Farm bill gets OK by panel
$286b Senate measure split between ag, social welfare priorities.
By Michael Doyle / Bee Washington Bureau
10/25/07 23:04:50


WASHINGTON -- Farmers and poor folks are uneasy partners in the farm bill approved Thursday by a Senate committee.

The farmers get subsidies and new payments. The poor, including some 2 million California residents currently receiving food stamps, get somewhat easier access to benefits.

"It makes a difference between a family going hungry, or not," said Ana Pagan, director of the Merced County Human Services Agency.

But the Senate's farm bill, spanning some 1,300 pages, also reflects competition between its agricultural and its social welfare priorities. The bill's nutrition and rural development sections total 275 pages. The crop subsidy section totals 278 pages.

The corresponding verbiage matters in places like the San Joaquin Valley, where poverty and unemployment force reliance on federal programs funded through the farm bill.

The Senate bill, for instance, increases the deductions that families can take when determining food stamp eligibility. It allows low-income families to have more savings and still remain eligible. It doubles from three months to six the length of time an unemployed person can receive food stamps during a three-year period.

"What we're dealing with, quite often, is a working family that has two or three jobs, and that still can't make it," Pagan said. "With the food stamps, they get a little bit of an edge."

Approved on a voice vote early Thursday afternoon by the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee, the farm bill costs about $286 billion over five years. Nutrition programs, especially food stamps, account for more than two-thirds of the total.

Traditional crop subsidies, by contrast, claim only about 12% of the bill's total spending. The rest goes to conservation, rural development and miscellany.

The crop subsidies for cotton, rice, wheat and corn growers remain largely unchanged under the Senate bill. Specialty crop spending would reach upward of $2 billion, a record amount for the traditionally unsubsidized fruit and vegetable growers.

Exemplifying the slick maneuvers that farm bills often invite, catfish farmers sought at the last minute Thursday to make aquaculture eligible for millions of dollars in specialty crop funding. They failed.

"I don't blame them," said Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., who successfully resisted the aquaculture effort. "They saw some dollars, and so they wanted to include fish farms as part of fruits and vegetables."

Specialty crop producers were less pleased with some other committee decisions, including budget scorekeeping that could reduce future fruit and vegetable funding. The debate will continue on the Senate floor, where the combination of subsidy and charity traditionally eases the farm bill's passage.

Urban lawmakers who might otherwise be cool to agriculture are acutely aware of the 26 million U.S. residents receiving food stamps annually, and the many others receiving free breakfast, snacks and school lunches through the Agriculture Department.

"A lot of the political support for the farm bill comes from this huge constituency," said Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind.

On Wednesday, nonetheless, Lugar lost 18-3 when he tried to steer money from crop subsidies into better food stamp benefits. The vote reflected traditional agribusiness strength in the committee that writes the bill.

"If we start taking apart this thing piece by piece, then maybe we wouldn't have a farm bill," cautioned Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn.

Consequently, the Senate bill does not raise general food stamp payments. In the Valley, these can amount to as much as $518 a month for a family of four. The bill does nudge the minimum benefit to $12 a month, up from the current $10 minimum set years ago.

The Senate bill specifies that the $225-a-month combat pay bonuses paid to members of the U.S. military serving in Iraq won't count toward determining food stamp eligibility. The United States wasn't occupying Iraq when the last farm bill was written, in 2002.

The food stamp program itself would be renamed the food and nutrition program, reflecting the disappearance of paper food stamps.
The reporter can be reached at mdoyle @mcclatchydc.com or (202)383-0006.

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