The Spokesman-Review (Spokane, WA) / March 27, 2001 / John Stucke Staff writer
With the prospects for a new farm bill uncertain, Washington grain growers are bolstering lobbying efforts for a large federal subsidy program.
"I know a lot of people, who, if they wouldn't have got it, they wouldn't have been able to get an operating loan from the bank this year," said barley farmer Kurt Carstens.
He traveled to Washington, D.C., earlier this month to urge the state's congressional delegation to renew market-loss payments.
The payments are basically disaster funds that supplement the federal government's direct payment subsidy program.
With low crop prices, farmers growing grains such as wheat, barley, corn and oats need emergency funds to offset low market prices for their crops.
Underscoring the dependence on the program are numbers from last year. The Farm Service Agency reported that market-loss payments totaled $ 88.8 million for Washington farmers last year. The regular grain subsidy program, called Production Flexibility Contract Payments, totaled about $ 82.9 million.
Gretchen Borck, executive director of the Washington Association of Wheat Growers, said the financial plight of farmers took center stage in meetings with lawmakers.
"We are concerned about research and environment issues, too," she said, "but at this point we had to focus on finance."
In a newsletter this week, wheat farmer Bruce Nelson predicted a 90 percent chance that the market-loss payment program would continue. That would be good news for farmers who are now beginning to work fields in the southern reaches of the state.
With low crop prices and higher costs for such things as fuel and fertilizer, market-loss payments might be even more important.
The added payments became necessary when the 1996 Farm Bill failed to provide the level of subsidies farmers needed to break even at best.
The bill, dubbed "Freedom to Farm" by supporters, sought to curb the federal government's role in agriculture, such as unraveling support payments from growing decisions.
The subsidy program put into place was designed to gradually wean farmers from government payments, while more money was put into research and new-market development.
The plan collapsed as crop prices plummeted, sending agriculture in a downward spiral.
By passing market-support payments, the government added a layer of subsidies while farmers try to ride out the down cycle.
While keeping the payments tops the legislative wish, Carstens, a member of the Washington Barley Commission, said he spent time working on research funding and export markets.
Among the research he's plugging: work to formalize government recognition that barley fights cholesterol.
Such heart-friendly news could give the grain an advertising pitch for better sales.
Other topics that Borck and wheat growers are pushing include tax reforms, such as the elimination of estate and capital gains taxes, and the expansion of what is called the Farm and Ranch Risk Management Act, a tax-deferred savings account plan.
Also, the wheat growers group wants to erase U.S. Department of Agriculture payment caps.
And it backs funding Washington State University wheat research, a plant bio-sciences addition to Johnson Hall and the ARS Small Grains Genotyping Center.
Copyright 2001 Spokane Spokesman-Review:
