ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, February 8, 1996 TAG: 9602080081
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: Knight-Ridder/Tribune
The Senate voted Wednesday to uproot 60 years of farm policy, pruning crop subsidies in exchange for giving farmers new planting freedoms and seven years of guaranteed checks.
The ``Freedom to Farm'' bill, passed 64-32, was hailed by Republicans as a transition to the free market for American agriculture.
Both Virginia senators, Republican John Warner and Democrat Charles Robb, voted for it.
``Farmers will finally plant for the market and not the government,'' said Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, R-Kan. ``The government's going to get out of the supply-control business.''
Democrats applauded the new freedoms, but feared the Senate was recklessly removing a safety net that has kept farmers afloat in bad times. For now, crop prices are high. But what happens when they fall?
``I think we made a very tragic mistake,'' said Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota. ``I think it is a mistake that will come back to haunt us. I believe that we will be here in the not-too-distant future, addressing many of the deficiencies that this legislation represents.''
The yearlong Senate fight over the 1995 farm bill now moves to the House, which won't meet again until Feb. 26. Farmers already are angry about the delay. The bill is long overdue, spring planting is fast approaching and the uncertainty is causing them some headaches.
The Clinton administration has been chilly to the ``Freedom to Farm'' approach, but the Senate did make a few changes to make it more acceptable, including a new $300-million fund for rural development.
The bill would rewrite the traditional bargain the federal government has made with farmers since the 1930s.
Those old farm programs require farmers to restrict how much they grow in exchange for assuring them of a subsidy when crop prices are low.
The Senate's new approach erases that formula. Farmers with a history of growing wheat, corn, feed grains, rice or cotton would be guaranteed a specified-but-declining payment each of the next seven years. It doesn't matter if crop prices go up or down, nor what farmers plant, nor how much they grow. Whether they idle farmland or not, the annual checks still will arrive.
In fact, farmers could receive a check while planting nothing - a prospect that horrified some Democrats.
``Why should we be giving huge payments to people who may be sitting on Miami Beach?'' asked Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa. He added, ``If we're going to be handing out these big checks from the government, at least we ought to ask they work for it.''
But the Senate voted to give farmers maximum freedom with almost no restrictions. The only real requirements: Farmland must have been enrolled in a recent farm program and farmers must promise to follow conservation rules. The annual checks are called ``market transition payments,'' limited to $40,000 a person. Even with this guarantee, farmers have an incentive to continue farming because of the current high prices.
Republican supporters say Freedom to Farm will save taxpayers at least $12 billion over its seven-year lifetime - and probably more, given the long history of cost overruns in the farm program.
Critics say its reforms don't go far enough. Lucrative subsidies for sugar and peanut growers were scaled back but not eliminated. Those costs are reflected in consumer prices for products like peanut butter.
``The Senate showed it cared more about wealthy producers than average Americans,'' said Mark Epstein, president of Public Voice, a Washington-based consumer group. ``As a result, Americans will continue to pay dearly for sweetened products and those containing peanuts.''
Consumer groups did win one vote, when the Senate voted to kill a restrictive dairy plan that would have raised milk prices in New England. The House has yet to vote on its own controversial dairy plan that consumer groups say will raise milk prices nationwide.
LENGTH: Medium: 74 linesby CNB