U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, said Saturday that renewable energy, especially, but also conservation, a reformed farm subsidy "safety net," and rural development will all be keystones of the 2007 Farm Bill now beginning construction in Congress. He said the current budget crunch will no doubt force some "shifting down."
Harkin, chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, spent two hours listening to producers, conservationists and others with a stake in the bill on Saturday afternoon during a public session at Western Iowa Tech Community College.
Harkin said he is hoping his committee can devise some sort of amendment to the Conservation Reserve Program that would allow some of the land to be used at a reduced payment for growing a cellulosic crops, such as switchgrass, for making biofuels. He said that land would still provide habitat, but also make a profit. With $3.50 to $4 (per bushel) corn, farmers aren't likely to put land coming out of CRP back in it, he said, without some new incentive.
Harkin acknowledged he has heard of a lot of problems with the direct payment program. "It doesn't matter how much money you make," he said. "It's based on basis acres. Some aren't even used for growing." He called for a "shifting" of the $26 billion marked for direct payments over the next five years -- How much should be shifted to conservation? To rural development? As incentive to grow biomass crops?
Comments from some of the 35 people attending covered those and many other issues, as well, from watersheds to delayed price reporting by packers, which Howard Fleiger, a Maurice, Iowa, grain and cattle producer said "puts a stranglehold" on producers.
And, Woodbury County Economic Developer Rob Marqusee, told the senator that even with 100 percent rebate on property taxes for a producer switching to organically grown crops, takers are few. He noted that organic food sales are growing at 20 percent nationwide, but "our producers aren't stepping up."
Marqusee recommended that 1 percent of each county's farm subsidy be put toward helping growers transition to organic farming. He also noted that there is no crop insurance or commodities markets for organic foods.
Conservation is key
Bob Donahoo, a member of the district conservation board in Buena Vista County, urged Harkin to put safeguards in the new bill to keep new initiatives funded. He said, for example, that the dredging of Storm Lake and the Little Sioux drainage project were both victims of funding cut-offs.
He also advocated for caps on farm subsidy payments.
Beth Ellen Doran, a field specialist for beef with the Iowa State University Extension Service, made her case for money for broadband Internet service for farmers and rural communities to access online ag information, management programs and spreadsheets, as well as training. One extension site, she said, gets 1 million hits per month.
Linda Bindner, who farms with her husband, Tom, and is herself director of nursing at the critical access hospital in Primghar, Iowa, pleaded for rural America to "get just and fair treatment." She said that translates into being able to provide fire and emergency response, have locally owned senior living facilities, local health care, safe water and sewer infrastructure.
She asked not for funding, but for rural development loans to help modernize those things.
Ken Gard, of the Woodbury County Soil Conservation Board, told the senator that the Little Sioux Watershed, within which the county lies, is sorely in need of funding to rehabilitate dams and other elements. "Without funding," he said, "the whole system will deteriorate and the money (spent over the last 50 years) will be wasted."
In addition, Gard called for making packers that raise hogs be required to kill those hogs. He reported that a local meatpacker, which he didn't name, had shutdown briefly after it sold its livestock to another packer for more money.
Bill Tentinger, a pork and grain farmer from Le Mars, Iowa, who also sits on the Ag State Committee, cautioned Harkin against an anti-horse slaughter bill. He said too many people "can't differentiate between a cute dog they dress up like a person and an animal they're gonna eat."
He also called for improved road and railroad infrastructure to support the renewable fuels industry and to encourage wind energy by making rural electric cooperatives buy wind energy from turbine owners.
Harkin told Tentinger that he has been intrigued by the idea of using the right-of-way along federal highways as the "ethanol right-of-way" for pipelines, eliminating the biggest expense and taking some of the burden off the roads.
State Rep. Roger Wendt, D-Sioux City, and Woodbury County Supervisor Mark Monson also attended the listening session.
Bill by September
Harkin spent the morning with U.S. Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., in Council Bluffs, Iowa, where they held a formal hearing on the Farm Bill. He said the turnout was "huge," with many people attending from Nebraska as well as Iowa.
Harkin said he expects to get the budget for the ag bill early in May and have a bill out of his committee by the end of that month. He said he is "reasonably sure" agriculture will get an additional $20 billion over five years, and is relying on the Finance Committee to help find other areas to cut. He said the membership of his Republican counterpart, U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley, on both the Ag and Finance committees should help with that.
Harkin predicted conferencing with the House would begin this summer and they would have a bill ready by the end of September, when the current Farm Bill expires.Sioux City Journal
