Urbana Daily Citizen - "Farm Bill passes in Senate to mixed sentiment from locals"

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Urbana Daily Citizen - "Farm Bill passes in Senate to mixed sentiment from locals"

After months of wrangling, the U.S. Senate passed a five-year, $307 billion farm bill Thursday with a vote of 81-15, less than 24 hours after the U.S. House of Representatives passed the bill, 318-106.

Local opinions on the bill were divided, but leaders of both the House and Senate expect to be able to override President George W. Bush's anticipated veto of the bill.

Jason Dagger, organization director for the Ohio Farm Bureau for Champaign, Clark and Madison counties, said the bill was long overdue, as the 2002 Farm Bill expired in September of 2007.

"We could have had this done before Christmas, but politics definitely played into it," he said. "We've got enough votes to override the veto, and that sounds good."

U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan, of Urbana, said he voted against the bill because it contained earmarks and inflated spending on programs that are not farm-related, such as food stamps.

"I understand how important agriculture is to Ohio and to our country and that farmers need a safety net," Jordan said Thursday. "I can't support big earmarks like the one for one timber company in Montana and the one the Speaker (of the House, U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.) inserted for the fishing industry. The other problem is that 75 percent of the bill does not deal with farms. The nutrition title for expanding food stamps is huge, with a slightly over $10 billion increase."

Jordan said he spoke to local farmers who wanted a more market-driven approach to subsidies.

"This bill was going in the opposite direction," he said.

U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, (D-Ohio), speaking in a teleconference with media representatives during the vote Thursday, said he supported the bill increasing the level of funding for food stamps due to high grocery prices, but also voted for it because it incorporated his proposal for the Average Crop Revenue Election (ACRE) program, expanding the safety net for farmers.

"It would initially have saved more money (by taking funding from direct payments), but the crop insurance people weighed in heavy," Brown said.

Brown noted that he was pleased the bill lowered the cap on direct payments based on farmer income.

The former bill limited farmers earning more than $2.5 million annually from receiving subsidies, and the new farm bill lowered the cap to $750,000.

Brown said he agreed with President Bush that the cap should be lowered to $250,000.

"This bill is far from perfect and that's one of the most imperfect parts of it," he said. "We made some major advances, but didn't go as far as we should have."

Brown, the first Ohioan to serve on the Senate Agriculture Committee in 40 years, said Ohio agriculture is still rooted in family farms, unlike the corporate culture of some other regions of the country where "factory farming" of commodities is predominant.

"Cotton and rice had too much influence," Brown said. "I wasn't pleased with that part of the effort."

Dagger said the lowering of the cap on income for subsidies won't affect local farmers, to his knowledge.

"The sticking point there was peanut and cotton growers in the South," Dagger said. "It affects them much more than it does local producers. We have very few, if any, farmers affected by that cap."

Brown said he was also supportive of the expansion of conservation and environmental programs in the bill, including provisions for renewable energy research and development.

"Locally, we won pretty good," Dagger said. "The legislators added some incentives for the conservation programs and maintained a safety net for farmers, and with the high input prices, the safety net is more important now than ever."

Rapidly-fluctuating market and weather conditions can mean great profits one year and a bust the next, Dagger noted.

Brown said rural community development programs also got a boost, including funding for grants and loans that will go to infrastructure improvements.

Champaign County's sewer task force identified several areas where failing septic systems have caused threats to ground water and public safety earlier this year. Brown said it's not a unique issue in Ohio.

"I'm hearing from so many communities about water and sewer issues," he said. "We're spending millions of dollars in Iraq on water and infrastructure projects, but not in Urbana and Bryan and Perrysburg."

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