Lean Times, Fat Farm Bill

Heeding the old siren song of saving the family farm, the U.S. House has taken a bloated farm subsidy program and voted to make it much worse. The cost to taxpayers, in a faltering economy, would be an additional $73 billion over the next 10 years. The percentage increase would be higher than any other significant program, including defense. The travesty is magnified by the House’s separate action last week rejecting a proposal to shift $1.9 billion a year from handouts to vital farm and ranch conservation programs.

It is up to the Senate to bring some sense of proportion and purpose back to the farm subsidy program or stop it in its tracks.

What should be shocking to Californians is that only one of the state’s 20 Republican House members, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher of Huntington Beach, supported the bipartisan conservation program. Three of the state’s 32 Democrats voted against it--Reps. Calvin M. Dooley of Visalia, Gary A. Condit of Ceres and Joe Baca of Rialto. The amendment failed in the House by only 18 votes.

The conservation amendment was especially important to California in that it would have provided support to farmers and ranchers to fight urban sprawl, reduce pesticide use, restore wildlife habitat and reduce pollution caused by the runoff of farm waste and used irrigation water. Even groups that normally are foes, such as the Water Environment Federation and the Assn. of California Water Agencies, were united behind the amendment.

The Californians who opposed the amendment not only ignored state farmers’ interests, they voted to support farmers in the Midwest and Texas, where the bulk of crop subsidies goes, mostly for grains and cotton. California is by far the largest agricultural state, but its farmers got only two cents on each dollar of product income in 1998 and 1999, compared with 20 cents in Midwest farm states.

Beware of the claims that fat subsidies are saving family farms. Consider California rice farmers, who do qualify for heavy subsidies. The Sacramento Bee reported recently that most of the state’s $480 million in rice subsidies went to large extended-family partnerships. Nineteen received more than $1 million in 1999-2000, and 93 others got between $500,000 and $1 million, the Bee reported. These are not traditional family farms.

“The market doesn’t pay us enough to stay in business,” one rice-growing recipient said, defending the federal dole. But other farmers who faced similar market problems successfully switched to profitable crops.

Congress should be helping farmers reduce dependence on federal handouts and make their lands more profitable and sustainable. The House failed on all counts, so it is up to the Senate to change course.