Looks like Sessions needs this farm bill. Likely having to cut deals for support on it. Looks like we'll have to give up our sovereignty for farmer's to be on welfare. Hold another concert Willie!

http://www.al.com/news/mobileregister/i ... xml&coll=3

On farm programs, Alfa hoping to preserve status quo

Friday, March 16, 2007
By SEAN REILLY
Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- Five years ago, Congress passed what was then described as the most generous farm aid bill in history.

Lawmakers are just beginning to draft its successor and, not surprisingly, members of the Alabama Farmers Federation want to keep things pretty much as they are.

"It was basically a good bill," Art Sessions, a Grand Bay cotton and peanut farmer, said Thursday. "I think to get it continued would probably be the best thing."

Sessions was among some 230 farmers and spouses -- including 18 from Mobile and Baldwin counties -- who joined the annual trek to the nation's capital to drive home that point to legislators. After arriving in Washington on Tuesday, they were scheduled to return to Alabama today.

"There's a lot of talk about cutting the funding ..." federation President Jerry Newby said at a Thursday lunch that featured both U.S. Sens. Jeff Sessions, R-Mobile, and Richard Shelby, R-Tuscaloosa. "Let me tell you, the commodity part of that farm bill is very important to us on the farm."

The existing law expires at the end of September. Although lawmakers hope to approve a replacement by then, the dickering could easily slip into overtime, as happened in 2002.

Newby's family farm operation in north Alabama's Limestone County regularly ranks among the state's top subsidy recipients. He opposes a Bush administration proposal to cut off commodity payments for producers who have an adjusted gross income of $200,000 or more. The current threshold is $2.5 million.

The costs of equipment, such as cotton pickers and tractors, are such "that there's no way you can pay for it" under the administration's plan, Newby said in a Wednesday interview. "We all have concerns about that." In addition, he pointed to rising energy prices, which affect the cost of everything from diesel fuel to fertilizer.

The White House proposal would also shave several billion dollars from marketing and direct-payment programs in coming years, while adding money for conservation and renewable energy research.

How far that draft will get in Congress, however, is an open question.

Farm organizations are among the nation's most influential special-interest groups. In last year's elections, the Alabama federation alone poured more than $2 million into state and congressional races, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington, D.C., research group.

After meeting with south Alabama farmers Thursday morning, U.S. Rep. Jo Bonner, a Mobile Republican and a member of the House Agriculture Committee, voiced doubt that the administration's plan would pass intact.

The previous day, the committee's chairman, U.S. Rep. Collin Peterson, D-Minn., told the Alabama contingent that his main focus in crafting a new six-year bill would be maintaining "the safety net."

Besides setting subsidies for growers, the legislation usually guides policy on food stamps, agricultural trade and rural development programs.

The subsidy framework has its roots the 1930s, when the Great Depression forced crop prices so low that many farmers lost their land.

Nowadays, defenders argue that the program is designed to help growers pay their bills, not guarantee them a profit. Other countries subsidize their farmers, they add.

Critics counter that the overall result is overproduction, big bills for taxpayers and help for people who in some cases don't need it.

The 2002 legislation represented an about-face by Republicans, who had earlier sought to coax farmers off their dependence on government checks. Not only did lawmakers retreat from free-market principles, but they added subsidies for growers of crops, such as lentils, which had not received them in the past.

Largely because of higher prices for corn and other commodities, the cost of the 2002 bill will be around $93 billion over six years, according to a recent estimate by the Congressional Research Service. That's down significantly from the original projection of almost $115 billion.

Still, in 2005, the last year for which numbers are available, Alabama farmers and other landowners collected more than $241 million, or close to five times what they received a decade earlier, according to government data compiled by the Environmental Working Group, a Washington, D.C., watchdog group critical of the existing system.

Among the smaller recipients: dog-track owner Milton McGregor, who received almost $27,000 in commodity and conservation subsidies for property he owns in central Alabama's Macon County, the database shows.

The subsidy issue is a sensitive one for farmers, who say they would prefer to be independent but often need government assistance to survive financially.

"We've got the best and cheapest food supply in the world," Art Sessions said, "and we need federal support to help keep it."



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