09/18/06 Farm Bill Debate

Farm Bill Debate. I'm Greg Martin with today's Line On Agriculture. The 2007 Farm Bill debate is heating up as the months of 2006 wind down. And as Congress prepares to write new farm policy - several farm groups are coming out in support of an extension of the existing farm bill. The National Association of Wheat Growers has reportedly been in opposition to any extension of the current legislation. But according to former House Ag Chairman and co-author of the 2002 farm bill Larry Combest - that`s a result of misunderstanding some concerns voiced by the group. COMBEST: Let me make it very clear, they are not saying "can the farm bill." They have got some specific issues with it that they would like addressed but there has never been an indicator that they are not supporting the current bill. As this all unfolds, I think what you will see happen will be what actually wheat is looking for would be more costly that what we currently have. The potential of getting that would be much narrower and when a decision has to be made between what is in fact potential reality or the current farm bill, I think we will line up lock, stock & barrel behind the current farm bill. Along with a farm bill extension - farm groups are rallying in support of disaster assistance for farmers and ranchers. The main stumbling block for Congressional approval of disaster aid has been a lack of support from the administration. But at the same time - it appears some lawmakers believe the 2002 farm bill eliminated the need for ad-hoc disaster packages. Steve Verett - Executive Vice President of the Plains Cotton Growers in Lubbock, Texas - says that wasn`t the intent of the bill`s authors. He says the 2002 bill was never meant to remove assistance for physical disasters - but to address the lack of price protection in the 1996 farm bill. And as many Texas producers have told members of Congress - he says crop insurance just can`t take the place of federal disaster aid. VERETT: Absolutely we need viable crop insurance but the fact of the matter is for a number of reasons crop insurance don't work in a lot of areas and the main problem that we have is that you can't insure the total cost of the production or even close to the cost of production when you can buy higher than 65% coverage but it is not affordable. It is basically a one for one, dollar for dollar. So I would challenge anyone who is buying insurance on anything else to tell me how you would operate if your house or you car if you could only buy 65% insurance. It just doesn't work. That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.