Urges ‘Reasonable’ Farm Price-Support Legislation : Block Threatens to Revive Parity Plans

Secretary of Agriculture John R. Block is threatening to reinstate expensive farm “parity” programs if Congress does not pass “reasonable” legislation to replace current price-support programs, which expire this fall.

In an interview, Block acknowledged that reverting to the parity system, which has been suspended for more than two decades, would be “miserable.” But he suggested that President Reagan might veto any bill that did not replace current price-support programs with something like the Administration’s “market-oriented” plan to phase out all subsidies by 1990.

“I have already instructed Undersecretary (Daniel G.) Amstutz to make all the preparations to go to the (old programs) if we fail to get reasonable legislation this year,” Block said. Failure to come up with a new bill would result in automatic reinstatement of the suspended programs.

Guaranteed Income

Under the parity laws of 1933, 1949 and 1954, government-supported prices are set high enough to give farmers a guaranteed level of income by ensuring “parity” between the price a farmer receives for crops and the amount of his expenses.

For example, price supports for wheat now would be set at 50% to 90% of parity, raising the price per bushel 40 to 50 cents above current prices, Eugene Moos, a top aide to Democrats on the House Agriculture Committee, said. The 1910-14 ratio between prices paid and received is used as the parity benchmark.

An Agriculture Department study estimates that, under the old programs, government subsidies would soar by 1990 to $50 billion a year from the current $14 billion; food prices would jump by $20 billion; inflation and interest rates would rise, and crop exports would plunge by one-third.

Stiff Resistance

Block’s threat, issued amid stiff congressional resistance to the Administration’s farm proposals, was dismissed as not serious Friday by key members of Congress and officials of farming organizations.

“That’s nuts, but then so much of what the Administration has been doing lately is nuts,” said Sen. Mark Andrews (R-N.D.), a wheat-farming member of the Senate Agriculture and Budget committees.

Andrews said he personally would not mind returning to the old programs because they would give credit-strapped farmers a much-needed income boost. But he said it is foolish to think that the Administration would swallow huge subsidy increases if it did not get its way on subsidy cuts.

“Instead of adopting this ridiculous dog-in-the-manger attitude, he (Block) ought to be out making compromises on a new program that works,” Andrews said. “If the Administration wants to continue to play Marie Antoinette economics with the farm program--giving everything to the military buildup and nothing for human food--they are going to wind up with nothing.”

‘Bad Old Days’

California Rep. George E. Brown Jr. (D-Riverside), an influential member of the House Agriculture Committee, called Block’s threat “the hollowest threat he’s ever made. . . . It would take us back,” he said with a laugh, “to the bad old days of Democratic socialism.”

Brown added that he would support the Administration’s phase-out of price supports if its farm package also provided for loan assistance to debt-ridden small farmers.

Robert Mullens, a lobbyist for the National Farmers Union, said that many farmers would welcome a return to the old price-support programs because “we’ll do anything to get more income.” However, he too called Block’s threat hollow.

He predicted that if Congress cannot come up with a new farm bill by the Oct. 1 deadline, it will renew current programs for a year.