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Making the gradeBy Seymour Klierly Over the last few and the next several weeks, football stadiums across rural America will be filled with proud family members watching their high school graduate receive his or her diploma. These young folks have spent their last 13 years with one goal in mind: graduating. Some worked only enough to simply pass their classes, while others put in the extra effort to be valedictorians. Much of the same can be said for several members of the farm bill class of 2007...whoops, I mean 2008. As anyone in farm country knows, this farm bill debate has been one of the most confusing, disappointing, and flat-out dysfunctional processes we've seen in years. What began with field hearings in 2006 ended with an override of a presidential veto in 2008. While it is not uncommon for major legislation to take 24 months to pass, the way in which this farm bill came together was certainly anything but standard operating procedure. Throughout its entirety, committee members, media, advocacy groups, and the administration publicly voiced their displeasure with those who were supposed to be steering the ship. The two agriculture committee chairmen approached their leadership roles as polar opposites; neither approach was very effective. Chairman Peterson took the extreme hands-on approach, taking hard-line positions on even the smallest of provisions. On the other side of the Hill, even though Chairman Harkin was technically the head of the conference committee, he seemed to wash his hands of the details of the responsibility of organizing the conference. He left the real negotiating up to Senators Conrad and Chambliss. Yet, even as the ag members jockeyed for positions, any agreement they reached would have to be cleared by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, adding another layer of dysfunction.
With all of this madness, it is nothing short of a miracle that not only was a farm bill completed, but also that the final policy actually benefits producers. If you've read this column in the past, you'll know I was rather skeptical of where this bill was headed. There were more bad farm policy ideas thrown around over the last two years than there were days on the High Plains with no moisture. Fortunately, most of those crazy ideas were dropped and the bill included some new initiatives that may bring more jobs to rural areas. Most who criticize the bill do so regarding the commodity and crop insurance titles, and they have good reason to draw attention to sections. The small cut to direct payments in the middle three years of the bill and the spread out cuts to the crop insurance program could have been much worse. It is clear that the tide of anti-agriculture members of Congress is growing. Many believe that, no matter which of the three presidential candidates wins the general election, that tidal wave will reach even higher levels. Delaying the farm bill fight another year underneath the crashing of such a wave would make the end product only worse. Nearly all of the national agriculture advocacy groups could see the writing on the wall and endorsed the final bill. Even though the farm bill graduating class of 2008 behaved like middle schoolers for most of the debate, they were able to pull it together long enough to pass their final exams. While I don't know who would be considered the valedictorian of this group, it is safe to say that those who should have been at the top of that list are no where close. 5/26/08 Date: 5/21/08
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