Lost pages delay new farm bill

It looks like farmers are going to get a farm bill from Congress whether they like it or not but they’re going to have to wait a little longer before the bill becomes law. 

The President vetoed the farm bill Wednesday but through a printing error it was missing a 34-page section. The House overrode the veto 316-108 and the Senate was ready to do the same when the missing section was discovered, according to the Associated Press. 

The House plans to repass the bill on Thursday and the Senate is expected to follow suit.

Even after it passes again, farmers are looking at what has been cut from the previous farm bill.

“I’m not sure it benefits the farmer,” said Pratt area farmer Kent Goyen.

Farmers will get no countercyclical or loan deficiency payments. Two major, direct payments and subsidies for crop insurance have had drastic cuts. If the override is successful, those cuts will be in place for five years, Goyen said.

Commodities prices have been climbing and are high right now but prices can drop in a hurry. Farm diesel is over $4 a gallon, fertilizer and other prices are climbing and likely not to go down. The combination could be trouble for the farmer.

“This thing can change in a hurry,” Goyen said. “They cut back on our safety net. It takes the cushion off for the farmer.”

The reduction in insurance subsidies is a particular concern to Rep. Jerry Moran who worked on the farm bill for two and a half years and introduced amendments in committee to restore funding to direct payments and crop insurance only to watch them fail in a party line vote, Moran said.

Moran said those two issues dominated the conversation during his 69 town meetings across the First District. Kansas is a very high-risk state for farming. Just because you put a seed in the ground doesn’t mean it will grow so insurance is vital for farmers. It has help tide over farmers through periods of drought so they can stay in business, Moran said.

If insurance subsidies are cut too much it makes it difficult for insurance companies to afford to cover farmers.

Moran didn’t vote for the farm bill and won’t vote to override the veto. The word “farm” is not in the title of the bill. The bill has little to do with farming and 73 percent of the bill deals with food stamps and nutrition programs, Moran said.

“I take this vote seriously,” Moran said. “Congress aught to do better than Congress did.”

The bill is not expected to change as it gets repassed. The President is expected to veto it again and Congress is expected to override the veto again.

Some would like to see the override fail so Congress would have to continue working on the bill.

“I’d rather see them go back and do it over than override the veto,” said Rep. Mitch Holmes.

Congress needs to adopt the attitude that high commodity prices are not guaranteed and payments need to be restored like they were in the previous farm bill. Farmers are not rolling in money, Holmes said.

The higher production prices hit home for Sen. Ruth Teichman.

“When I opened my co-op bill it was four to five times higher than a year ago,” Teichman said.

She was not the exception. She heard the same story from other farmers in the area. Congress needs to go back and check fertilizer costs. Farmers are not making much money when expenses are tripling or quadrupling.

“If the price of wheat comes down while operation costs go up it will leave farmers in a very tentative situation,” Teichman said. “I wish Congress could have been more responsive to farmer’s needs.”

The full impact of the bill that is only 10 to 11 percent related to farm production won’t be known for about a year but it’s something that will hurt communities that rely heavily on agriculture.

“It’s just another slat they’re pulling out from under us,” said Pratt County Extension Agent Mark Ploger.