Seeds of a Lift for N.J. Farmers
Gloucester County Times, October 22, 2007

WASHINGTON With debate on more than $280 billion in farm payments about to begin, U.S. Sens. Frank Lautenberg and Richard Lugar are trying to drum up support for a bill that would target more federal money to more states and fund growers of specialty crops like fruits and vegetables.

The two senators also want Uncle Sam to refrain from providing taxpayer-funded windfalls to growers of more traditional crops like corn, cotton and rice when prices are relatively high and federal subsidies may not be warranted by economic conditions.

Lautenberg, D-N.J., and Lugar, R-Ind., have drafted a plan that would increase payments to growers in New Jersey, and for rural development and conservation programs as well, by an estimated $230 million over five years.

Their proposal also would produce increased funding for farmers and rural communities in 33 other states. But 16 others, including Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska and North Dakota, would lose money.

"The current farm bill is an antiquated system of giant payments to a handful of farms, while ignoring the needs of most American farmers," Lautenberg said in a statement.

"The farm bill, as it stands, is bad policy," Lautenberg added. "It increases our fiscal deficits and fails to provide a safety net for most farmers."

Under current law, the federal government concentrates its subsidies on five staple crops: corn, cotton, soybeans, wheat and rice.

Growers of fruits and vegetables, tree nuts and nursery crops are not eligible for income support payments from Uncle Sam. Worse, according to Lautenberg and Lugar, the government guarantees payments to farmers of the major crops regardless of whether commodity values are high or low.

The system each year concentrates $5 billion in taxpayer dollars in a few states and rewards large agribusinesses for the overproduction of foodstuffs they cannot sell, according to the Environmental Working Group.

If Congress were simply to renew the existing farm bill for another five years, according to figures provided by Lautenberg's office, Texas would receive $34.5 billion in commodity payments, rural development funds and conservation money between now and fiscal 2012.

California, the nation's top agricultural state, would get $23.8 billion. New York would receive $20 billion, Illinois $17.5 billion and Florida $16.4 billion.

New Jersey, by comparison, would receive relatively little: $4.1 billion over five years.

Growers in the Garden State received only $109 million in crop payments over the decade from 1995 to 2005, according to a database compiled by the Environmental Working Group. Conservation and rural-development funds authorized by the farm bill are more important to New Jersey than crop payments.
Under the change envisioned by Lautenberg and Lugar, the state's five-year total would approximate something like $4.34 billion, an increase of 7 percent.

Although New Jersey is the nation's most densely populated state, it is still an agricultural workhorse.

New Jersey growers in 2006 ranked second in the country for the production of blueberries, third for the production of bell peppers and cranberries, and fourth in the production of lettuce and peaches, according to the New Jersey Department of Agriculture.
Most of the 9,800 farms in New Jersey, more than 96 percent, are unusually small: They are composed of 499 acres or fewer, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service.
New Jersey farmers control about 810,000 acres in the state, or 17 percent of its land mass.

They earned about $765 million in positive income last year. The state's top farm products include trees, flowers and plants from nurseries; horses; blueberries; dairy products; and eggs.

Senate officials could help New Jersey by changing federal law simply to make farms in the state eligible for more rural development and conservation funding, says Charles M. Kuperus, New Jersey Secretary of Agriculture.

Under current law and practice, New Jersey communities are considered part of either the Philadelphia or New York metropolitan areas. Being lumped into urban markets prevents rural communities in the state from qualifying for the full range of conservation and rural development money authorized in the farm bill.

"That's not only a New Jersey issue. That hits many parts of the country," Kuperus stated.
Lautenberg and Lugar would authorize $6 billion in new conservation spending over five years. Their overall proposal would shave $3 billion from the five-year cost of the legislation.

"Their bill will be re-directing some money to things that I think are a better investment of taxpayer resources, and would put forth a policy that would actually be providing a real safety net instead of having payments go out to the wealthiest farmers, whether they need it or not," said John Frydenlund, an agriculture policy expert with Citizens Against Government Waste.

Lautenberg and Lugar want to replace a New Deal-era system of price supports with a new farm insurance system.

They would offer safety net insurance payments to farmers only when their income fell below a locally calculated five-year average. The two senators would charge no premiums, and growers would face no out-of-pocket expenses for the new program.

But change is hard to come by when it comes to federal farm policy.

The House passed a five-year, $286 billion farm bill on July 27. Six Republicans in the New Jersey congressional delegation, including U.S. Rep. Frank LoBiondo, voted against the measure.

House critics claimed that the bill did little but guarantee continued payments to oversubsidized growers of corn, cotton, soybean, wheat and rice. LoBiondo, R-2nd Dist., blasted the bill when it passed.

The House also nixed a reform-minded amendment, 117-309, that would have spread federal subsidies more broadly among the states and directed funds to growers of specialty crops.

U.S. Rep. Ron Kind, D-Wisc., had the support of 11 out of 13 lawmakers from New Jersey. But he could not overcome opposition from lawmakers in California, Texas and the Midwest.

U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin, an Iowa Democrat and chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, plans to launch debate on his draft of the farm bill next week.

Lautenberg and Lugar aren't going to bother with their amendment in the Senate panel, which is dominated by farm-state lawmakers opposed to significant change. They plan to offer their bill as an amendment on the Senate floor. They contend it should earn broad support because it would spread federal revenue more evenly to every state.

"Our bill provides a safety net to farmers in New Jersey and across the nation, regardless of what they grow or where they farm. It ensures stable incomes, even in bad years, reduces our deficit and frees up money for conservation, nutrition and harvesting local crops like fruits and vegetables," Lautenberg said.