The more it changes, the more it stays the same?
The more it changes, the more it stays the same?
A new report from the Bush administration looking at
the state of US agriculture was expected to emphasise
soil and water conservation programmes over price support
ones. Not so. In fact the push is towards more production,
more competition and – probably – little likelihood of
current US farm support budgets being cut, explains
Illinois-based ag correspondent Alan Guebert
AS President George W Bush prepares a still-stunned America for an undeclared, undefined war, the US Congress sits frozen in its pre-Sept 11 legislative tracks. Public discussion of important agricultural policy issues – like the 2002 Farm Bill and the re-authorisation of Fast Track trade power – stopped the instant terrorists struck America.
Privately, however, Congressional committees involved in hammering out farm policy quietly resumed work on Monday, Sept 17. No one on Capitol Hill, though, believes Congress is either legislatively or mentally prepared to tackle farm policy. Both Republicans and Democrats alike have agreed for an undetermined period not to bring forth any legislation that might incite even a whiff of partisanship.
Despite the political peace, secretary of agriculture Ann Veneman chose Sept 19 to make public the Bush administrations first farm policy document. In an 80-minute briefing, Veneman called the 120-page report, titled Food and Agriculture Policy: Taking Stock for a New Century, a "comprehensive look at where US agriculture is today" so Congress can make a "strategic plan" for farm policy tomorrow.
While Veneman is free to describe her handiwork any way she chooses, one thing the lengthy, graphics-laden report isnt is anything new. Nor does it include one firm suggestion from the White House on what its 2002 Farm Bill might include.
Indeed, Veneman was repeatedly asked specific questions about the House of Representatives $170bn (£116bn), 10-year Farm Bill proposal, passed by that chambers Ag Committee in late July. As usual, Veneman avoided answering all queries on any aspect of the ongoing farm debate, preserving her nine months of total Farm Bill silence.
Initial reports of the Veneman briefing highlighted what reporters presume to be a break by Veneman and Bush from classic Republican farm policy dogma: the report appears to emphasise soil and water conservation programmes over price support programmes.
Not so. While the secretary rightly pointed out the extreme cost of current price support programmes – nearly $30bn (£20bn) in 2001 – her idea of soil conservation is to pay farmers to farm land in "an environmentally-sound manner", not idle it for wildlife or soil-saving benefits.
To many that sounds as though producers will be paid to bring some or most of the current 14m ha (36m acres) in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) back into production, albeit in "an environmentally-sound manner".
Now thats true Republican farm policy dogma; a programme that promotes more production, more competition and more agribusiness activity. If the idea takes root – while farm price supports are pared back – analysts forecast increased wheat plantings because much of todays CRP acres are located across Americas western wheat belt.
Ironically, this Republican conservation approach mimics what Farm Bill writers have long said will be the centrepiece of the Democratic Senate Bill.
But that is where similarities end. Senate Democrats want to use their conservation ideas to cut crop production, not increase it. And few farm state Senate Democrats wish to cut price supports; most hope to increase them.
Where does all this conservation chatter leave the proposed House Farm Bill? Precisely where it was before the Sept 11 bombings – in legislative limbo. The day following Venemans briefing, some House members noted the White Houses long-term policy goals fit well within the fat, fabulously expensive House Bill.
To be kind, that is a generous interpretation; to be blunt, that is pure nonsense.
The Veneman report clearly states current farm policy unfairly rewards too few big producers at the expense of too many small producers. One would have to be a farm policy novice to read that to mean the secretary favours the House Bill that spends $73.5bn (£50bn) more than Freedom to Farm over the next 10 years.
The hotly-contested re-authorisation of Fast Track trade legislation also remains stuck in neutral. No-one in Congress wants to be seen leading that fat, divisive cow out of the barn during this time of national tragedy and political unity. US special trade representative Robert Zoellick claims Fast Track and the World Trade Organisation November ministerial in Qatar are still in the cards.
Maybe, but like the 2002 Farm Bill, Fast Track is on the slow track to nowhere in Congress.
In fact, a really slow track. Few see any farm legislation moving through Congress before some time in 2002. If accurate, that pushes the farm policy debate into another hotly-contested Congressional election year. If not a war year.
And that is likely to mean no one in Congress will be cutting one penny from US farm programmes. No one that wishes to be re-elected, that is.
Now thats
true Republican
farm policy dogma; a programme that promotes more production, more competition
and more
agribusiness
activity
And that is
likely to mean no
one in Congress will be cutting one penny from US farm programmes. No one that wishes to be re-elected,
that is
While Veneman
is free to
describe her
handiwork any way
she chooses, one thing the lengthy, graphics-laden report isnt is anything new