Direct payments still alive?

Washington Ag Today December 12, 2011

As House and Senate Ag Committee leaders worked to craft a farm bill package for attachment to the deficit reduction committee’s recommendations, it became widely accepted that direct payments would be out.

House Ag Committee Chairman Frank Lucas says direct payments are the most politically difficult part of the 2008 Farm Bill to defend, and yet are the most WTO compliant part of the farm legislation. While Lucas says direct payments are definintely in the crosshairs of the tea party, liberals and national media, folks in rural America are speaking up, and there is a chance direct payments aren’t dead just yet.

Lucas: "I had some members who came back after Thanksgiving from their districts, perhaps were new enough not to have been through the 2008 Farm Bill process, who reported to me that they were impressed to discover that not only their farmers, but their bankers think direct payments are very important. So folks out in the countryside who have lived through farm policy the last 30 to 40 years understand how successful that has been. You still have to have a bill that is possible to pass in both chambers and get signed into law and right now the power players in both bodies, down at the White House, are very opposed to the direct payment system."

Wheat growers in particular have been defenders of direct payments because of their certainty, especially for their bankers.

I’m Bob