WASHINGTON — As part of the broad budget deal reached by Congress on the first day of the year, lawmakers extended billions of dollars worth of federal agriculture programs, including upfront payments that are made to farmers.
The extension, which keeps current agriculture policy in place until Oct. 1, retains “direct payments” made to farmers before they grow crops. Direct payments, which total about $5 billion a year, have long been targeted by members of both parties and were not included in legislation that passed in the Senate and cleared the House Agriculture Committee last year.
The previous farm bill that was signed into law in 2008 expired in October, and lawmakers have been unable to agree on a long-term funding plan for various programs run by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Those programs include federal support for farmers, food-safety inspections, food stamp and nutrition programs, and environmental conservation efforts.
Arkansas’ U.S. Rep. Rick Crawford, a Jonesboro Republican and a member of the House Agriculture Committee, said he would have preferred a five-year farm bill. Farmers, he said, need to know what policy will be in place before they commit to large purchases of land and equipment.
“You need to have some level of long-term certainty before you decide to go out and buy another 1,000 acres,” he said.
Crawford, who will be chairman of the panel’s subcommittee on livestock, rural development and credit during the new session of Congress, did not vote for the broader budget deal.
Arkansas’ U.S. Sen. John Boozman, a Republican who sits on the Senate Agriculture Committee, voted for the short-term extension. He said he would’ve preferred a five-year farm bill overhaul, but attempts to include one in the broader bill failed.
“Everyone was so concentrated on the tax policy,” Boozman said. “The other things were just left by the wayside.”
Boozman’s and Crawford’s frustration that a longer-term deal couldn’t be reached was shared by members of a variety of commodity groups and Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, who said he was “disappointed” that legislators couldn’t pass a bill “to give rural America the long-term certainty they need and deserve.”
Critics of direct payments have long held that the payments don’t make sense, especially during periods of high commodity prices.
“We’re not really thrilled with them being renewed,” said Dean Clancy, legislative counsel at Freedom Works, a Washington group that advocates for smaller government. “The farm bill is absolutely ripe for savings.”
During debate last year on the farm bill, lawmakers attempted to make cuts, and legislation to kill direct payments was passed in the Senate and was pending in the House.
The Senate-passed bill would have funded programs at the USDA at $970 billion over 10 years, representing a $23 billion cut from the 2008 farm bill. The measure that languished in the House would have made $35 billion in cuts.
Crawford and Boozman have defended direct payments but they face vocal opposition in a tight budget climate.
In place of the direct payments, they said, they preferred an approach that was included in the House version of the legislation.
The House bill would have provided government support to farmers if prices dropped below a pre-determined level. That approach was more attractive to Southern growers of irrigated crops, such as rice and cotton, than was the Senate-passed bill, which would have provided support if a farm’s yield dropped below a pre-determined level.
Because irrigated crops have more consistent yields than other crops, they are more sensitive to price dips.
Arkansas farm experts said they were happily surprised that the payments were kept intact.
“This is pretty monumental for us,” said Randy Veach, the president of the Arkansas Farm Bureau.
Like many farming advocates, Veach would have preferred a five-year bill, but the nearly one-year extension, he said, will allow farmers to secure production loans before planting season. It will also, he said, allow his group to continue making the case for Southern farmers on Capitol Hill.
“I don’t think direct payments have a long shelf life,” said Ben Noble, executive director of the Arkansas Rice Federation.
But, he said, the ninemonth extension gives farmers a chance to advocate for the price-based payment system that was in the House bill.
“It gives us a little more time to argue our case,” he said.
Critics of the current farm policy, including Ferd Hoefner, policy director of the pro-conservation National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, called the extension a “disaster.”
“The message is unmistakable,” the Washington-based Hoefner said. “Direct commodity subsidies, despite high market prices, are sacrosanct, while the rest of agriculture and the rest of rural America can simply drop dead.”
Particularly troubling, Hoefner said, was that several “mandatory” spending programs that fund rural development, conservation, farm-based energy development and the marketing of specialty crops — such as fruit and vegetables — did not receive any funding.
The 2008 farm bill provided a total of about $488 million for those programs.
Boozman said he was “committed” to restoring the funding.
“Those are some very good programs that under ordinary protocol would have been extended,” he said.
Crawford didn’t make any such promises.
While he said it is likely that the House won’t take a “marked departure” from the bill passed in the Agriculture Committee last year, exact funding amounts won’t be clear until the panel begins meeting in February to start work again on a five-year bill.
“There are some programs that are probably going to be luxury items that likely won’t make the cut,” he said.
Crawford and Boozman said they were confident that legislation will make it through both chambers of Congress this year.
Boozman said the discussions among Agriculture Committee members during the “fiscal cliff” debate were ongoing.
“The process has already started,” Boozman said.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 01/03/2013