02-03-2001

AGRICULTURE: Commission Calls for More Help for Farmers

As Congress prepares to write another farm bill, the Commission on 21st
Century Production Agriculture testified this week before the Senate and
House Agriculture committees that fixed payments to farmers under the 1996
Freedom to Farm Act should be preserved-and bolstered with the addition of
a Supplemental Income Support program. Such a program would make payments
to farmers when the income derived from any of eight crops falls below a
five-year average. The program, which appears to be similar to one
proposed during the previous session by House Agriculture Committee
ranking member Charles W. Stenholm, D-Texas, would cost $2.8 billion in
2003, the commission estimated. Agriculture lobbyists said the
commission's report, signed by a majority of its 11 members, amounted to a
call for the status quo: continuation of the Freedom to Farm program and
institutionalization of the emergency payments that Congress has made to
financially strapped farmers over the past three years. Congress
established the commission as part of the 1996 farm bill, which was
intended to wean farmers from government aid. The law expires in
2002.


Jerry Hagstrom/CongressDaily

National Journal