Senate Agriculture Committee takes up Farm Bill with subsidy programs mostly unchanged

The wait is almost over. This morning, Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa (at right in a New York Times photo), the chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, presented his version of the five-year Farm Bill to the committee so it can work on the legislation and get it to the full Senate.

In his opening remarks, which can be found (along with those from ranking committee member, Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga.) at Agriculture Online, Harkin said, "Overall, this new farm bill will be good for farmers, good for rural communities and good for the environment. It will promote the health as well as the energy security of the American people. And, as I said, it does all this within a strict budget allocation and pay-as-you-go budget rules." He highlighted the bill's expansion of Food Stamp benefits, its $1.1 billion investment in farm-based energy and its rural development title that provides almost half a billion dollars for economic development.

In an interview with The New York Times yesterday, however, Harkin said he had hoped for more from the bill, specifically changes to farm subsidies. Harkin had said for months that an overhaul of subsidies was needed, especially when it comes to commodity payments to large farm operations. Those changes did not materialize in this draft of the five-year, $288 billion Farm Bill. Reporter David M. Herszenhorn explains:

Mr. Harkin had proposed a $4.5 billion cut in the so-called direct payments to farmers of corn, soybeans, cotton and other major crops. These payments, totaling more than $5 billion a year, are made even when farmers are earning sizable profits. But the farm bill contains no such cut. Instead, Mr. Harkin succeeded in writing into the bill an optional revenue-protection program that he said could save roughly $3.5 billion a year if farmers now receiving relatively small benefits choose longer-term protection instead.

Harkin told Herszenhorn, "Everything is a compromise. In agriculture you don’t make sharp turns, but I do try to bend the rails a bit.” To read the bill, amendments and other information on the committee Web site, click here.

The bill should pass through committee with few changes, but that might not be the case when it comes before the entire Senate, according to Sen. Richard G. Lugar, R-Ind., who has proposed an alternative that would end subsidies altogether. Most say that plan, which is co-sponsored by Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., has little chance of passing. (Read more)