14
1996 National Public Policy Education Conference
Chuck Hassebrook
program director,
Center for Rural Affairs;
co-chair, National Campaign
for Sustainable Agriculture;
vice chairman, Board of Regents,
University of Nebraska
A striking thing about the 1996 farm bill debate is that Pat Roberts
(R-Kan.) actually was able to increase payments to farmers at the same
time he was talking about getting government out of agriculture.
In addition, the new farm bill is going to increase payments during
a time when commodity prices are quite high. It then will move pay-
ments down about the time prices are likely to go down.
The real test of the bill will be what happens to farm income, to
the family farm and rural communities when that second phase kicks in.
In theory, farmers are supposed to be putting farm program payments
into savings now. In reality, landlords may be the only ones benefiting.
Implications
of the
1996 Farm Bill -
Comments
We’re already seeing movement from crop-share to cash rental
agreements, because landlords just want to put their money in the bank.
This, as well as the policy shift, is putting more risk on farmers.
The most positive thing for farmers in the new farm bill clearly is
the increase in planting flexibility. We’ve got a good number of people
out there continuous cropping, but many farmers want to do something
more creative. This gives them the opportunity.
The elimination of grain reserves was foolhardy. We learned in
Old Testament times that reserves are the long-sighted thing to do.
And Washington has to look more closely at how much money it
throws at the countryside...and why that money keeps depopulating
agriculture and helping rural towns die.
Federal policy subsidizes larger farms to go out and bid land away
from everybody else. You can see it in six-figure payments to big
farmers. You can see it in what’s happening with cash rents. You can
see it in land prices. It’s squeezing the smaller guys out of business.
Government needs to ask farmers—not commodity groups—what
they want. In almost every opinion poll, the option that gets most
support is to reduce payments to large farms and high income farmers.
This farm bill came close to ending any hope of coming up with a
farm bill that really supports family farming. We may get one last
chance in the next farm bill debate. But the handwriting is on the wall.
Fortunately, the new bill seems to continue the federal commit-
ment to long-time conservation and rural development efforts.
For the first time, mandatory spending authority was expanded to
include those issues. The new bill will improve the way conservation
programs work together and keep them targeted and flexible. It allows
USDA to help pay for innovations with strong conservation benefits,
even if the idea doesn’t fit an existing program. It provides more incen-
tive to focus the Conservation Reserve Program and allows for partial-
field enrollments for groundwater filter strips and wildlife habitat.
The bill’s provisions also allow for more citizen involvement.
States’ newly required conservation technical committee can’t just be
agency heads; it may end up being a “sleeper” for conservation efforts.
A lot of the $300 million mandated over a three-year period as the