable amendments and sharp White House opposition. They prevailed despite a down economy and a federal budget focused on national security. And both served on a contentious conference committee that resolved major differences with the Senate version of the bill (the House bill was 370 pages; the Senate's was 1,330). The end result provided subsidies that were not substantially different from the bill Combest introduced in 2001. "We did have an extremely difficult conference, but I'm extremely pleased," Combest said. Critics call the $190 billion measure an election year bone thrown to agriculture states, a budget busting support system for large agribusinesses instead of midsize family farms and a missed opportunity to protect more farmland from sprawling city growth. The Environmental Working Group, a vocal critic of parts of the bill, noted that most subsidies will go to large agribusinesses. In Texas, 36,200 farms got $6.6 billion in subsidies during the past five years. The remaining $1.1 billion was divided among 181,000 small farms. "Texas didn't do so well a few people in Texas did well," spokeswoman Laura Chapin said. Chapin also said the Rio Grande Valley, where fruit and vegetable farming is a way of life, will see relatively little of the subsidies, which focus on eight "program" crops cotton, wheat, corn, soybeans, rice, barley, oats and sorghum. "Sixty percent of Texas farmers don't even qualify. If you don't grow the right crops, you don't get farm subsidies," Chapin said. Program crops dominate agriculture in West Texas and the Panhandle in other words, Chapin noted, in districts represented by Combest and Stenholm. Stenholm, a former farmer whose son raises cotton, wheat and cattle on 2,500 acres, acknowledged that the plight of his neighbors had an impact on the bill. "Very clearly, we have had a depression in the farm country in a good part of Texas," he said. "What I hear at home, from young farmers in particular, is: 'Charlie, tell me if it's going to get better or tell me if it's not. Because if it's not, I can get out while I have a little equity left.' " But concern for his neighbors did not translate into special favors for Texas, Stenholm said. Combest concurred, noting that subsidy formulas are applied uniformly across the country. "You can't write a farm bill for a single state. That's part of the challenge," he said. "But did I make sure the bill did not exclude my constituents? Absolutely." Carl Anderson, a noted agricultural economist at Texas A&M University, said the bill provided no special treatment for Texas. However, the measure did address key problems with the 1996 bill that tried to move farmers away from subsidies without a safety net, he said. Without a price support system, Congress had to pass emergency measures to help farmers devastated by bad weather and low prices to the tune of $30 billion over the past four years, Combest said. The new law will provide roughly the same amount of subsidies as the previous bill plus the emergency measures, supporters said. More important, Anderson said, the bill will enable squeamish lenders to better calculate a farm's income, freeing up crucial loan money. Anderson also noted that the bill was not designed to save small farmers. "It's designed to keep American agriculture productive," he said. Farmers should not be penalized for following market dictates toward efficient production, which has meant ever expanding farm sizes and equipment costs, he said. In addition, program crop farmers compete on the international market to a far greater extent than fruit and vegetable growers. And the international market is flooded by nations that subsidize farms far more heavily than the United States, said Gene Hall, spokesman for the Texas Farm Bureau. "We'll have a whole lot better chance to maintain our ability to produce food and fiber, and to us that's a national security issue," Hall said. "It's just silly to pretend that's not at risk." The economics are tough for smaller farmers such as Schernik. He remembers tractors going for $22,000 in 1983. Now, sophisticated units that cover 18 to 24 rows at a time can cost well over $100,000. Last year, he lost $30,000 on cotton to a combination of bad weather and boll weevils. "We did take a licking on it last year," he said. The extra money from the new bill will help, he acknowledged. "But it still doesn't solve the problem. It's still a Band Aid." The federal programs are administered by the Farm Service Agency. Craig Engelmann, executive director of the Williamson County Farm Service Agency in Georgetown, runs one of the largest programs in the area, working with 4,000 farmers a year. The programs under the 1996 bill were to expire Sept. 30, he said, and farmers were worried about whether Congress would move quickly enough on another bill. "Everyone was hoping to get a farm bill passed and signed into law as soon as possible, and hopefully impact the 2002 crop year. I think that everyone here is glad that has occurred," he said. clindell@statesman.com, (202) 887 832; cgrisales@statesman.com; 912 5933. (from box) Highlights of the farm bill * Cost: $190 billion over 10 years, 77 percent higher than continuing existing programs. * Raises price guarantees for corn, wheat, oats, barley and sorghum; continues payments for grain and cotton producers. Creates a system that will pay those farms when market prices fall below certain levels. * Creates subsidies for dairy farms and procurers of honey, wool, mohair, chickpeas, lentils and peanuts. * Includes $17 billion for new programs to encourage environmentally sound practices and clean up problems. The Texas impact * This year, Texas farmers will get $1.15 billion under the bill. That's more than double last year's payments but slightly less than the $1.26 billion average for 1998 2000. * Through 2007, Texas farmers will receive an average of $1 billion a year, about twice as much as under the 1996 farm bill. However, past amounts don't include annual supplemental appropriations from Congress. * That puts Texas third among the states after Iowa with $1.4 billion and Illinois with $1.3 billion receiving help. Sources: Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute, University of Missouri; Associated Press:
