02/04/08 Farm bill expiration would turn ag on its ear

So who blinks first? Is it Collin Peterson, chairman of the House Agriculture Committee or is in President Bush who is threatening to veto the Farm Bill that is now before a Congressional conference. Peterson says if Bush vetoes the bill he'll let the current Farm Bill expire next month. SMITH "Since the 1949 law was put in place every farm bill since then has been an amendment to that permanent law so if the farm bill is ever allow to expire the fallback position is always permanent law." American Farm Bureau's Tara Smith says that would turn the nation's farm policy upside down because not all of the crops that receive supports today would continue to get them and that would include sugar, soybeans and rice and under permanent law there are no direct payments. SMITH "Price supports would be based on parity so the price supports would be set so that the farmer would have the same purchasing power with those prices as he did from 1910 to 1914. So as you can imagine those price supports would be pretty high. It creates huge trade problems for the Untied States. It would pretty much go against every trade agreement that we have in place right now." The temporary extension of the 2002 farm bill expires on March 15th. Voice of Idaho Agriculture Bill Scott