Kansas farmers testify in favour of farm subsidies

Kansas wheat farmer Mark Meisinger admits he doesn't like the fact that he and most Kansas farmers have to take government payments to sustain the farm. They'd rather the products they produce support their farm income, he said. "Unfortunately, in today's farm economy, that is not consistent or reliable enough to maintain financially sound farms without federal support," he told a Congressional sub-committee. Meisinger was one of several testify about what they would like to see in the 2007 Farm Bill.

However, ranking committee member Jerry Moran, R-Kan., said with 58 percent less money in the budget for the program's commodity title than in 2002, it would be tough to meet the needs of producers. "There is simply not the dollars to do the types of things many farmers are asking for," Moran said after the two-hour hearing at Kansas State University Salina.

Congress already has begun drafting the bill, set to expire in September, and Moran and his committee will begin marking up the commodity portion of the bill in the next two weeks, with hope to have a farm bill completed before the August recess. Of the $180 billion total bill, little actually goes to the commodity programs such as corn and wheat that most Americans associate with the farm bill.

But as debate continues, there is pressure to uproot current farm policy. Environmentalists, specialty-crop producers who don't receive government checks, urban congressmen and the World Trade Organization continue to increase demands that the United States rein in agriculture spending.

Some Farm Belt leaders say many family farmers wouldn't be in business today without commodity programs.K-State Agriculture Economist Troy Dumler testified that subsidies make up about 60 percent of Kansas farmers' net farm income. And of the state's 64,000 farms, more than 39,000 receive income support payments, according to the 2002 U.S. Census of Agriculture. That aid trickles to the family grocer, hardware store, pharmacy and lumberyard, testified Hugoton farmer Steve Rome.

Though the booming ethanol industry is driving up prices, developing farm policy on the notion crop prices will remain high would be a mistake. "We have to keep a safety net in place to deal with the risk of lower prices," he said.

Farmer John Pracht said a safety net also needed to be in place to deal with disasters like drought and flood. "With so much money invested in farming today, one bad year can bankrupt a producer," he said. He also said talk in Congress to do away with direct payments, or move more money allotted for the program into conservation and food components, would hurt producers.

Reno County farmer Jim French, the lead organizer for OxFam America, a group aimed at fighting global poverty, is for a program that doesn't continue trade-distorting payments that encourage farm consolidation and overproduction - making the farm bill more compliant with policies of the WTO. He and other Oxfam leaders have often said the current farm policy fuels overproduction of crops like cotton and hurts prices in developing countries.

Hutch News