Copyright 2001 St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Inc. St.
Louis Post-Dispatch (Missouri)
November 25, 2001 Sunday Five Star Lift
Edition
SECTION: NEWS; Pg. A1
LENGTH: 1708 words
HEADLINE:
CONGRESSIONAL COALITION FIGHTS TO CHANGE FARM SUBSIDIES; EASTERN
SENATORS WANT MORE FOR CONSERVATION
BYLINE: Bill
Lambrecht Post-Dispatch Washington Bureau
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
BODY: The "Eggplant Caucus" is gathering recruits in a drive to upset the
congressional apple cart delivering billions of dollars to Midwestern
farmers.
The caucus is an alliance of Eastern senators
bent on reshaping the new farm bill to spread around the
government subsidies enjoyed primarily in the central and southern United
States.
But the debate is about more than just farming:
Decisions in the weeks ahead will determine how the government spends more than
$100 billion in taxpayers' money over the next five years and how far the nation
shifts toward conservation in its rural areas.
Backers
of the current subsidies program argue that shifting them could drive up food
prices.
But with the congressional session nearing an
end, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., the Eggplant leader, is rounding up colleagues
in the West and mountain states for a floor battle aimed at diverting some of
the subsidies that many Missouri and Illinois farmers enjoy.
The plan: dipping into that pot of money in order to pay farmers
anywhere in the country for protecting water and land and preserving open
space.
Congress already is aiming toward a greener farm bill. The Senate and House each has advanced versions that
include more than $3 billion for conservation.
But the
Eggplant rebellion aims to secure $5 billion in the name of protecting the
environment and giving taxpayers a better return for their ever-growing farm
subsidies -- and provide $750 million to support "specialty crops," like
eggplants, that are grown outside the Midwest.
Leahy
asserted last week that a strong partnership had sprouted between farmers and
environmentalists in the drive to change the subsidy system.
"We need to make future farm bills greener," he said,
adding that government conservation programs for farmers were "starved for
funding."
The pro-conservation efforts have provoked a
struggle over the nation's farm policy that has been waged largely out of the
public eye during the recent war on terrorism.
In the
Eggplant corner is a sagebrush senator, Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., who is
appealing to Western senators with incentives helping them deal with water and
grazing problems.
"What we're doing," said a spokesman
for Reid, Nathan Naylor, "is encouraging programs so that ranchers will have a
seat at the table with the giant agriculture conglomerates."
Meanwhile, Midwesterners are working to fend off an assault from both
sides of the country on a subsidy system with which they have grown
comfortable.
Dan Cassidy, the Missouri Farm Bureau's
national legislative director, likened the struggle to a 12-round heavyweight
fight.
"We're in about the 10th round now, and people
have been knocked down and are struggling to get back on their feet," he
said.
Subsidies questioned
The
final rounds will occur in the coming weeks as Congress completes the new farm bill, a five-year or perhaps even a 10-year program to
replace the so-called Freedom to Farm Bill.
The 1996 law, which expires next year, was designed to begin weaning
farmers from subsidies by loosening restrictions on what could be planted and
letting supply-and-demand market forces take hold.
But
much the opposite has occurred: The farm economy has spiraled downward amid
bumper crops, low prices and stagnant exports. And Congress has responded with
annual supplemental appropriations that have increased subsidies to their
highest amounts in history.
Even senators from
farm-rich states that partake bountifully say the present system can't be
sustained.
"We have to come to grips with reality,"
said Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill. "If we continue as we have over the last several
years with massive federal subsidies to agriculture, we're going to make the
problem worse. And we're not going to protect the farmers who are
struggling."
The subsidies in question were designed
during the Depression era to keep people on the farm by paying them the
difference when prices dipped beneath costs of production.
But they have evolved into a form of enduring welfare that benefits
many large-acre farms, tripling to $22 billion just since 1997 and raising
questions of equity.
The subsidies go to growers of
eight major crops -- corn, soybeans and rice among them -- leaving 60 percent of
farmers and ranchers without government checks. Two-thirds of these payments go
to 10 percent of America's farm operations.
Critics
assert that the system has gone awry. Instead of helping farmers truly in need,
as was intended, subsidies stimulate overproduction and perpetuate lower prices
that farmers are paid, they say.
Earlier this month,
the Environmental Working Group, a Washington-based environmental advocacy group
that is critical of the subsidy system, set off a buzz in the coffee shops of
rural America by compiling a list from government records of payments to
farmers.
In two weeks, more than 3 million people have
logged in to Environmental Working Group's Web site -- www.ewg.org -- to see how
their state, county and neighbor has fared as the government parceled out $71.5
billion in farm checks.
Illinois farm operations ($5.6
billion) are surpassed only by Iowa ($6.7 billion) and Texas ($6 billion) in the
amount of government subsidies received since 1996. Missouri ($2.6 billion)
ranked 10th, two spots above California ($2.2 billion).
Ken Cook, executive director of the Environmental Working Group,
contended that people unfamiliar with farm subsidies don't realize that "tax
dollars are paying for the demise of family farms. We're giving most of the
money to the big guys, and it makes it easier for them to buy out their smaller
neighbors."
The Missouri Farm Bureau's Cassidy did not
dispute the totals but argued that figures can be deceptive. He observed that
one farm down for receiving checks might in fact encompass several farms taking
in members of the same family.
"To make it seem as
though these people are doing something wrong and that this money is going to
the largest farms that are sticking it in the bank is something we would take
strong exception to," he said.
Steve Scates is part of
a farming operation in Southern Illinois that ranked second on the Illinois list
with nearly $2.9 million in subsidies in five years. Scates said that 13 people
-- four brothers, two sons and seven nephews -- participate in farming 12,000
acres of Scates Farms near Shawneetown.
