Farm bill edits

Editorial pages are weighing in on the 2007 farm bill, and most aren't enthralled with the House passed farm bill. Here is a sampling:



2007 Farm Bill: A missed chance to slow the decline of the family farm From KC Star:
With passage of the farm bill, the House of Representatives forfeited the opportunity to do something this country hasn’t tried since the New Deal of the 1930s: It could have taken steps to rejuvenate rural America.
In the year I was born, 1950, there were 13 houses along our road in the far northwest corner of Missouri. All of them were farm homes. Today, nine houses are left, and I am the only farmer or farm owner living here.
What’s happened along my road is also true across vast areas of the Midwest, where farm consolidation over the last three decades has taken its toll, not just on farmers, but on the rural communities that once relied on farmers for trade and taxes.
Consolidation and loss of rural population have been direct consequences of the past several farm bills. By increasing subsidies, Congress made it profitable for the most aggressive operators to accumulate more land and scoop up a large share of the farm bill’s allotments.
While the stated purpose of farm bills has always been to maintain the family farm, in reality the Congress has brought about the family farm’s decline.
The House might have fashioned a 2007 New Deal for Rural America. It would have started with real subsidy limits, making mega-farms less profitable. That step should have been easy.

Don't miss opportunity offered by farm bill From The Des Moines Register:
Iowans can see the fruits of an agriculture revolution out their car windows - a maturing corn crop stretching unbroken to the far horizon.The demand for corn to produce ethanol has driven up prices and prompted Iowa farmers to plant their biggest crop since 1981. Nationally, farmers planted the most corn since 1944.Growing crops to produce energy is transforming the economics of agriculture. Drafting of the 2007 farm bill should not only reflect the dramatic change under way, but also shape that change to benefit rural communities and the national good. This bill, at this time in history, offers an unprecedented opportunity to further agriculture's role in meeting some of the nation's energy needs and also boost farm incomes in the process.But the temptation to plant fence row to fence row to reap higher crop prices threatens to exacerbate soil erosion and worsen water quality. So this farm bill should provide greater incentives than ever for farmers to protect the nation's rich soil.Unfortunately, the bill approved by the House last month is less aggressive than it should be in promoting development of energy from crops and other agricultural sources. And it took a step backward in promoting conservation on cropland. That leaves much of the heavy lifting in beefing up conservation funding to Iowa's Tom Harkin, chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee.The Senate will consider the farm bill in September. Harkin told the Register on Monday that he would restore funding for the Conservation Security Program "or there won't be a bill." That's tough talk, but he shouldn't back down.