WYE MILL -- With the 2002 farm bill set to expire March 15, some people are wondering if the $286 billion 2007 bill will ever win approval.
The question was raised more than once at the recent University of Maryland Center for Agricultural & Natural Resource Policy's 11th Annual Agriculture Outlook and Policy Conference. Elizabeth Anderson, executive director of USDA's Farm Service Agency in Maryland, started her presentation on the bill with a big question mark projected on a screen.
Views differ as to the specific provisions of the bill, Anderson said, "but it is widely recognized and documented in thousands of comments from farmers across the country that the farm policy can and should be improved" as opposed to continuing "a defective safety net" for farmers, she said.
Steve Neff echoed Anderson, saying at the start of his talk: "Can we get started already on implementing the farm bill?" Neff is a USDA Farm Service Agency economic and policy analyst.
The bill passed the House of Representatives July 27. The Senate passed its version in December and a conference between the House and the Senate was established. The conferees are working to reconcile the difference between the two bills.
The final product will need to be signed by the president. The administration does not support the House or Senate bills, as written, and is recommending a veto by President Bush, Anderson said. The Senate's version of the bill would expand subsidies for wheat, barley, oat, soybeans and several other crops and create new grants for vegetable and fruit growers.
It would increase subsidies for food stamps, loan rates for sugar producers, extend dairy programs and provide more dollars for renewable energy and conservation programs to protect environmentally sensitive farmland over the next five years.
Bush has threatened his veto, saying the legislation costs too much and that lawmakers should instead be cutting subsidies at a time of record-high crop prices, according to published reports. At the start of 2007, the administration proposed a comprehensive farm bill, Anderson said.
"Farmers themselves asked us to fix the current farm bill, which pays them the most in their best years, but offers little or no support when they really need it due to crop loss," Anderson said. The time is now to pass a new bill, Anderson said. Priorities such as conservation, nutrition and renewable energy would all be shelved without the legislation, she said.
"We heard a strong message from specialty crop growers who simply asked for more equitable support in the form of funding for research and fighting trade barriers," Anderson said. "Failure to pass a new farm bill would send specialty crop growers a message that they haven't yet earned more equitable treatment in farm policy."
People who are among the wealthiest two percent of American tax filers would continue to receive income support payments if farm policy is not changed, Anderson said.
Approving the farm bill involves a lengthy legislative process that has included 52 public hearings held by the USDA, gathering comments from more than 4,000 constituents and developing proposals, Neff said. And the process isn't getting any shorter. Approval took 61 days in 1981, 30 days in 1985, 119 days in 119, 23 days in 1996 and 89 days in 2002.
"From the date the president signs the bill to making payments typically takes about six to eight months," Neff said.
New and complex programs take longer to implement than those more in line with existing programs, Neff said, but "while farm bills are typically written with procedural exemptions that allow for expedited clearance, expedited implementation is not all that expeditious," he said.
The lengthy approval process ensures that congressional intent is achieved, payments are provided uniformly to all eligible persons and, in case a legal challenge occurs, program benefits to all are protected. It also provides time for interaction between program staff and attorneys, civil rights officials, economists and others -- all of whom have different perspectives that must be represented, Neff said. Applying a farm bill takes time, Neff said.
"But once the president signs a bill passed by Congress, USDA is committed to implementing it as quickly as possible," he said.Frederick News-Post
