A Hoosier Farmer Calls for Reform
Senator Lugar's long fight to change agriculture policy
U.S. News & World Report
June 10, 2007

Every five or so years for the past three decades, whenever Washington takes up the convoluted set of laws governing American farming, Republican Sen. Richard Lugar has embarked on something of a quixotic mission. The mild-mannered Hoosier introduces legislation and lobbies colleagues in an effort to rethink a government support system dating to the Great Depression and wean American agriculture from multibillion-dollar subsidies. "The system," he says, "has not been gauged with any degree of equity." Lugar, a farmer for over 50 years who still owns 604 acres of black walnut trees, grew up learning to take risks and not rely on government safety nets. Trying to translate that attitude into government farm policy, though, has been one long, lonely, and often unsatisfying endeavor. Still, he's not giving up.

Indiana Sen. Richard Lugar has been a major player in farm policy debates on Capitol Hill, as well as a former chair of the Foreign Relations Committee.

In fact, as debate begins on a 2007 farm bill, Lugar is once again fighting what he considers the good fight. The obstacles are daunting; the Big Agriculture lobby fights hard, and Capitol Hill inertia has often thwarted the type of broad reforms Lugar has sought. There are any number of reasons this year, though, that Lugar might make progress: He has new allies, the Bush administration wants changes, budget deficits may curb new spending, and the subsidies have become a thorn in the side of international trade negotiations.

Farm bills have remained fundamentally the same for decades; the original idea was to provide government support in tough times for farmers of certain crops: corn, wheat, soybeans, cotton, and rice. "By the time I came to the Senate in 1976," Lugar says, "there was still a very heavy overlay of the New Deal farm program." The bill has also come to encompass conservation and food stamp programs. The economic situation improved after the Depression, but the appeal of protecting the iconic struggling family farm against uncertainties like bad weather remained. As farming changed, though, some believe the policy went awry. According to the Environmental Working Group, a Washington nonprofit that advocates for reform, 10 percent of farmers received nearly three quarters of the subsidies between 1995 and 2005. Most of that money goes to large and wealthy farms, and two thirds of farmers do not receive any payments because they don't produce commodity crops like wheat.

Constituents. Over the years, the status quo has gathered a healthy constituency. Charles Stenholm, a former Texas representative who has worked on eight farm bills and now lobbies on them, says farm policy traditionally has been a matter for a handful of congressmen on the agriculture committees, a few large farm industry groups, and the Agriculture Department. And when billions of dollars are involved for farmers, says Cal Dooley, a former California representative and lobbyist for food processors, "they're going to do everything they can to receive that payment."

Despite that, Lugar, starting in the late 1970s, began to fight the subsidies. His biggest accomplishment may have been helping to push along a bill in 1996 nicknamed "Freedom to Farm" while he was chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee. The bill's idea was to lessen the hold of commodity crop subsidies and give farmers more choice in what they plant. Back then, Lugar was helped, no doubt, by the budget-slashing atmosphere of the Republican leadership. Trouble was that two years later, crop prices tanked and Congress reverted to its old plan, with earmarked subsidies. Lugar tried again on the 2002 farm bill and failed; the government has spent $73 billion in subsidies in the past five years.

Lugar's proposal this year, crafted with House counterpart Ron Kind, a Wisconsin Democrat, would gradually phase out the subsidy programs and replace them with a new system of savings accounts and insurance programs that would help when farm income is low. Lugar estimates that the bill would save $20 billion by 2012; that cash would then be invested in conservation, nutritional programs, renewable energy, and debt relief.

If Lugar gets his way or at least pushes the eventual legislation in his direction, one reason could be his bumper crop of new allies. "It's been difficult for Lugar to generate enough allies to really change ways," says Clayton Yeutter, who served as secretary of agriculture from 1989 to 1991. But in the past two years, a wide variety of groups have come together seeking reform of the farm bill: including Club for Growth on the conservative side and Oxfam and Bread for the World on the liberal side. They're loosely organized as the Alliance for a Sensible Agriculture Policy, and they have roughly $12 million in backing. Add in outside proposals from former Sens. Bob Dole and Tom Daschle to cut subsidies and a plan from Citigroup for voluntary buyouts for farmers, and traditional farming interests will be tested this year. "There does need to be some change—some reform, not wholesale," says Charles Conner, the Agriculture Department's No. 2 and an ex-Lugar aide.

So far, the debate has been confined to the congressional agriculture committees. Collin Peterson, the House committee chairman, says there will be few changes. "We're going to put together a bill," he says, "that gives farmers an adequate safety net." Peterson calls a Lugar-type proposal a "nonstarter" so far. And Bob Stallman, head of the American Farm Bureau, isn't expecting anything revolutionary. "When you get down to the basic politics, you have a very strong group of core people," he says. "They're going to be paying attention to the agriculture concerns in their districts." But that attitude has the reformists spoiling for a fight, once the full House and Senate take up the legislation. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office says the debate will be an open process, which could last well into the fall. Richard Lugar intends to be there fighting every step of the way.