BY DON WALTON | Lincoln Journal Star
Detailed poll results are available at http://cari.unl.edu/ruralpoll.htm
2001 NEBRASKA RURAL POLL
As House Agriculture Committee members laid the groundwork Tuesday for construction of a new farm program, rural Nebraskans weighed in with some ideas of their own.
One out of four respondents to the 2001 Nebraska Rural Poll want to eliminate federal farm program payments. And a majority favors payment limitations with federal funding support tied to conservation practices.
Rural Nebraskans also want a moratorium on large agribusiness mergers and acquisitions, as well as prohibition of livestock feeding by meatpacking firms.
"It looks to me, as I interpret the results, like a very pragmatic view from rural Nebraskans," said John Allen, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln rural sociology professor who conducted the Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources poll.
A majority of the 3,199 respondents from 87 non-metropolitan counties seems to agree the 1996 Freedom to Farm Act needs "some restructuring, some modifications," Allen said.
"I would not interpret this to mean a return to the former price support concept, but rather supporting payments that provide farmers with a safety net."
Rural Nebraskans also seem to want the farm bill to "play a role in controlling some of the vertical integration and concentration" in agriculture, Allen said.
Predictably, Nebraska's two leading farm organizations are lined up on opposite sides as the debate over the next agricultural program begins:
The Nebraska Farm Bureau Federation wants to "make improvements" in the Freedom to Farm Act, but the Nebraska Farmers Union would scrap it in favor of a more traditional market-oriented price support system with production control driven by economic incentives.
"The next farm bill needs to recognize the inherently noncompetitive marketplace that agriculture buys from and sells into," Farmers Union President John Hansen said.
"We need to recognize the free market philosophy doesn't work in a noncompetitive marketplace without some minimum standards for prices to level the playing field."
On the other side, the Farm Bureau remains committed to "maximum planting flexibility and an adequate safety net," said Rob Robertson, its vice president of governmental relations.
The safety net would include "fixed payments as well as some countercyclical payment mechanism to offset low commodity prices," he said. So-called countercyclical payments would kick in when prices are low.
"We think Freedom to Farm is a good basis to start from," Robertson said.
The current farm act expires in 2002 and Congress already is at work shaping the next program. Nebraska will have a player at the table in both houses as bills are cobbled together in committee.
House Agriculture Committee members, including Republican Rep. Tom Osborne, heard testimony Tuesday from various commodity groups. The committee hopes to hammer together a bill next week before Congress begins its August recess.
Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson is a member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, which is drafting its own bill. But the committee is focused now on short-term emergency payments for this year, Nelson said.
The Freedom to Farm Act instituted a schedule of declining federal support payments for producers who market commodities such as corn and wheat. By 2002, it was anticipated farmers could operate independently in the marketplace.
However, as IANR's Center for Applied Rural Innovation reported in its research report accompanying the poll results:
"During the past three years, Congress has had to increase the amount of payments made to producers due to declining grain prices and emergency assistance for weather-related conditions, such as the drought that plagued much of Nebraska last year."
The 25 percent of rural Nebraskans who favored elimination of federal farm program payments included only 14 percent of farm households represented in the poll. Among respondents, 17 percent identified themselves as farmers or ranchers.
Among those who did not favor eliminating payments, 73 percent said there should be a limit on the amount a household can receive.
And more than 70 percent of farm households supported prohibition of livestock feeding by meatpacking firms; a moratorium on large agribusiness mergers and acquisitions; and farm payments tied to conservation practices.
Reach Don Walton at 473-7248 or dwalton@journalstar.com.BY DON WALTON:
