Farm Bill Editorials/Opinions 8-2 through 8-8-07

The International Herald Tribune

August 7, 2007 Tuesday

A surer way to feed the poor

SECTION: OPINION; Pg. 6

LENGTH: 365 words

Globally, about 800 million people are chronically hungry, and the number rises every year. The Bush administration is pushing what should be an obvious policy change to help those most acutely in need . Instead of shipping American-grown food abroad, Washington would send U.S. dollars to buy food from local farmers.

The present food aid system is a favorite of American farmers. But it is also slow, expensive and leaves people hungry who could easily be fed. President George W. Bush has rightly proposed shifting $300 million from farm subsidies to enable governments and relief groups to buy food locally.

This plan struck a responsive chord almost everywhere except the Congress. The House omitted the idea from the farm bill it passed last week. And prospects for the Senate approving anything more than a pilot program seem dim.

This is sad but unsurprising. U.S. farm policy continues to be dominated by farm-state legislators who prefer the traditional approach of sending surplus food abroad, further enriching heavily subsidized farmers as well as the shipping industry.

A recent article by Celia Dugger of The New York Times shows why that makes so little sense. Starving Africans in the arid reaches of northwestern Kenya desperately needed food. Kenyan officials did not want surplus American corn because they feared driving down the prices for local farmers. The obvious answer was for the Americans to buy local corn, but American law prevented this. So the corn was never shipped and people continued to go hungry.

The United States is the world's most generous provider of food aid, amounting to $2 billion annually. But too much of that aid is wasted in overhead, mainly shipping costs. At the other end of the pipeline, subsidized American food can hurt local farmers, while local procurement gives them a commercial outlet. Administration officials also note that food purchased in the United States usually takes four months to reach its destination. Food purchased locally takes days.

The virtues of Bush's idea are self-evident. What it needs is full congressional support. It would be nice if, for once, America's farm bloc could think of interests other than its own.

THE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE (California)

August 7, 2007 Tuesday
FINAL Edition

Pelosi's scorecard

SECTION: EDITORIAL; EDITORIALS; Pg. D10

LENGTH: 404 words

IT'S HARD not to root for a hometown player who has made it so big, but some San Franciscans have been a little disappointed lately with our representative, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. We're especially disappointed with the outcome of two recent big bills, one supposedly having to do with farms and the other supposedly having to do with energy. The Democratic-led House had an opportunity to push forward real solutions on long-standing problems that nearly every American recognizes as wasteful (in the case of trade-distorting, obesity-producing farm subsidies to often-wealthy commodity farmers) and destructive (continued government assistance and encouragement for fossil-fuel industries in the face of global warming). But when it came time to make changes, the Democrats only tinkered at the margins.

The energy bill cuts $16 billion in tax breaks for the oil and gas industry and requires electric utilities to produce 15 percent of their power from renewable fuels by 2020, but there's nary a word about increasing federal fuel economy standards. With the price of oil tipping over the $70-a-barrel mark, ending tax breaks for this industry is a much-needed change, but it's no rousing victory. Increased federal fuel standards are what will make a real difference in the fight against global warming. And the farm bill? It throws a little change at California's fruit-and-nut farmers, but without dismantling the subsidies that have landed America in hot water with the World Trade Organization, it might as well be called the "Continued Welfare for Wealthy Farmers" bill.

Which leads us back to Pelosi - are we disappointed with her failure to produce the results we know she agrees with because she has failed as a leader? Or does her record merely look disappointing because our expectations have been so high?

Pelosi has been lobbying hard to contain a diverse coalition, and she has had to make big compromises. Sustaining the subsidies in the farm bill was an unfortunate bid to keep farm-state Democrats happy (even President Bush pushed for larger reforms) and she has rightly taken much heat for it. But she may redeem that mistake with the energy bill - it does include a renewable energy requirement, and she has made no secret of her goal to include tougher efficiency standards in a conference bill when the House and Senate combine their versions. We hope her savvy tactical skills carry that goal through.

Bangor Daily News (Maine)

August 6, 2007 Monday
All Editions

FARM BILL'S CASH CROP

SECTION: Pg. A6

LENGTH: 415 words

Any bill that spends $286 billion over five years ought to make a lot of constituents happy, and the House version of the 2007 Farm Bill hands out enough commodity and income subsidies to keep most from complaining. But as generous as the bill is, it still doesn't fully reform the system by which it hands out subsidies, how these federal transfer payments meet global trade rules and what effect these payments have on poor countries. The Senate, expected to take up its version of the bill next month, has plenty of work to do.

For instance, President Bush proposed providing benefits only to those farmers with adjusted gross incomes of under $200,000, to lessen the current concentration of payments to the wealthiest farms. But that would have affected about 38,000 farmers currently receiving subsidies, so House Democrats raised the cap to $1 million. This distribution to wealthy farmers hurts those with lower incomes because it limits how much they might receive and provides incentive for large-scale owners to further consolidate farms.

The bill does contain some measures that are valuable - fruits and vegetables are now recognized and the Milk Income Loss Contract program is continued; land conservation is included and food stamps gained support. And no one should assume that putting together such a large and heavily lobbied bill that makes sense is an easy undertaking. The House Agriculture Committee could have done worse.

But it also could have taken steps to head off disputes at the World Trade Organization, where Canada and Brazil argue that the level of U.S. subsidies through direct payments, loan deficiency payments and counter-cyclical payments distort trade and harm farmers in their countries. These are not new complaints, and the United States has lost these battles before, such as the question of cotton subsidies in 2005.

Maine Reps. Tom Allen and Mike Michaud voted in favor of the Farm Bill, and given the bill's increased spending on Maine farmers, its conservation and forestry provisions and several administrative improvements, that's understandable. But the bill is only a half step in the right direction.

The Senate has a chance to take it further - and avoid a Bush veto - by, at minimum, addressing the qualifying income levels for subsidies and the total subsidies directed toward specific crops that are affecting trade. Accomplishing that would at least give Congress reason to say it had included reform in the bill among all those tax dollars.

EDITORIAL: New farm bill about lot more than agriculture

BYLINE: The Sun, Yuma, Ariz.

SECTION: COMMENTARY

LENGTH: 546 words

Aug. 6--Despite a lot of talk about the need to wean farmers from dependence on federal handouts, a new $286 billion farm bill approved by the House of Representatives maintains current subsidy levels to growers of corn, wheat, barley, oats, cotton, sugar and other crops, and for the first time extends subsidies to so-called specialty crops, including fruits, nuts and vegetables.

Although specialty crop farmers get $1.6 billion initially, one can expect that number to climb over time. Corn prices are at near-record highs, due largely to government ethanol mandates, yet Congress couldn't even muster the will to cut off corn growers, despite the windfall they're reaping.

The Department of Agriculture continues to drift far from its down-on-the-farm roots, as this bill shows. Roughly 12 percent of the money goes to farm subsidies. But more than 62 percent will be spent on food stamps and nutritional programs.

Another 12 percent goes to rural development (including an initiative to expand broadband in the farm belt) and energy-related matters -- it requires taxpayers to further underwrite the biofuels industry, for instance, despite mounting concerns about the environmental and economic impact this manipulation of energy markets will have.

The rest, roughly 9 percent, pays farmers not to farm -- to leave their fields fallow in the name of "conservation" or wetlands protection.

This is as much an environmental protection bill and energy bill as a "farm" bill -- which has us thinking: Why not just do away with the Agriculture Department and hand off these functions to the Energy Department, Health and Human Services or the Environmental Protection Agency?

The special interests that stand to benefit most -- including the Renewable Fuels Association, American Farm Bureau Federation, National Cattlemen's Beef Association, National Farmers Union, National Corn Growers Association, American Soybean Association, National Pork Producers Council and National Association of Wheat Growers -- all give the bill rave reviews. Farm state legislators mostly complained that the handouts aren't generous enough.

And what of the people who have to pay for all this? Forgotten as usual.

The only modest concession Congress made to taxpayers was a provision that cuts off subsidies to farmers making more than $1 million a year in income. And, oh yes, Congress has asked the Agriculture Department to explain why it sent $1.1 billion in farm payments to more than 170,000 dead people over a 7-year period. But that's where "reform" ends.

Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns reiterated the administration's opposition to some elements of the bill, including the tax increase and the refusal to reduce subsidies. "I urge the Senate to chart a different course," he said.

We also hope for a dramatically different approach when the Senate takes up its bill. But don't bet the farm on it.

The Washington Post

August 6, 2007 Monday
Regional Edition

Restoring the Bay;
An example of what this year's farm bill should really be about

SECTION: EDITORIAL COPY; Pg. A16

LENGTH: 455 words

IT WAS only a few months ago that Democrats were claiming that they would write radical new investments in conservation and environmental stewardship into this year's farm bill. But with a tight budget and the House majority's unwillingness to seriously slash giveaway agricultural subsidies, there was less money for lawmakers to devote to such worthy priorities. Some increases in funding, however, did make it into the House's version of the legislation, including an infusion of money into programs to clean up the Chesapeake Bay.

The bay funding is a crucial provision, and we are glad to see it in the bill. It doesn't redeem the irresponsible and wasteful farm bill that Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other House Democratic leaders pushed through. Indeed, this bit of farm sense amid a fair amount of farm nonsense underscores the bill's obvious flaws: Many other attractive conservation projects might have been better funded, too, if only the Democrats had aggressively reformed the subsidy programs authorized in the legislation.

The new money for the Chesapeake comes at a critical time -- the states that contribute most to bay pollution are far from reaching their pollution reduction targets, and bay ecosystems continue to verge on collapse. The nonprofit Chesapeake Bay Foundation calculated that even if the bay states carry out cleanup initiatives already on the books, they will reduce annual pollution by only 40 percent of their goal for 2010. At the beginning of the year, an Environmental Protection Agency official estimated that at the current rate the bay will not be restored for generations. The House's farm bill would commission a federal plan for restoring the Chesapeake and provide $212 million over five years in bay cleanup funding. According to Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), who pushed for the addition of the language, bay states will also have access to an additional $292 million over five years for Chesapeake restoration through other programs in the bill. The bay foundation's Doug Siglin says that the money will go a long way to promote conservation efforts such as planting cover crops and building natural barriers to prevent nitrate and other pollution from entering the watershed.

These are just the sorts of initiatives a 21st-century farm bill should be funding. The prospects for the House's draft farm bill are unclear -- President Bush rightly has threatened to veto it, and the Senate has yet to act. There is still opportunity this year to reprioritize this country's agricultural budget to focus more on worthwhile conservation programs and less on unneeded farm payments. But at the very least, the Chesapeake Bay program should figure in whatever legislation ultimately becomes law.

Contra Costa Times (California)

August 5, 2007 Sunday

Democrats' fat farm bill breaks trust

BYLINE: Contra Costa Times

SECTION: OPINION; Perspective; Letters

LENGTH: 2160 words

We the people elected (twice) the Bush administration and got raising national debt, the rich getting richer and the middle class sinking, a corrupt Congress, hundreds of thousands of people killed and maimed, and a break in trust for the rule of law and the idea of limited government.

So, in one election, we changed the majority party in both houses of the U.S. Congress. At first the Democrats said that they would change things for the better. They enacted some mild reforms that looked better than they were for solving the excesses of Congress. The Democrats limited inflating the budget with pork. They began some long overdue investigations of an administration that was too much in love with power.

However, in passing the latest huge and wasteful agriculture budget, they broke faith with all of us who thought that we were doing the right thing by electing Democrats to replace Republicans. There is no need to give any sector of the economy federal money when there is a healthy market for their products. Such subsidies encourage wasteful farming practices and hurt other nations who in turn send their poor into our nation to work on subsidized farms.

Richard Ingalls

Pleasant Hill

The Washington Post

August 5, 2007 Sunday
Regional Edition

Hurting A Small Farm Near You

SECTION: EDITORIAL COPY; Pg. B08

LENGTH: 394 words

If you've purchased organic produce at Ukrop's, Giant Food or Whole Foods, you may well have eaten some of the fruits of my labor.

My farm, nestled in the Appalachian mountains of southwest Virginia, is about a six-hour drive from the nation's capital. Here, in the land of coal and tobacco, a momentous shift is taking place: Dozens of former tobacco farmers are raising certified organic produce, free-range eggs and other healthy products that we are selling to nearly 600 supermarkets in a five-state region.

We've built this system, which includes 60 farmers and a packing and grading facility, from the bottom up. But we have had help from our fellow taxpayers, in the form of a grant from the Agriculture Department's Community Food Projects Competitive Grant Program. That, along with considerable investment from the Virginia tobacco commission, has allowed us to create a healthy food system that is once again making farming economically viable while helping to improve the diets of thousands of consumers.

For these reasons, we are unhappy with the direction of the current farm bill, which the House passed on July 27. Efforts such as ours, and many others across the country, prove that investments in local food systems and ecological farming are cost-effective in the short run and good for rural communities and the land in the long run. The same can no longer be said about subsidies focused on a handful of crops for a handful of large farmers in a handful of states.

There is something wrong with a farm bill that continues to miss three-fourths of the nation's farms; that subsidizes agribusiness and the food industry, enabling them to produce cheap foods that aren't very good for us; and that is reducing its commitment to conservation precisely at a time when climate change, water shortages and increasing urban pressure on the landscape make healthy soils and farms more critical than ever.

We've created a locally rooted, healthy, conserving farm and food system here in tobacco country. If you can do it here, with a little bit of help from the federal government, you can do it most anywhere in the United States.

-- Anthony Flaccavento

Abingdon, Va.

The writer is executive director of Appalachian Sustainable Development and a Food and Society Policy Fellow. He will be online to answer questions on at 1 p.m. Thursday on washingtonpost.com.

Columbia Daily Tribune (Missouri)

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News

August 4, 2007 Saturday

OPINION: Farm bill: Principled protectionism?

BYLINE: Henry J. Waters III, Columbia Daily Tribune, Mo.

SECTION: COMMENTARY

LENGTH: 499 words

Aug. 4--The U.S. House of Representatives recently passed a new "compromise" farm bill, the main thrust of which is to continue subsidies and protection for American producers. It is a compromise in the sense it could have provided even more money to the largest agricultural businesses, but its political momentum continues unabated: It satisfies powerful farm interests who provide strong support for farm-state politicians, and it is intended to protect certain farm segments, such as cotton and sugar, otherwise unable to compete with foreign producers.

Subsidies are provided even to producers who can compete, allowing a certain number of marginal producers to stay in business and tending to lower the costs of domestically produced commodities, but for free-market promoters the tradeoff is negative.

The most persuasive economic studies I see find overall benefit from free trade. Obviously, it helps all consumers who enjoy lower prices from international competition. Certain uncompetitive segments in certain countries will suffer, but so it is every time a better, cheaper product or service is available in the marketplace.

To argue free trade would make us vulnerable to foreign suppliers of cotton and sugar is to assume those producers, if unrestrained by U.S. protectionist policies, would not sell to the American market. The only way to make domestic sugar competitive is for government to extract money from U.S. taxpayers to subsidize and protect domestic growers. This is fine for domestic growers, but who else benefits?

Most American farmers are competent enough to survive and thrive in a less regulated market that, harnessing the world's best producers, would produce plenty of food and fiber at the best prices.

Under the current system, perpetuated in the current farm bill, no producer, no matter how able, can survive without government subsidies. All are dependent on politicians, and I daresay the politicians like it that way. They're able to pose as saviors of American agriculture and reap the support of their economic vassals, who in their bones would rather not have to come begging.

Farm subsidies keep domestic production artificially high, maintaining a class of marginal producers who otherwise could not compete, draining the profits out of agriculture, turning all producers into a class perpetually dependent on government and robbing consumers of the benefits of lower-cost competition.

Perfect.

Henry J. Waters III, Publisher, Columbia Daily Tribune

The Lebanon Daily News (Pennsylvania)

August 4, 2007 Saturday

Holden's farm bill payoff to big ag

BYLINE: Editor: Lebanon Daily News

SECTION: LETTERS TO EDITOR

LENGTH: 401 words

The July 31 Daily News article on the farm bill recently passed in the House overlooked some facts. Congressman Tim Holden's Susquehanna River grandstanding aside, the bill has not yet passed the Senate. Hopefully, it will not survive in its present form -- or at all.

Though your piece implies otherwise, Republicans have not been the only critics of extending the agricultural-subsidy program for another five years or of the imbedded tax and economic implications of the House bill. Other media outlets, including USA Today, have published editorials opposing the bill. Although a case can be made for providing a limited safety net for farmers to protect our food supply, it would benefit the nation more to wean them from dependency on guaranteed subsidies.

Most crops receive no subsidies. Those farmers survive or fail without them. Only a handful of crops are affected, and only three of the five top crops subsidized by the U.S. government are grown in central Pennsylvania, though most of us consume them all in one form or another. Few, if any, local farmers are among the top 10 percent of huge farms and agribusinesses that receive nearly 75 percent of the subsidies. Those local farmers who get any aid at all more likely rank among the 80 percent of farms nationwide that divvy up only about a tenth of the government's largess.

Despite that minimal distribution of benefits to Holden's district, according to experts at the Heritage Foundation, the subsidies, on average, strip more than $25 per month from every household budget in the nation due to the higher taxes and food prices they cause. Farm subsidies penalize all of us.

What, do you suppose, is $320 in higher taxes and costs per year per household times the number of households in Congressional District 17? Is that much money coming back to this district from this bill? Either way, how many households benefit? How do those numbers balance? More importantly, how do they balance for the average consumer and taxpayer? Holden's enthusiasm for this bill ignores the huge drain it makes on his constituents. It's difficult to believe that our congressman could be unaware of that fact.

It makes one wonder whose side he's on. Talk about alternative energy and river restoration is just an attempt to change the subject. As usual, it's really all about money. America needs better stewards of our money in Congress.

Jerry Shenk

Harrisburg

The New York Times

August 4, 2007 Saturday
Late Edition - Final

A Surer Way to Feed the Hungry

SECTION: Section A; Column 0; Editorial Desk; EDITORIAL; Pg. 12

LENGTH: 375 words

Globally, about 800 million people are chronically hungry, and the number rises every year. The Bush administration is pushing what should be an obvious policy change to help those most acutely in need -- victims of catastrophe or some other emergency. Instead of shipping American-grown food abroad, Washington would send American dollars to buy food from local farmers.

The present food aid system is a favorite of American farmers. But it is also cumbersome, slow, expensive and leaves people hungry who could easily be fed. President Bush has rightly proposed shifting $300 million from farm subsidies to enable governments and relief groups to buy food locally.

This plan struck a responsive chord almost everywhere except the Congress. The House omitted the idea from the farm bill it passed last week. And prospects for the Senate approving anything more than a pilot program seem dim.

This is sad but unsurprising. Farm policy continues to be dominated by farm-state legislators who prefer the traditional approach of sending surplus food abroad, further enriching heavily subsidized farmers as well as the shipping industry.

A recent article by The Times's Celia Dugger shows why that makes so little sense. Starving Africans in the arid reaches of northwestern Kenya desperately needed food. Kenyan officials did not want surplus American corn because they feared driving down the prices for local farmers. The obvious answer was for the Americans to buy local corn, but American law prevented this. So the corn was never shipped and people continued to go hungry.

The United States is the world's most generous provider of food aid, amounting to $2 billion annually. But too much of that aid is wasted in overhead, mainly shipping costs. At the other end of the pipeline, subsidized American food can hurt local farmers, while local procurement gives them a commercial outlet. Administration officials also note that food purchased here usually takes four months to reach its destination. Food purchased locally takes days.

The virtues of Mr. Bush's idea are self-evident. What it needs is full Congressional support, not pilot programs. It would be nice if, for once, America's farm bloc could think of interests other than its own.

Orlando Sentinel (Florida)

August 4, 2007 Saturday
FINAL

End boondoggle
Our position: Congress is once again headed toward wasteful farm subsidies.

BYLINE: Sage

SECTION: EDITORIAL; FLORIDA; OPINION; Pg. A18

LENGTH: 465 words

A rare opportunity for reforming America's deeply flawed farm policy has been plowed under in the U.S. House. But reform can still take root in the Senate.

Last month the House passed a bill that would largely maintain the inequitable and wasteful system of taxpayer subsidies for farmers another five years. That system's cost has topped $20 billion in some years. Nearly 90 percent of the subsidies go to farmers of just five crops: corn, wheat, cotton, soybeans and rice. At least two-thirds of farmers get little or nothing.

Subsidies are paid based on acreage planted, so large farms grab most of the handouts, even when their prices and profits are high. The system spurs overproduction, wasting resources and damaging the environment. It inflates land prices, squeezing out small farmers. And it impedes trade agreements that would open more foreign markets to U.S. goods, including farm products.

The House bill was drafted by its Agriculture Committee, whose members represent districts that collected more than 40 percent of the subsidies paid from 2003 to 2005. What a coincidence.

The bill's supporters boasted that it would lower the annual income limit for farmers eligible to collect subsidies from $2.5 million to $1 million, and steer $1.8 billion to programs for fruit and vegetable growers. But these are tweaks, not the overhaul the system demands.

A chance for an overhaul came during House debate on the bill, when Wisconsin Democrat Ron Kind -- a farmer himself -- proposed a scaled-back version of his bipartisan plan to phase out subsidies. That plan would gradually replace them with accounts to stabilize incomes for farmers who truly need help, no matter what crops they grow. It's a fairer, smarter and cheaper approach to farm policy.

Yet Mr. Kind's proposal was voted down nearly 3-1. Republican Ric Keller was the only Central Florida lawmaker to support it, even though it would be a better deal for Sunshine State farmers.

When the House bill came up for a final vote, it lost the support of Republicans because Democrats had added a corporate tax hike to increase funding for food stamps. But Mr. Kind's proposal would have saved enough money on subsidies to finance such an increase without a tax hike.

Fortunately for taxpayers, Congress isn't done with the farm bill; the Senate hasn't passed its own version yet. Indiana Republican Richard Lugar, a former chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, is vowing to seek support for Mr. Kind's approach.

Mr. Lugar's efforts deserve the enthusiastic support of senators from both parties, including Republican Mel Martinez and Democrat Bill Nelson of Florida. Congress needs to move beyond the parochial politics and special interests now dictating farm policy to a much better plan for taxpayers and farmers alike.

The San Diego Union-Tribune

August 4, 2007 Saturday

House of ill repute;
Bush, Senate reformers aim to save farm bill

SECTION: OPINION; Pg. B-8:E,F; B-6:R; B-12:S

LENGTH: 302 words

How bad is the five-year, $286 billion farm bill recently approved by the House of Representatives? So bad that there are at least three rock-solid reasons to reject it.

* The measure isn't about small family farmers, who are doing much better than in the "Farm Aid" era of the 1980s. Instead, it is more accurately seen as a gigantic payoff to multimillionaires and thriving corporate agribusiness.

* The biggest subsidies go to crops that are readily turned into unhealthy processed foods. The subsidies help make these processed foods very cheap and have a major negative effect on the diet habits of an entire nation.

* The subsidies arguably violate trade treaties the United States willingly signed and are a huge headache in negotiating new trade deals.

But there is good news: President Bush and many senators aren't buying Speaker Nancy Pelosi's bizarre assertion that the House measure amounts to reform. Bush wants to limit payments to farmers who make more than $200,000 a year. A Senate coalition -- led, strikingly enough, by Iowa's senators, Democrat Tom Harkin and Republican Charles Grassley -- also wants an earnings cap on those who receive subsidies and is tentatively touting a reform that would go a long way toward making farm policy more rational: dropping most subsidies in favor of guarantees to farmers that they would be insulated from distress caused by price swings and floods, droughts and other natural disasters.

Unfortunately, there are senators who prefer the House approach and see farm policy as just one more way to belly up to the pork trough, including California Democrat Barbara Boxer. So next month, when the Senate takes up the farm bill, watch for a free-for-all between reformers and pseudo-reformers. And hope, for once, that common sense finds a place in our farm policy.

Buffalo News (New York)

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News

August 3, 2007 Friday

EDITORIAL: Time to start over: Bad system produces bad farm bill; Washington needs to change both

BYLINE: The Buffalo News, N.Y.

SECTION: COMMENTARY

LENGTH: 646 words

Aug. 3--A very bad farm bill was about to roar through the U.S. House of Representatives with broad bipartisan support, pledging another 42 billion taxpayer dollars to further engorge soil-burning, water-fouling, market-glutting megafarms that swell the bellies of Americans and empty the treasuries of poor nations.

At the last minute, though, a divisive tax provision was added to the $286 billion bill, which also funds food aid and conservation programs. The package still passed, but by a narrow enough margin that, in its current form, it would not survive a threatened veto by President Bush.

This conflict would best be solved by junking the House bill altogether and allowing the Senate to start afresh, hopefully crafting a new approach to agriculture that is based on rewarding the sustainable production of healthy food.

Bush might have vetoed the House bill even without the additional tax, a measure to raise some $7.5 billion from foreign- owned companies with U.S. subsidiaries. The president is among the few in Washington who will say out loud that it is time to get away from Depression-era subsidy programs that rightfully enrage poor nations whose farm products are undercut by our artificially cheap grain and cotton. Dropping our subsidies would help poor, agriculturally based countries make their own way in the world by selling their crops in a truly open market, with more economic benefits to those nations than any amount of U.S. foreign aid.

But it is the tax measure, which Democrats call the closing of a loophole and Republicans decry as a business-killer, that would make the veto threat credible. Farm bills by themselves are such a treasure trove of free money for constituents in every state, and most congressional districts, that they don't get blocked on their own.

There was, for example, no reason to expect either Democrats or Republicans from Western New York to stand in the way of a farm bill laden with benefits for the dairy industry, corn growers and producers of grapes and other fruit. New York may not have the image of a rural state, and the $184 million its producers received in federal assistance over the last three years ranks it 30th among the states. But the state's 12 billion pounds of milk annually makes it the third biggest dairy state, behind only California and Wisconsin. And in just the 11 counties of Western New York, farmers in 2005 brought in 26 million bushels of corn.

The 231-191 vote Friday

included area Reps. Louise Slaughter and Brian Higgins, both Democrats, and Republican John Kuhl in the affirmative and Republicans Thomas M. Reynolds and James Walsh opposed.

Reynolds and Walsh both cited the tax provision as the reason for voting against a bill that would preserve programs that won their two districts combined more than $54 million in subsidies between 2003 and 2005. Kuhl, whose district's producers got $24.3 million over that same period, had to hold his nose and vote for it, having labored hard to get more money for the usually overlooked producers of grapes and apples.

Few members of Congress, and apparently none from Western New York, can look beyond the federal boodle that farm bills traditionally distribute to their constituencies and see instead the despoiling impact that huge subsidies have on the global food market, and on the planet itself.

It's time to rip this policy out by its roots and start again. The House, apparently, won't. The Senate must.

The International Herald Tribune

August 3, 2007 Friday

Still waiting for farm reform

SECTION: OPINION; Pg. 6

LENGTH: 266 words

Doling out benefits as only a speaker can, Nancy Pelosi managed to kill a progressive farm bill on the floor of the House. The House then passed a bill that further enshrined an outdated, costly system of guaranteed subsidies. It is now up to the Senate, which will address the issue in September, to devise an improved bill that eliminates the old subsidies and uses the savings for food stamps, conservation and other worthier causes.

The sweeteners that Democratic leaders used to squelch the reform effort mostly improved the final product. More money was added for conservation programs and for international nutrition.

Even so, the bill perpetuates a lopsided system of price supports for producers of major crops like corn and soybeans, even though crop prices, fueled by the ethanol boom, are at an all-time high. These generous handouts also complicate international trade talks, and discriminate against poor overseas farmers who cannot compete with America's subsidized producers.

The good news is that there is a core group of influential farm state senators ready to break with the past. They have expressed interest in a redesigned farm program that would replace guaranteed subsidies with programs that would protect farmers against price swings and natural disasters .

Billions of dollars would be redirected - at far higher levels than the House envisions - to conservation, renewable fuels, food stamps and growers of specialty crops . President George W. Bush, who is threatening to veto the House bill, favors many of these ideas. With his help, the forces of reform may yet prevail.

August 3, 2007 Friday

A cancer on rural America

BYLINE: Nicholas D. Kristof - The New York Times Media Group

SECTION: OPINION; Pg. 7

LENGTH: 734 words

One measure of the inanity of U.S. national farm policy is that Americans, as a taxpayers, are paying me not to grow crops here in Oregon.

Democratic House leaders have rammed through another grotesque farm bill on the assumption that the only people who will pay attention will be the beneficiaries. Let's hope that they're wrong, because this is a classic example of weak-kneed politicians caving in to special interests.

I grew up on a sheep and cherry farm here in Yamhill, Oregon, and still have some timberland outside of town. Every year I get paid $588 not to farm it, under the Conservation Reserve Program.

That's right: American taxpayers are subsidizing a New York columnist not to plant crops in a forest in Oregon.

But at least I'm alive. The Government Accountability Office last month found that the government had handed out $1.1 billion over seven years to dead farmers. In one case, payments were made continually to a farmer who had died in 1973.

When I planted new Douglas fir seedlings on my land, care for the young trees was also subsidized. So America provides health care for tree seedlings but not for millions of children.

Maybe uninsured American children who can't get adequate health care could masquerade as cotton plants or cornstalks. Then the farm bill would shower them with money and care.

What's especially dispiriting is how quickly the House Democrats under Speaker Nancy Pelosi have tumbled from idealism to cynicism. The Democrats had promised reform - but then the House leaders worried that scrapping welfare for farmers might hurt the re-election prospects of some newly elected Democrats. So they killed the reform proposals (which are backed by many rank-and-file Democrats).

But as a former farm kid myself, let me say what a lot of farmers and ranchers are too polite to say: Farm subsidies are a cancer on rural America itself. The subsidies have raised land costs, driving out small farmers and undermining the family farm by encouraging consolidation.

The benefits overwhelmingly go to producers of just five crops - wheat, cotton, corn, soybeans and rice - with livestock producers mostly left out. The majority of farm payments go to commercial farmers who earn more than $200,000 annually, while 95 percent of farmers get little or no benefit from the farm bill. That's why my friends from FFA days speak contemptuously about those who make a living ''farming the government.''

Look, I fervently believe in trying to preserve the family farm and the vitality of rural towns. One of my high school buddies, Bob Bansen, runs a dairy farm outside Yamhill, and years ago one of his cows had trouble calving. So he called in the local vet in the middle of the night, but the vet's Caesarian operation didn't go well and the cow died.

When the vet finally retired, he sent the Bansens a check for the cost of the cow, saying he had always felt guilty about losing that cow. The Bansens refused to accept the check. Foiled, the vet salved his conscience by sending the sum to charity.

That's the kind of neighborliness that I love about Yamhill and farm towns like it. Unfortunately, farm subsidies don't protect that social fabric but tear it apart, by encouraging consolidation into the hands of big operators who rake in millions in subsidies.

In contrast, one way to assist family farms would be to underwrite rural broadband, just as rural electrification transformed farms in the last century. Then rural businesses might stand a chance.

The average American family pays $320 a year in farm subsidies, through higher taxes and food prices, according to a recent study by the Heritage Foundation. And those subsidies, particularly for cotton, exacerbate poverty in Africa by depressing prices of crops raised by small African farmers.

There is a familiar trajectory when a political party takes power: At first, it brims with ideals. Then it makes compromises to stay in power. Finally it becomes devoted simply to staying in office. Can Pelosi really have compressed this downward spiral into just six months?

President Bush had sought to place a ceiling on payments to any farmer of $200,000 per year, but the Democratic leaders have set it at $1 million ($2 million for a couple). Any time the Democrats find themselves fighting on behalf of fat cats, against a Republican White House that says enough is enough, it's time for the donkey to kick itself in the head.

The News & Observer (Raleigh, North Carolina)

August 3, 2007 Friday
Final Edition

Kill the farm bill

SECTION: EDITORIAL/OPINION; Pg. A12

LENGTH: 189 words

As you reported on Page 3A July 28, the House approved a five-year, $286 billion farm bill. Here are three reasons why the Senate must defeat the bill.

1) Save Africa! Why do we shell out billions in aid to developing countries, only to spend billions more waging economic warfare against them? Our farm subsidies make it difficult for developing countries to sell their products in the world market, keeping their people in destitution. The National Center for Policy Analysis estimates that from 2001 to 2002, Burkina-Faso lost $28 million in cotton exports as a direct result of artificially low U.S. cotton prices. About 85 percent of Burkina-Faso's population depends on cotton production.

2) Save America! Subsidies are a trade barrier that inhibit honest commerce, making us all worse off.

3) Ideologically, both Republicans and Democrats should be able to agree on subsidy cutbacks. Who wants higher taxes, corporate welfare, special-interest earmarks and pork? Not you, I hope.

Please write to Sens. Richard Burr and Elizabeth Dole and tell them to vote against the farm bill. That $286 billion can be better spent.

Stephen Day

Raleigh

The News & Observer (Raleigh, North Carolina)

August 3, 2007 Friday
Final Edition

Unfair subsidies

SECTION: EDITORIAL/OPINION; Pg. A12

LENGTH: 213 words

Rick Martinez's July 18 column "Let's plow under farm subsidies" is provocative at best, with no solutions offered to address the problems with commodity subsidies. Current U.S. farm policies are inequitable. Under the current system, 98 percent of benefits from commodity programs go to white farmers. Minority farmers are essentially shut out from receiving farm program benefits.

Congress must reform commodity programs that benefit mostly large, white-owned farms growing just a handful of crops. The Farm Bill must be reformed so that more resources are available to support socially disadvantaged farmers, as well as small and medium-sized farms and more diversified operations. The new Farm Bill must increase funding for conservation and rural development programs, improve the delivery of these farm programs to producers of color and count minority producers accurately for full transparency and accountability.

It is important that the new Farm Bill realign its disaster assistance and crop insurance system. It is true that double-dipping by farmers raises the specter of unethical conduct by savvy producers. However, in the midst of all this predicted bounty, the nation's food supply is being threatened by droughts in critical agriculture states.

Savonala Horne

Durham

Brattleboro Reformer (Vermont)

August 2, 2007 Thursday

Farm bill's a stinker

BYLINE: Reformer.com

SECTION: EDITORIALS

LENGTH: 587 words

The Denver Post said in an editorial:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi must have wanted a new farm bill in the worst way.

Because that's exactly what she got.

There's not much to be said in defense of the massive package of subsidies-as-usual that Pelosi shepherded through the House last week, except that it thoroughly deserves the veto that President Bush has threatened if it arrives on his desk in its current form. As blessed by the House, the new farm bill threatens to do equal damage to taxpayers and the environment alike, while preserving welfare for millionaire agri-businessmen.

Still, it's too early for environmentalists and taxpayers to give up the fight to draft a more responsible blueprint for agriculture in the 21st century. The bill still has to go through the Senate and there is at least some hope that Iowa Democrat Tom Harkin, who chairs the Agriculture Committee, will be more receptive to the conservation and nutrition programs that received short shrift in the House Agriculture Committee under Democratic Rep. Collin Peterson of Minnesota.

Ideally, the Senate would revive a plan by Rep. Ron Kind, D-Wis., and Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., that would have shifted $12 billion in crop subsidies and payments to farmers over the next five years toward conservation, rural development and nutrition programs that fight obesity. At Pelosi's urging, the House rejected the Kind-Flake amendment, which was backed by an unusual alliance of environmentalists and fiscally conservative Republicans.

Pelosi had supported past efforts to reform farm policy. But this year she marshalled Democrats in defense of the status quo that channels billions in subsidies to five row crops: wheat, rice, corn, soybeans and cotton -- despite near-record prices for some of those commodities. It was a simple case of politics trumping good policy because 10 first-term Democrats who represent farm districts felt they would have faced tough re-election fights if the farm bill had been recast to reflect priorities advanced by the Environmental Working Group and others.

Pelosi defended the $42 billion, five-year, subsidy tab by calling the bill "a critical step toward reform that eliminates farm payments to millionaires."

Pardon us, Madam Speaker, but wouldn't the best way to "eliminate farm payments to millionaires" be to, well, eliminate farm payments to millionaires? The Pelosi-blessed farm bill allows subsidies to continue to farmers who earn up to $1 million a year -- or $2 million for a couple. Admittedly, that is less than the $2.5 million ceiling in the existing farm subsidy law, but five times as high as the $200,000 per farmer President Bush had sought.

The new farm bill isn't all bad. It does provide modest increases in funding for government nutrition programs for low-income families and increases money for programs devoted to conservation, biofuels and renewable energy. It adds $1.6 billion to help growers of specialty fruit, vegetables and nuts. The money would pay for research programs, improved pest detection, aid to organic farming and the promotion of farmers markets. Another section, which The Post wholeheartedly supports, would promote labeling of meat to disclose country of origin -- an important protection for American farmers and consumers alike.

On the whole, however, the House settled for cosmetic improvements in aging New Deal farm programs that need major surgery. We hope the Senate will adopt the Kind-Flake reforms and yield a more taxpayer and environmentally friendly farm bill.

Charleston Gazette (West Virginia)

August 2, 2007, Thursday

Bumper crop;
Farm subsidies for rich

BYLINE: Gzedit

SECTION: EDITORIAL; Pg. P4A

LENGTH: 520 words

ORIGINALLY, federal farm subsidies were supposed to rescue family farmers, protecting them from unpredictable weather and market prices.

Created in 1933 under President Franklin Roosevelt, subsidies were designed to help small growers survive the Depression and Dust Bowl disasters. Back then, 25 percent of Americans still lived on farms. Now, less than 1 percent do.

Today, 74 years later, agricultural subsidies mostly enrich moneymaking giant corporate farms. They got the lion's share of $21 billion in government payments last year. Many economists believe those subsidies may also help force small farms into bankruptcy and keep young people from starting new farms. The Daytona Beach News-Journal commented:

"In 2002, when Congress was controlled by Republicans, a $180 billion farm bill lathered the subsidies on those who didn't need them, with the following results: The top 1 percent of beneficiaries claimed 17 percent of crop subsidy benefits between 2003 and 2005. In that category, the average payment over three years was $377,484 per beneficiary."

USA Today said subsidies "favor a tiny sliver of the largest agribusinesses: The top 10 percent of recipients get nearly three-fourths of subsidy payments, while the bottom 80 percent divide up a scant 12 percent."

The Guardian of Britain added that subsidies are "a cash cow for wealthy landowners and industrial-sized farms."

Last week, the House of Representatives passed a new giveaway co-sponsored by Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., authorizing $286 billion in payments over the next five years. The bill will eliminate subsidies for married couples earning more than $2 million and individuals earning more than $1 million a year from farms. That will stop payments to 3,100 big-money farmers, according to the Agriculture Department.

Pelosi's bill also will increase payments during the next five years. Some large farms already get between 20 percent and 40 percent of their annual gross revenues from those subsidies, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

Many farmers and politicians from agricultural states opposed renewing the large subsidies. Food and environmental activists also questioned the bill, saying more money should go to promote environmentally friendly farms. But the new bill won support from some Democrats by including $4 billion for food stamp, child nutrition and school lunch programs.

Plowshares & Pork Barrels, a new book by the libertarian Independent Institute, argues that current farm subsidy programs "confer most of the benefits on individuals whose wealth and incomes are considerably greater than those of the average taxpayer footing the bill.... The benefits are highly concentrated on the few who can afford to expend time and effort to influence the political process, while the costs are widely dispersed among taxpayers and consumers."

During the Depression, farm subsidies helped multitudes of needy farmers. The concept may still have some positive effects. But it is unfortunate that the House caved in to the nation's wealthiest farmers by passing this new legislation. We hope it is modified by the Senate.

The Cincinnati Post (Ohio)

August 2, 2007 Thursday
Cincinnati Edition

Agribiz's bountiful harvest

SECTION: Pg. A.10

LENGTH: 365 words

DATELINE: Ohio

In President Bush's first year in office, he issued a statement of agricultural principles articulating what he said would be the basis for his farm policy. He wanted to move away from subsidies and direct payments to a system of savings accounts that would act as insurance for farm setbacks, and toward market-oriented solutions, emphasizing conservation and being fiscally responsible, "generous but affordable."

Bush caved to the politics of farm legislation, and in theonly the "generous" part survived. The Republican-drafted farm bill of 2002 not only called for more generous subsidies and annual "emergency" bailouts, it reversed the modest reforms of the 1996 Freedom to Farm Act.

Now it's the Democrats' turn, and the House-passed reauthorization, at $286 billion, is business as usual down on the farm, only more so. It increases many subsidies at a time of record high farm prices.

The bulk of the benefits would go to largely well-to-do corn, wheat, cotton, rice and soybean farmers heavily concentrated in the Midwest and South. Something like half the farm payments would go to only 20 congressional districts. The payments are still weighted to the wealthy even though there's a theoretical limit on payments to farmers whose income is over $1 million a year.

The already well-protected sugar growers were insulated against cheaper Mexican imports at a 10-year cost to taxpayers of $1.4 billion. And the lawmakers opted to include in the farm program fruit and vegetable growers, the last sector that's something like a free market.

The farm bill may be terrible policy and provoke an interminable battle with the World Trade Organization, but it was a legislative tour de force for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who rolled over reformers she had supported just five years ago.

There are worthy alternatives offered by respected farm-state lawmakers like Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., and Rep. Ron Kind, D- Wis., but they were no match for the prosperous agribiz lobby.

The president has threatened a veto. It might be a futile gesture at this late date -- the old bill expires Sept. 30 -- but it is still worth dusting off his 2001 statement of principles and this time sticking by them.