Scates said he
doesn't believe critics understand how the subsidies work. "Nobody can deny that
some of the larger payments are a lot of money," he said. "But when you factor
it into the overall farming operation, it's not that much."
Sam Willett, the St. Louis-based National Corn Growers' director of
public policy, said people ought to keep in mind a larger picture.
"What's not mentioned is that Americans have some of the
lowest food prices in the world as a percentage of their income," he said.
"Farming is a tough business, and there are a lot of risks associated with
farming."
The portion of their income that Americans
pay for food has indeed declined -- to 12 percent from about 22 percent 50 years
ago, according to an Agriculture Department report this year.
But critics of subsidies say that the true cost of food is measured
more accurately if the cost to taxpayers of the billions of dollars in farm
subsidies is factored in.
Bill Christison, the western
Missouri farmer who heads the National Family Farm Coalition, contends that the
price consumers pay for food has little relationship to the price that farmers
receive for their products.
"The most efficient small
farmers can't break even when the cost of production is higher than the price
we're getting," he said.
Conservation remedies
In tackling the farm bill, the goal of
the would-be reformers is bold: converting a vehicle for supporting commodity
farmers into a means to alter rural land use.
They
would do so by expanding conservation programs that are expiring, overextended
or both. These programs pay farmers for taking land out of production,
protecting waterways and wetlands with buffer strips to stop runoff and in some
cases selling sensitive land to the government.
The
programs are popular among farmers: Missouri and Illinois rank in the top 10
states with farmers on waiting lists to enroll.
By
spelling out amounts of funding that states would receive, Leahy and Reid are
attempting to lure supporters from Pennsylvania, New York, Florida and other
large states that receive relatively small pieces of the farm subsidy pie. All
states would receive at least $15 million annually in conservation funding.
They also include a $750 million insurance program for
specialty crops -- which would include eggplants.
In
trying to protect subsidies for Midwestern farmers, their lobby groups have
argued that conservation programs would take land out of production at a time
when farm prices for corn and soybeans have plunged to their lowest levels in
generations.
"It is not our desire to see conservation
programs replace income support programs," these groups, among them the National
Corn Growers Association and the St. Louis-based American Soybean Association
wrote in a letter to House members.
The administration
of President George W. Bush weighed in during the debate by saying that more of
the subsidy money should be diverted to conservation, nutrition programs and
rural development.
But the administration may not play
a significant role. As one Senate Republican aide remarked, "With all due
respect, some of the last people consulted are in the White House. And then it's
more of a courtesy."
Scott Faber, a lawyer with the
advocacy group Environmental Defense, predicted a close vote when Leahy's plan
reaches the Senate floor as early as this week.
"Sixty-five to 70 senators will realize that their states get little or
nothing from a farm bill that continues these subsidies," he
said.
But changing a system may not be easy because of
what was described as "government inertia" by Chad Smith, an analyst with the
Food and Agriculture Policy Research Institute at Iowa State University.
"Once government programs are in place, it's more than
likely that they continue," he said.
GRAPHIC: GRAPHIC; (1) Graphic / Chart - Top farm subsidy
recipients in Missouri:; 1 Missouri Delta Farms Sikeston,
Mo. 63801 $14,987,438.57;2 Ddab
Farms Caruthersville,
Mo. 63830 $3,559,346.25;3 Colorado
Farms Chillicothe, Mo.
64601 $1,916,330.00;4 Level Land Farms
Bernie, Mo.
63822 $1,868,985.32;5
Heartland Farms Dexter, Mo.
63841 $1,780,358.43;6
Minton
Agco Dexter,
Mo. 63841
$1,728,754.95;7 Taylor Kelley Pyle Dexter, Mo.
63841
$1,542,582.11;8 Pierce
Farms Caruthersville,
Mo. 63830 $1,491,672.21;9 Campbell
Farms Cooter, Mo.
63839
$1,408,231.91;10 Bracey
Farms Portageville, Mo.
63873 $1,267,740.63;; (2) Graphic / Chart - Top farm
subsidy recipients in Illinois:; 1 Walker
Place Danville,
Ill. 61832 $5,682,950.02;2 Pat Scates &
Sons Shawneetown, Ill.
62984 $2,899,604.91;3 Valley View
Farm Saint Anne, Ill.
60964 $2,413,577.22;4 Sauk Valley
Farms Dixon, Ill.
61021 $1,967,587.61;5
Rubenacker Farms Dahlgren, Ill.
62828 $1,831,607.10;6 Dose Dose & Dose
Lostant, Ill.
61334 $1,751,091.15;7 Harbach Family
Ptn Warren, Ill.
61087 $1,712,232.06;8 University
Of Illinois Urbana, Ill.
61801 $1,685,102.75;9 Rlg
Farms Oregon,
Ill. 61061 $1,683,238.67;10 J P
Faivre Ptn Dekalb, Ill.
60115 $1,572,189.35;SOURCE: The
Environment Working Group Web site (www.ewg.org); ; (3) Graphic / Chart - Total
farm subsidy received by each state since 1996 (in millions).; 1.
Iowa $6.75;2.
Texas $5.99;3. Illinois
$5.63;4.
Kansas $4.60;5.
Nebraska $4.48;6. Minnesota $4.48; 7. N. Dakota $3.47; 8. Arkansas $2.82;9.
Indiana $2.74;10. Missouri $2.58; 11. S. Dakota
$2.51; 12. California $2.20; ; SOURCE: The Environment Working Group Web site
(www.ewg.org)
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