Every five years Congress takes up writing a new farm bill as if U.S. agriculture were no more capable of surviving on its own than it was during the Great Depression. Lawmakers swarm around the legislation like flies around a manure pile in a cow pasture.
The Senate-passed farm bill may mean Arkansas voters will soon reap what they sowed at the polls two years ago. By removing the chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, we lost a voice for Arkansas farmers. Senator Blanche Lincoln grew up on an east Arkansas farm and understood our issues.
A senator from Michigan now chairs that committee. The last time we checked, Michigan doesn’t grow a lot of rice, cotton and soybeans nor raise catfish. The result has been the elimination of direct payments to farmers, with rice being particularly hard hit, along with farm-raised catfish.
During the previous two farm bill debates, Lincoln led the legislative battles against amendments to establish payment limits on Arkansas farmers. Now Arkansas’ most senior lawmaker on a congressional committee that writes agriculture legislation is a freshman member of the House.
Rice growers, who have relied most heavily on the direct cash subsidies, will likely lose as much as $3 billion from the proposed change in commodity payments. At the same time, they have been reluctant to jump into crop insurance, since their crop is grown in flooded fields not vulnerable to drought.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
Both the White House and House GOP leadership are looking for more savings from farm programs, and one major legislative battle will be the level of premium subsidies provided for crop insurance.
“Farm bill” is a misnomer, since the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, commonly known as food stamps) accounts for about 80 percent of the measure’s annual cost. The Senate proposal trims food stamps by about $400 million annually, while the House bill would cut four times as much, or roughly $1.65 billion per year; accounting for much of its savings edge over the Senate plan.
When the food stamp program began in the 1970s, it was designed to help about 1 of 50 Americans who were in severe financial distress. One in seven Americans now qualifies.
What the bill takes from farmers with one hand, it partially gives back with the other. The bill’s savings would have been almost twice as great if it did not offset the elimination of direct payments with a new, subsidized crop insurance program on top of the one from which farmers already benefit. Southeast Arkansas farmers are waiting on a new farm bill. Before investing big bucks, it would be nice to have a road map of what to expect from Washington.
And, over the years, common sense has kicked in to balance the end result. One bill might favor row crop farmers, for example, and the next would bend toward livestock producers. The legislation had a tendency to balance the costs involved in producing grain for consumers and grain for consumption by cattle, swine and poultry.
Fewer lawmakers with rural backgrounds are now serving on the agriculture committees. That background is institutional memory lost to the legislative process, with lobbyists picking up the slack in the decision-making process.
Traditional farm issues and the impact of farm policy seem to have gotten lost in the process.
Rather than plant a crop, farmers can invest their money in casinos in Tunica or Las Vegas where the odds are known.