Congressman
CHARLIE STENHOLM
17th District of Texas

AG TALK
By Charlie Stenholm
October 5, 2001

House Passes Farm Bill

The big agriculture news in Washington this week has been consideration of the 2001 Farm Bill in the House of Representatives.

On Friday, October 5, the House passed “The Farm Security Act,” legislation reauthorizing federal farm programs through the year 2011.

The vote was 291 to 190 and was very bipartisan. 151 Republicans voted for the bill; 58 were against it. On the Democratic side, the vote was 139 for and 61 against. There was an independent vote on each side.

With this action, the House has completed an important step in the long process of writing a farm bill.

Unlike previous five-year farm bills, “The Farm Security Act” covers a ten-year period and would add $73.5 billion to the baseline that is currently available in the federal budget for agricultural spending.

I worked with House Agriculture Committee Chairman Larry Combest in writing a comprehensive bill that covers subsidies to producers, conservation, food safety, nutrition and trade.

This legislation continues the Freedom to Farm Act’s direct payment program and marketing loans, however it adds a counter-cyclical program that makes payments when farm prices are low. In addition, it creates a new peanut program to replace the old quota system.

Chairman Combest and I worked on this legislation for more than a year and a half and held hearings all over the U.S. and in Washington.

During this process, there was considerable input from producers, soil and water conservation districts, and all other sectors of the agricultural economy.

One of our goals in writing this legislation was to bring some predictability back to the federal government’s farm support programs, and I think we succeeded in doing so.

This legislation gives producers the voluntary choice to update their base acres and add counter-cyclical support based on target prices to the already-established 2002 level of transition payments.

“The Farm Security Act” provides both the flexibility and predictability that most producers, commodity and farm groups have called for in the next farm bill.

And by enlarging participation for soil and water conservation programs, the House’s 2001 Farm Bill provides producers with more options to implement progressive conservation practices on their land.

This is made possible with the backing of increased technical assistance to producers who use government or private contractors.

Despite the fact that “The Farm Security Act” increases conservation spending by 78 percent, an effort was made by some of my colleagues to shift money from commodity support payments to conservation programs. This amendment was defeated, however.

Anyone who doubts the need for a new farm bill should stop and consider the current state of the nation’s farm economy.

The agriculture recession is now in its fourth year and ranks among the deepest in history for our nation’s farms and ranches.

Recent crop prices are the lowest in 27 years for soybeans, the lowest in 25 years for cotton, and the lowest in 14 years for wheat and corn.

In each of the past four years, rescuing the farm economy has required an average of $8 billion in federal farm aid.

Some have criticized Congress for providing this assistance, however it would have been unthinkable to see the agriculture recession degenerate into another “dust bowl depression.”

Agriculture makes up one-fifth of our nation’s economy, and a healthy agricultural sector and the ability to produce our own food and fiber are national security concerns.

This is particularly true at a time when we as a nation are under attack by international terrorists.

Once again, let me emphasize that this is just the first step in a long process of developing a farm bill.

While the Senate Agriculture Committee has started to hold hearings on a new farm bill, they are a long way from bringing a bill before the full Senate.

And we had some bad news this week from the White House’s Office of Management and Budget indicating that the administration would not support the House farm bill. 

Nevertheless, the House moved forward.

I will be further discussing the farm bill process in the months ahead.

Return to 2001 News