05/27/08 The future for direct payments

Farm and Ranch May 27, 2008 Direct payments, considered a key element of the federal farm program safety net by wheat growers, survived in the new farm bill. But House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson certainly does not like them. He has called direct payments a "damn, poor, stupid safety net." And given what he said during a recent news conference, on the 2008 Farm Bill, Peterson is not going to let the issue die. Peterson: "Because it is very hard for us to explain to our urban colleagues why we are paying farmers when prices are high. This is a question I get all the time and I can't answer it. You know, other than we did this in 96. It is supposedly WTO legal. I am not sure it is. So I intend after this bill is passed into law to start having a dialogue with our friends and other people interested in agriculture about where we move in the future. And the information we get out of this ACR program will help us. That is why we put it in as an option to see how it works. Maybe this is the way to go, maybe something else will come up as an idea." Senate Ag Committee Chairman Tom Harkin was also at that news conference and was critical of direct payments. Harkin: "Collin, remember when we passed that in 96 we were going to phase them out. 2003 it was supposed to be ended. Here it is five years later and it is still going on. It was supposed to be phased out by 2003." The new farm bill does slightly reduce the base acres upon which the direct payments will be made for certain years. I'm Bob Hoff and that's the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.