LUBBOCK, Texas (AP)--Without exception, farmers and commodity and livestock groups attending a listening session told U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns and three Texas congressmen that the 2002 farm bill should be retained.

"If there's one thing we have said consistently it's keep the farm bill intact," Mark Williams, who grows corn, green beans, and cotton in Farwell, along the Texas-New Mexico border, said Oct. 5. "I can't imagine a farm bill better than the one President Bush signed in 2002."

His comments and dozens of others came at a U.S. Agriculture Department listening session on the Texas Tech University campus. The event, which drew an overflow crowd, is one of a series the department is holding around the country before Congress takes up the farm bill in 2007.

The farm bill, which is actually a law renewed regularly, provides billions of dollars in crop subsidies. Texas agriculture is one of the biggest beneficiaries.

U.S. Reps. Randy Neugebauer, Mike Conaway and Ted Poe joined Johanns to gather input from various sectors of agriculture and its associated businesses. Neugebauer and Conaway are from West Texas and Poe from East Texas.

David Cleavinger, secretary of the National Association of Wheat Growers, told the panel that failing to listen to what farmers say is needed is comparable to failing to listen to officials in New Orleans who have for years sought federal money to strengthen the city's levee system.

Some of the inadequate levees, built to withstand only a category 3 storm, broke during Hurricane Katrina. Katrina was a category 4 when it slammed into the Gulf Coast in late August and water poured into the Crescent City.

"So let's make sure that doesn't happen in ag," Cleavinger said. "We need to build on the policies in the 2002 farm bill."

Farmers say the 2002 bill introduced a payment system that supports producers when prices drop and ceases payments when prices are good.

"The current farm program provides an important price safety net for production agriculture and does so in a fiscally responsible manner," Kevin Cave, Martin County Cotton Growers president, told Johanns and the representatives. "Spending under the farm law is much less than originally projected."

Congress is on track to consider later this month legislation to impose curbs on farm subsidies in Bush's 2006 budget.

Matt Brockman, spokesman for the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association, told the officials the 2007 farm bill needs to address disease eradication and control for illnesses like bovine tuberculosis, brucellosis and bovine spongiform encephalopathy.

Texas had the first homegrown case of BSE this summer.

Others told the panel that skyrocketing energy costs will severely hurt farmers and if there are any changes, that is an area that needs addressing. Marion Snell, who farms cotton in Dawson County, said the cost of diesel and fertilizer has at least doubled in the past year.

"We see a crisis looming on the horizon that could be catastrophic," Snell said. "There is something wrong with this picture. We cannot continue to do this without profitability."