01/11/07 New Farm Bill Takes Shape

New Farm Bill Taking Shape. I'm Greg Martin with today's Line On Agriculture. We have spent a lot of time in the past year talking and speculating about the 2007 Farm Bill. It reminds me of the holidays. We talk about them and eagerly anticipate them when all of a sudden, they're here. Well the new Farm Bill may be just around the corner and Ag Secretary Mike Johanns says the new bill may have to make do with less funding. JOHANNS: In fiscal year 2000, right before the writing of the '02 Farm Bill, we provided the highest subsidy payments on record. 32 billion dollars in subsidies were provided in 2000. The highest subsidy level on record and yet the farm economy was far, far from impressive. If dollars alone are the answer to supporting agriculture, why did we not experience better performance after record high subsidies? Today the level of subsidies has decreased to about 20 billion dollars and yet our Ag economy is far stronger. This too would suggest that high subsidies do not necessarily equate to a strong Ag economy. Johanns talks about the impact of subsidy levels on the Ag economy. JOHANNS: We now know that a simple extension of the '02 Farm Bill with today's stronger program crop markets would translate into much lower projected spending. In fact, there are probably a number of estimates floating around about what the base line funding is going to be for agriculture, but I don't think there's anyone out there that isn't projecting that it's going to drop. Some have argued that it's going to drop as much as 20 billion dollars from when the 2002 Farm Bill was developed. National Department of State Ag Departments President Valoria Loveland says everyone is pleased with this bill. LOVELAND: Everyone is very enthused. To get all 50 states with every kind of agriculture that you can possibly imagine to come together to say this is the right policy, this is the right way to go for agriculture for the next 5 plus years, I think it's very powerful politically as well because each of us will be going to our congressional delegation and saying, please look at the policy; it's pretty hard when we're unified representing all Ag interests for Congress not to pay attention. That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.