The truth about payments to farmers

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By Peter C. Myers Sr.

SIKESTON, Mo. -- The terrorist attack against our country on Sept. 11 has rightly caused folks in our nation to rethink our personal and national priorities. Federal farm policy seems almost insignificant in times like these. Yet we must think about the farmers and ranchers who produce our food and fiber.

As a nation, we have become far too dependent on foreign oil and the fuel and other petroleum-based products that are produced from crude oil. Do we really want to abandon the basic producers of our food supply, be they large or small, and have our country dependent on developing nations for the food we eat?

This theory was espoused by some of our dethroned national leaders, and it continues in the minds of a few of our current national policymakers. Why else would some of the liberal thinkers in Congress, pushed by several environmental groups, want to replace direct farm commodity payments and crop loans with "green" payments which would only benefit certain segments of our farm economy?

It was definitely no accident that the Natural Resources Defense Council, an organization of environmental groups, obtained and published the list that showed the amount of U.S. Department of Agriculture checks issued to larger farmers and other groups that receive farm-program benefits. Their undisclosed but obvious purpose in publishing this list was to discredit the current federal farm program and influence the next farm legislation. Now other nationwide news services continue to reprint and magnify these payment reports.

Let's look at the facts behind the NRDC's effort to discredit our current and future farm programs.

A major portion of the dollars attributed to larger farm operations are the gross dollars lent to these producers -- dollars which are paid back with cash or with the farm commodities that are mortgaged. There is no limit on payments on commodity loans that are redeemed. The NRDC did not publish net proceeds, only the gross amounts paid to farmers as a loan. This is a deliberate distortion of facts.

Admittedly, there are some producers who have used lawyers to circumvent USDA regulations on payment limits for loan-deficiency payments ($150,000) or marketing-assistance payments ($40,000), but those total dollars do not begin to equate the millions claimed by the NRDC.

For many of the nation's grain, cotton and oilseed producers, the USDA payments are their net profit each year. Until world farm commodity prices recover to a level that is profitable, these producers need USDA payments to continue to operate. Those of us who are consumers of food in our country -- that's everyone -- must understand that we can pay for our low-priced food with tax dollars or buy higher-priced meat, bread and milk from the surviving large conglomerates and foreign countries after many U.S. farmers are eliminated.

Apparently, the NRDC and others would prefer to have more surviving endangered critters while forcing family farm organizations to file bankruptcy or decide it's not worth going deeper in debt.

What does this have to do with the current farm-program debate?

If the NRDC has its way in Congress, the federal government will shift significant federal dollars from farm-program producer payments to environmental-program payments to landowners and operators who qualify for "green" payments.

As the past chief of the USDA's Soil and Conservation Service, I support increasing appropriations for cost sharing and technical assistance for conservation practices for farmers and ranchers, but not at the expense of damaging our nation's farms and ranches.

The U.S. House passed a farm bill Oct. 5 that has the balance to provide viable conservation programs as well as to continue the needed farm-program payments. It remains to be seen how fast the U.S. Senate will offer its farm bill and how Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman reacts to both proposals.

When the Senate does pass a farm bill, it will have to go before a conference committee, which will thrash out the differences. If this doesn't happen before Congress adjourns this fall, we will function under the current farm legislation for another year. Who knows? We may even have an extension of current farm legislation in 2003 if the House and Senate can't agree on a new farm bill.

In the meantime, the NRDC and other environmental groups will continue their publicity battles against current and proposed farm legislation at the expense of viable farm operations.

Personally, I hope we will see the day when the federal government is not in the business of controlling or supporting farm-gate prices and farmers and ranchers will receive their prices from the marketplace. For now, however, we need to provide a reasonable safety net for the producers of our major crops. We can do this and also have balanced, effective management of our nation's environment.

Peter Myers Sr. is a Missouri state representative from District 160 who served as deputy secretary of agriculture in the Reagan administration.