Reuters / By Charles Abbott
WASHINGTON, March 20 (Reuters) - Two thousand farmers sat down to a picnic-style lunch across the street from the U.S. Capitol on Monday, pointing to their paltry 39-cent share of the $8 meal's cost as evidence U.S. farm law must be changed.
Congress has enacted more than $15 billion for farm rescues since market prices collapsed in late 1998. Another bailout of at least $6 billion is already in the works this year to buffer an expected 16 percent drop in net farm income.
Agricultural activists blame the 1996 law that deregulated much of American farming for letting prices tumble and giving growers scant help during hard times. They want sharply higher crop supports, an end to large-scale livestock "factory farms" and a moratorium on agribusiness mergers.
Their midday meal became an illustration of their cause.
Plates were loaded, assembly-line style, with roast beef sandwiches, cole slaw, potato salad and baked beans. A glass of iced tea or carton of milk completed the spread.
Growers ate at folding tables on a raw, overcast, first day of spring, a day often used to honor their labors.
"It's an $8 meal ... (and) the farmer's share is 39 cents," said Leland Swenson, president of the National Farmers Union. "There is room to improve the prices paid to farmers in the marketplace."
The two-day Rally for Rural America, the largest gathering in two decades to argue for higher prices, was to conclude on Tuesday with a rally on the Capitol steps with speakers from Congress, labor unions and farm groups.
During lunchtime speeches on Monday, farm group leaders called for immediate replacement of "Freedom to Farm," due to expire with 2002 crops.
Fiery Rhonda Perry, a Missouri hog farmer, blamed low prices on farm policy "written by corporations for corporations" and declared, "We want family farms, not factory farms."
Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman pointed to Clinton administration proposals to modify farm law so money would flow automatically to farmers to keep revenue from a crop from falling below 92 percent of a grower's five-year average.
"We are listening to you. We are going to do some things," Glickman told the farmers, who want a more fundamental change.
President Bill Clinton sent a letter to the rally, hailing farmers as "the backbone or our economy and lifeblood of our land." He said "it is our duty" to help farmers survive.
The U.S. soybean crop harvested last fall was forecast to fetch the lowest average price in a quarter-century while corn and wheat brought the lowest price since the agricultural recession of the mid-1980s.
Lawmakers seem more inclined to approve another dose of emergency aid this year than rewrite farm law, a task that often takes a year or more.
Defenders say farmers get more support from the government than seems apparent based on low market prices. By some calculations, it brings per-bushel aid to comparatively high levels.
Growers get a few billion dollars a year in annual subsidies guaranteed under the 1996 farm deregulation law. They also can collect so-called loan deficiency payments whenever market prices go below the federal minimum. On top of that is whatever bailout money is approved by lawmakers.
Activists say their prescription of higher crop supports would end reliance on federal handouts.:
