Negotiators in Congress finish $286 billion farm bill

WASHINGTON – Weary congressional negotiators completed a massive farm bill Thursday that confronts a presidential veto threat amid complicated election-year politics. The five-year plan is a multibillion-dollar grab bag.

If it survives a threatened veto, the bill is estimated to cost $286 billion over five years and roughly $600 billion over 10 years. Over the next decade, 73 percent of the funds will go for food stamp and nutrition programs.

Key provisions include:

Specialty crops

Fruits, vegetables, nuts and wine are categorized as specialty crops, which together receive a record amount in the new farm bill. The bill totals roughly $1.3 billion for a variety of grants, research and marketing assistance targeting specialty crops and organic agriculture.

The specialty crop spending would be several times more than was provided in the last farm bill, written in 2002. It includes, for instance, $33 million for grants promoting farmers markets, $466 million in block grants to states and $22 million to help small growers pay the fees needed for certification as organic farms. States will basically use the block grants to promote specialty crops, with fruit-and-vegetable-producing states like California getting a big share of the total.

Wealthy farmers

The Bush administration wanted to ban crop subsidy payments to farmers who make more than $200,000 a year. Rural lawmakers had other ideas and set up a complicated scheme instead.

Currently, subsidies are banned for farmers with incomes exceeding $2.5 million. The new farm bill purports to ban all government payments to growers with off-farm income exceeding $500,000. The bill also purports to ban a certain kind of subsidy, called a direct payment, to growers with farm income exceeding $750,000.

Lawmakers, though, also tinkered with definitions to expand what is meant by farm income. Married farmers, moreover, can effectively double their income limits. Potentially, it now appears, a single grower who combines an off-farm income of $499,999 with on-farm income of $749,999 could still receive payments.

Crop subsidies

Traditional subsidies will largely remain intact for commodities such as cotton, rice, wheat and corn despite record prices. Several new crops are added to the existing "counter-cyclical" subsidy program, including lentils, dry peas and chick peas.

Lawmakers added changes, including getting rid of the so-called "three entity rule" that has permitted farmers to multiply the number of subsidy payments they receive.

Conservation

Under an expanded and newly renamed Conservation Stewardship Program, the bill would provide $12 billion over 10 years to help farmers practice soil and water conservation.

After much haggling, negotiators agreed that the conservation payments won't be subject to the same income test that will be applied for other subsidy payments. This was crucial to lawmakers in a few states such as California.

The bill also includes $150 million set aside in the existing Environmental Quality Incentive Program to help farmers in polluted regions pay for such improvements as new pumps and engines. This targets a few regions, including California's San Joaquin Valley.

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