Lugar plan called too drastic for agriculture
Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, November 1, 2007

Paying owners of agriculture acres, even those who don’t farm the land, “has got to be stopped,” the chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee said Wednesday.

But Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, said the idea of replacing the current crop subsidies that go to fewer than half of U.S. farms with a program that insures up to 85 percent of any farmer’s income – proposed by Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind. – is too much change too fast.

“Farm bills don’t take sharp turns,” he said at a breakfast meeting with reporters. “Just to change the whole system overnight; it’s not going to work.”

The Senate will begin debate next week on a bill to lay out U.S. farm policy for the next five years, covering crop subsidies, nutrition programs, food safety, conservation, crop-based energy and rural development.

The bill would largely keep the subsidy program, which pays the owners of farmland where certain grains, soybeans and cotton are grown.

Under Lugar’s approach, the subsidies would be eliminated. Instead, any farmer – no matter what crop – would be eligible for an insurance program that would cover up to 85 percent of the farmer’s previous income if the crop is devastated by bad weather or low prices.

Lugar and Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., will propose the insurance program as an amendment during the debate.

In a letter to members of the Senate, Lugar said the subsidy system is unfair because only 43 percent of all farms get subsidies and the money is skewed to large corporate farms rather than family farms.

“Our current farm policies, sold to the American public as a safety net, actually hurt the family farmer,” he wrote. “In the name of maintaining the family farm and preserving rural communities, today’s farm programs have benefited a select few while leaving the majority of farmers without support or a safety net.”

Lugar said 43 percent of farms share in the government payments, which amounted to more than $33.2 billion from 2003 to 2005, including $1.6 billion to Hoosiers. He said a better approach would be to allow government-paid backstopping to all growers, not just some, and to tie the help to actual income losses, not shifts in market prices.

Harkin said he’s “basically sympathetic” with Lugar’s approach because “it’s ultimately the right kind of direction to go.” But Harkin said he won’t vote for it unless the proposal is scaled back as a pilot program rather than as a replacement for subsidies.

“By its very nature, agriculture is kind of conservative,” Harkin said. “We don’t make big, huge changes. That Lugar-Lautenberg approach is one big change. … I just don’t think we’re ready. It’s too big a leap.”

Lugar, the former chairman of the Agriculture Committee, has argued against the subsidy system for years.