The Associated Press State & Local Wire / March 16, 2001, Friday
SCOTTSBLUFF, Neb. -- It's easy to identify the problems that farmers and ranchers face, but solutions that could be written into a new federal farm bill are harder to come by.
Farmers told how consistently low prices and mostly unchanged export levels have hurt them during five town hall meetings across the state hosted by the governor.
Nebraska farmers, like the major agricultural groups, differ on what the federal government should when Congress reauthorizes the farm bill in 2002.
"I believe the monkey on agriculture's back right now is the country's cheap food policy," Clearwater farmer Dennis Sanne said.
Gov. Mike Johanns and state Agriculture Director Merlyn Carlson heard from farmers in Scottsbluff and McCook on Friday after similar meetings Thursday in Grand Island, Norfolk and Beatrice.
U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Ann Veneman joined Johanns for the meeting in Norfolk to listen to 300 farmers' concerns. Johanns' other meetings attracted about 75 to 100 people.
The 1996 farm bill was designed to get government out of farming and allow producers to decide what to grow.
But the bill assumed if farm production increased, exports would too, farmers said at the meetings. Farmers have delivered production increases, but exports have not increased, which contributed to low prices.
The government responded with massive subsidies and disaster payments to stabilize farm income.
Annette Dubas, a Fullerton farmer and rancher who was at the Grand Island meeting, said the 1996 bill's emphasis on exports resulted in the huge government bailouts.
"We're in the worst income crisis since the 1930s. I can't stress to you enough how serious the economic situation is in rural America today," Dubas said.
"We're at a very important crossroads today, one that will decide if family farmers and independent businesses will not only survive but thrive or whether we become part of history and corporate business becomes the tolerated norm," she said.
Some farmers would welcome the return of government supply management, which was a key part of farm policy before 1996. If the supply is controlled, price would increase.
Efforts to raise crop prices artificially concern livestock producers who are among the biggest consumers of grain.
"If we artificially raise corn prices, it will affect my cow-calf operation. It will be tough on the cow-calf man. That's not the way to improve the price of corn," said John Blackman, a Merna cattle and corn producer who attended the Grand Island meeting.
Johanns agreed, and while in Scottsbluff on Friday said the 2002 farm bill should not favor one sector of agriculture while damaging another.
"You can't do something that will help the grain guy and devastate the hog or cattle guy," Johanns said.
Several major mergers among agricultural businesses in recent years prompted farmers across the state to question the enforcement of antitrust laws in the industry.
"Has it gotten to the point where some of these corporations are bigger than our own government?" asked Dennis Schuster of Pawnee City.
In addition to concerns about the market for their products, farmers worry that their children cannot take over the family farm because the initial expense is too great.
Paul Grabouski of Beatrice said he is still farming at age 76 because he cannot afford to retire. Farmers cannot continue to lose money on their crops while all of their supplies get more expensive, he said.
"Thanks to the 1996 farm bill, we're now selling crops at a loss," Grabouski said.:
