With its vast agricultural operations, Texas has a multibillion-dollar stake in a debate now under way in Congress over whether to retain crop subsidies.
The system has benefited many Texans, including the owners of the sprawling King Ranch, the trustees of Rice University and more than 4,000 crop-planting Houstonians.
But the subsidies are facing withering fire from a diverse array of critics, ranging from President Bush to liberals. They charge that the subsidies increasingly help wealthy and absentee landowners more than family farmers, and they want to slim down the program in the new farm bill before Congress.
The Lone Star State received $3.43 billion in agricultural subsidies between 2003 and 2005, ranking second in the nation, behind Iowa, in such aid, according to an analysis by the Environmental Working Group, a Washington-based public interest lobby.
The top beneficiary of the farm program in the state during that period was the famed King Ranch in South Texas. It received $3.6 million from the federal government.
But rural Texans are not the only beneficiary of agricultural subsidies.
In Houston, more than 4,000 people and entities have a financial stake in farms that draw subsidies. Local beneficiaries have included former Secretary of State James A. Baker III, former Houston Oilers owner Bud Adams, and Rice University, according to the federal data analyzed by the Environmental Working Group.
Benefiting fewer?
The program, using arcane formulas, provides subsidies to farmers to maintain certain price levels for selected crops, including cotton, corn, rice and wheat.
The critics in the Bush administration and Congress say the program increasingly benefits a small percentage of farms, many of them large corporate operations. The administration also argues that the crop subsidies in the farm bill would hamper trade talks with other countries.
White House officials, who have threatened a presidential veto of the farm bill if the program isn't modified, advocate annual income limits of $200,000 for people who get the subsidies.
About 18 percent of Texas' 229,000 farms received federal subsidies between 2003 and 2005, according to the Environmental Working Group. Cotton growers in the state were by far the biggest beneficiaries, receiving $2.2 billion during that period. Corn, sorghum, peanut and wheat growers were given lesser amounts.
Agricultural interests such as the Texas Farm Bureau support the subsidies, saying they are necessary to keep domestic products competitive with cheaper imports.
"The average American spends 10 percent of their disposable income on food under the current program. Are you ready to roll the dice and go with another program that may or may not work?" said Steve Pringle, legislative director of the Texas Farm Bureau. Without the subsidies, he said, the U.S. could end up depending on other countries for food.
"Just like oil," he said.
The House passed a subsidy-laden farm bill earlier this year, and the Senate is considering a $288 billion version that would ban subsidies to non-farmers whose income averages more than $750,000 annually. There are no caps on those who earn more than two-thirds of their income from farming.
'Norman Rockwell myth'
Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., has proposed scrapping the subsidies and replacing them with a system that allows farmers in prosperous years to put money in tax-free savings accounts that could tide them over in lean times.
However, Matt Mackowiak, a spokesman for Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, said the accounts would not work well for farms in Texas, which because of their large size tend to incur costs that could not be defrayed through savings.
Brian Riedl, an analyst at the conservative Heritage Foundation, said the subsidy program no longer serves the family farm constituency it was designed to help when it was conceived during the Great Depression.
"Lawmakers perpetuate this Norman Rockwell myth that we are helping small family farmers who are at the mercy of bad weather and pests," he said. "But in reality the vast majority of dollars are going to millionaires and large agribusinesses while most family farmers receive nothing."
In Texas, some high-powered absentee landlords have benefited from the program.
Rockpile Ranch in Pearsall in Frio County, which is owned by Baker, received $165,000 in peanut subsidies in 2003, according to the Environmental Working Group.
Baker stopped receiving the peanut subsidy after 2003 because the U.S. Department of Agriculture changed the formula, and the ranch no longer qualified for the funds.
Adams, who owns the professional football team the Tennessee Titans and is chief executive of Houston-based Adams Resources & Energy, has a 50 percent interest in California land that received $408,597 in loan subsidies for rice between 2003 and 2005.
Rice University received subsidies of more than $150,000 on crops grown in Louisiana on land the university owns.
The state's top beneficiary of crop subsidies, the King Ranch, covers 825,000 acres in South Texas and includes a cattle ranch, a publishing operation, a museum and a hardware company.
Competition from abroad
In this election cycle, the King Ranch Political Action Committee has contributed $7,500 to lawmakers. The donations include not only contributions to Texas' Republican senators but also $2,000 to Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa, the Agriculture Committee chairman who was a key player in drafting the farm bill.
Jack Hunt, chief executive of the King Ranch, said that while "in a perfect world" there would be no need for subsidies, subsidized competition from abroad makes them necessary.
He also questioned the Bush administration's opposition to subsidies for wealthier farm operations.
"I don't think they really appreciate how commercial agriculture works and the competitive nature of the world in which we operate," Hunt said.
The second-biggest beneficiary of farm subsidies in Texas was Florida real estate executive Maurice Wilder, whose company had holdings of $500 million in 2005, including 10 office buildings in Tampa Bay and 200,000 acres of farmland in eight states.
Wilder had financial interest in land in Dallam County, Texas, that received $3.2 million in subsidies for corn, wheat and soybeans.
Lawmakers who sit on the agriculture committees that draft the farm legislation also often come from rural districts that depend on the subsidies.
The congressional district that received the fourth highest amount of crop subsidies in the nation from 2002 until 2005 is represented by Rep. Randy Neugebauer, R-Lubbock, the senior Texan on the House Agriculture Committee.
His district, where cotton growing is widespread, received $1.23 billion in crop subsidies during that three-year period.
While supporting the farm bill in committee, Neugebauer voted against final House approval of the legislation because he objected to separate tax provisions inserted by Democrats.
Neugebauer's spokesman said the congressman was too busy to talk about the subsidy program.Houston Chronicle
