Federal Farm Bill Conflict Stirs Anxiety, Muddies Crop Planning

Even as record cold grips the nation’s heartland, farmers are busy preparing the paperwork for their spring planting. But with loans to secure, seeds to order and fertilizer to buy, one critical document is missing from the farmers’ dossiers: the federal farm bill.

The legislation remains unsettled five months after its expected completion date--and the end is not yet in sight. The measure is to come before the Senate today and the House later this month, but even then, approval is far from certain for legislation that has riven Republican ranks and drawn a veto threat from President Clinton.

Renegotiated and approved by Congress every five years, the farm bill contains virtually all federal farm price supports and related programs. Until farmers know the shape and size of those programs, they cannot make intelligent decisions about the types and quantities of crops to plant.

The delay this season has raised anxiety among the nation’s 2 million farmers, and has thrown this year’s crop planning into disarray. Farmers fear that they, not politicians, will pay the price.

“It’s really just a guessing game--trying to decide what to plant--and farmers here are not at all happy about it,” says Gene Hall, spokesman for the Texas Farm Bureau. “Congress has had essentially five years to think about what this year’s farm bill would be. It’s not like they haven’t had time to do it. They’re really abdicating their responsibility, and the farmer is the one left out on the limb.”

Farmers also are riled over Republican proposals to end most crop subsidies permanently in seven years, although many say that at this point, they would prefer to face the certain end of federal aid than to continue living with the uncertainty of continued political wrangling.

“It’s a real dilemma,” says Bobby Sparks, who farms 9,000 acres of cotton, grain sorghum and corn in South Texas. “They’re at a stalemate, and someone’s going to have to give in, and nobody wants to. . . . We’d just like to know. Tell us what it’s going to be.”

Even if the Senate passes its version quickly, farmers still have a long wait before the House takes up the measure. The bill is tied up in procedural disputes in the House Rules Committee, and House lawmakers adjourned late last week, not to return to Washington until the end of this month. By then, planting in southern states like Texas will be well underway.

The bill has become more than just another flash point in relations between the president and Congress. In states such as Iowa and New Hampshire with early presidential preference balloting, presidential contenders Bob Dole (R-Kan.), Phil Gramm (R-Texas) and Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.)--all members of the Senate who have been active in shaping the bill--have jostled for support by proclaiming their devotion to farm issues.

For front-runner Dole, in particular, the farm bill poses a difficult test. Pointing to his position as Senate majority leader, Dole regularly bills himself as a candidate who can “get things done.”

But by Monday, it was still not clear how he was going to forge a compromise among feuding factions in the Senate. In a procedural vote early last week, Dole failed to quash opposition to a compromise of his own making, pushing the Senate action into this week.

Debate over the bill also has tested the will of congressional Republicans to deliver the sweeping overhaul of federal spending programs they promised. Many have questioned whether even the ambitious 104th Congress could go against the wishes of rural constituencies and dismantle an entrenched system of subsidy programs for farmers.

For now, at least, bills moving through both the House and Senate would replace the existing system of “deficiency payments” that subsidize producers of wheat, feed grains and cotton when the market prices of those commodities drop below specified levels.

Those fluctuating payments would be replaced by a system that would phase out most crop subsidies over seven years. Farmers would receive fixed but declining payments over those seven years, regardless of market conditions.