The Herald-Sun (Durham, NC)

August 2, 2007 Thursday
Final Edition
Support One Campaign

The U.S. Farm Bill has been a long-term stumbling block to the efforts to ending extreme poverty. This year could see a real opportunity to bypass the hurdle this bill has presented for years, and open the door to move the fight against extreme poverty forward.

This letter is seen by the One Campaign as part of a long-term commitment to reform the Farm Bill in the hope of ending extreme poverty. The Farm Bill is now set to go before congressional representatives who serve on the House or Senate Agricultural Committee. That gives every American the opportunity to be heard.

The small farmer knows very well the impact the agricultural subsidies have as they let large farms drive down prices so small farmers here and around the world can't compete, which ultimately creates a way for poverty to continue.

The Farm Bill is thousands of pages long and contains hundreds of programs. It is a bill that subsequently impacts all of us, not just the small or large farmers. This bill has the power to decide how much you pay at the grocery store and whether an impoverished farmer will be able to feed his family.

Therefore, it is extremely important that we all take a stand and speak up for the greater good of the farmer, ending of extreme poverty, and the everyday men and women who are impacted daily by this bill but are unaware.

Please join our efforts to ensure that Congress does right by all. We all must take a stand.

Kesha Coggins

The writer lives in Oxford. She is an advocate for One Campaign.

Modesto Bee

August 2, 2007 Thursday
ALL EDITION

DEATH CAN'T STOP FARM SUBSIDY CHECKS

SECTION: LOCAL NEWS; Pg. B6

LENGTH: 90 words

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has paid $1.1 billion in farm payments to 170,000 dead farmers over a seven-year period, and the House of Representatives has passed another farm bill for five more years of these checks.

I am impressed with the determination for farming that American farmers have; farmers of any other nation do not come close. You just cannot keep an American farmer down. They will not allow a thing such as death get in the way of farming and receiving their welfare -- oops, sorry -- subsidy checks.

MIKE CASARES Modesto

Wisconsin State Journal (Madison, Wisconsin)

August 2, 2007 Thursday
ALL EDITION

LET FARM BILL CULTIVATE REFORM

SECTION: OPINION; Pg. A8

LENGTH: 507 words

Sens. Herb Kohl and Russ Feingold should beware.

Wisconsin is expecting the 2007 federal farm bill to give American agriculture a new direction. The bill should suit a new era shaped by the global economy, growing demand for biofuels, a sense of urgency about conservation, and a need to rein in federal spending.

Yet, the House of Representatives this week adopted a farm bill that keeps agriculture stuck in the same old furrow - dependent upon subsidies, insulated from market demands - at a staggering cost of $286 billion over five years.

It's now up to the Senate to adopt the needed reforms.

Kohl and Feingold should help make it happen.

At stake is the safety net that protects farmers from steep declines in prices for their products. Consumers also depend on the net to ensure a consistent supply of food at reasonable and stable prices.

The safety net is dominated by a flawed system of subsidies, supply and price controls, and import restrictions.

Subsidies encourage too much production, which depresses prices, which requires more subsidies in a cycle now costing taxpayers more than $20 billion a year.

Furthermore, supply and price controls and import restrictions limit foreign competition and distort markets.

This year offers an opportunity for reform as Congress prepares a farm bill to govern policy for the next five years.

The House, however, knuckled under to the vested interests in the status quo, principally large farmers and agribusinesses who benefit most from the subsidies, controls and import restrictions.

Four Wisconsin representatives - Democrat Ron Kind along with Republicans Paul Ryan, Tom Petri, and F. James Sensenbrenner - deserve credit for voting against the bill. The state's four other representatives, including Tammy Baldwin of Madison, should be held accountable for turning their backs on reform.

The Senate, which takes up the farm bill this fall, is aiming to improve on the House bill in at least two important ways. The Senate is likely to impose a stricter limit on the amount of government aid any individual farmer can collect, and it plans to expand aid for conservation measures.

But the Senate should look past what the House adopted to see what the House failed to adopt - a reform plan co-sponsored by Wisconsin's Kind and Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz.

The Kind-Flake plan would make a forward-looking breakthrough. It would phase out subsidies in favor of a more cost-effective method of protecting farmers.

At the center of the proposal are risk management accounts, which the government would fund for farmers to tap during hard times or to buy crop insurance.

The plan would save $55 billion over 10 years and spread the aid to more and smaller farmers. It would also help U.S. farm policy comply with global trade agreements, which some subsidies violate. That would benefit U.S. exports.

At a minimum, the Senate should incorporate the principles of the Kind-Flake plan in its version of the farm bill.

It's time for American farmers to produce for market demands, not to collect a subsidy check.

The Associated Press State & Local Wire
August 2, 2007 Thursday 5:05 PM GMT
Kearney Hub on 2007 farm bill

KEARNEY Last week we heard from a parade of politicians extolling the merits of the new farm bill legislation. They talked about how it would benefit farmers and ranchers, and we were eager to listen because, after all, agriculture is our state’s No.1 industry. ...

But amid all the farm bill talk last week about value-added strategies, enhanced trade and alternative energy, a vital component of rural Nebraska seemed to be overlooked.

We’re referring to the small communities that our state’s ag industry relies upon to provide goods and services. Many of Nebraska’s farm towns are struggling. Their hardship is a reflection of the long-term challenges facing agriculture and of the difficulties communities have in changing with the times. ...

We Nebraskans cannot afford to give up. There is hope.

Mainly, the hope of small towns rests with the strengthening of Nebraska’s agricultural economy. There are far fewer farmers and ranchers on the land today, but those who remain are intelligent operators. They also are innovators and risk-takers, as the explosion in alternative cropping systems and cooperative investment in ethanol plants suggests. ...

But small towns need to diversify. With the loss of so many farm families, there now are far fewer people to support small-town businesses. If residents desire the quality of life that comes with a small town, they need to discover new ways to earn a living.

Nebraska faces a critical challenge to maintain the vitality of its smaller communities. ... It would be encouraging to hear some of the political debate focus on preventing more small towns from blowing away.