The Free Press, Mankato, MN

Local News

February 1, 2007

Local farm leader: Bill debate just beginning

By Tim Krohn

GARDEN CITY — President Bush’s vision of what the next Farm Bill should look like is just the opening salvo in the always contentious debate about everything from how much farmers get if the price of corn plummets to how to pay for major disasters such as hurricanes.

“We’re glad there’s a proposal out there. It gets us started. Now it goes through the policy process and there will be plenty of input,” said Kevin Paap, a Garden City area farmer and president of the Minnesota Farm Bureau Federation.

Paap and other farm leaders are just beginning to sift through the Farm Bill proposal released by the administration this week.

Paap said he is concerned about proposed reductions in overall spending on the next Farm Bill. President Bush’s plan would reduce overall agricultural spending by $18 billion or about 17 percent over five years compared to the amount budgeted for the current Farm Bill.

Paap said that is nearly the amount saved in the current Farm Bill because higher crop prices required less federal subsidies to farmers. But Paap said he doesn’t think the next Farm Bill should be reduced just because there were savings.

“Farmers would much rather get paid through the market rather than from the government. But we need to have those safety nets there for things out of our control like disasters and what happens in foreign markets,” Paap said.

He is sure of a few things. The next bill will have much more focus on renewable fuels and will have a continuation of programs aimed at conservation.

But everything else, from the level of overall funding to disaster aid will be worked out by the Senate and House Agriculture committees.

Paap is hoping for something that Congress has never been able to do in the past — get a new Farm Bill approved before the existing one runs out.

The current five-year Farm Bill ends in September. If no new bill is passed by then, Congress will likely, as in past efforts, simply extend the existing program for a year or more.

Paap said there appears to be a strong effort by Ag Committee chairs, Rep. Collin Peterson, D-Minn., and Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, to complete a farm bill in time.

“I think they got the message in the last election that people want them to get things done and work together.”

Minnesota Senators Norm Coleman, Republican, and Amy Klobuchar, Democrat, sounded similar concerns in statements they sent out responding to the president’s proposal. Both are on the Agriculture Committee.

“Unfortunately, there are deep cuts and harmful changes to every commodity under the Farm Bill safety net, as well as to the Federal Crop Insurance Program, that would hurt Minnesota’s rural communities,” Coleman said.

Klobuchar said she was, “Deeply concerned about the president’s proposal to make drastic changes to the farm safety net.”

Paap said another big debate will be on whether to build a permanent disaster relief program into the Farm Bill. Currently, disaster relief comes from other federal programs, but some argue there should be agriculture-specific disaster funding built into the Farm Bill.

“In 2005 and 2006 there were disasters across the U.S. Hurricanes, drought, too much water, citrus freezes,” Paap said. “It’s a big issue.”

U.S. Rep. Peterson is pushing for disaster relief to be built in. Paap said the Farm Bureau has not yet taken a position on the issue.

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