An Even Better Farm Bill
The New York Times, New York, New York
May 28, 2007

For years, reform-minded legislators have been trying to rid the country of a farm subsidy program that lavishes huge amounts of money on relatively few producers, compromises the environment, penalizes third-world farmers and fouls up trade negotiations. With the farm bill set to expire this year, the Bush administration has already proposed several excellent reforms. Now legislators in both houses are offering another approach that actually improves on the administration's.

The architects are respected farm-state legislators, led by the Senate's Richard Lugar, an Indiana Republican, and the House's Ron Kind, a Wisconsin Democrat. Their matching bills threaten entrenched interests, and that is exactly why they deserve a close look and wide support.

At the heart of their approach is an overhaul of agricultural subsidies. Four major subsidy programs -- crafted to reward big growers of traditional crops like corn, wheat and soybeans -- would be phased out and replaced by a single ''risk-management account'' whose main purpose would be to cushion farmers from annual price swings. Crop insurance would still be available for major disasters.

The estimated savings -- $55 billion over 10 years -- would be used to expand rural conservation programs, encourage the production of renewable biofuels, provide more money for food stamps and help smaller farmers of specialty crops who are now frozen out of the system.

One reason the bill faces uphill sledding is that it did not originate in the House and Senate agriculture committees, with their cozy ties to big agriculture. Their lack of enthusiasm helped scuttle the administration's efforts to reform the subsidy system five years ago.

But with so much at stake -- energy, conservation, rural development, the health of smaller farms and fair trade -- and with the administration and influential centrists demanding reform, the full House and Senate should pay attention even if the committees do not.