04/30/07 House Ag Chair talks budget and direct payments

Farm and Ranch April 30, 2007 U.S. House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson says they are still working on finding offsets elsewhere in the federal budget which would provide up to four billion dollars more a year over the next five years in spending for the 2007 Farm Bill. With the baseline for commodity title programs down 43 percent from the last Farm Bill, Peterson says there is no money there to shift anywhere else. Also; Peterson: "And there are commodity people who want us to spend more money in the commodity title and I have told them basically no. That in spite of the fact it is down this month we are going to live with the money that is in the commodity title and any new money we get is going to be allocated to these other areas." Those other areas being conservation, specialty crops and renewable fuels. Peterson says there may be an effort on the House floor to take money out of the commodity title but he says if that happens there probably wouldn't be enough votes to pass a Farm Bill. The House Ag Chair says one of the policy debates going on is the future of direct commodity payments. Peterson: "We keep getting questions from people as to why we are sending people these direct payment checks when they have good prices and good crops. It is a hard thing to answer." While the Senate is looking at using direct payment funding elsewhere in the Farm Bill Peterson says if the House Committee dropped the payments it would still use the money within the commodity title like for a permanent disaster program. I'm Bob Hoff and that's the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.