By Mike Shields
KHI News Service
TOPEKA, June 21 U.S. House Agriculture subcommittees completed mark up of the 2007 Farm Bill this week. They left intact subsidy provisions desired by commodity farm groups and also agreed to boost spending on Food Stamps, but only if compensating cuts can be found elsewhere in the budget.
Also, a new provision was added that would torpedo a pilot program launched in Kansas by the administration of Gov. Kathleen Sebelius in which Food Stamp-eligible families were enlisted while filing their taxes at Wyandotte County H’R Block offices.
State welfare officials counted that program a success and have discussed the possibility of expanding it. But that couldn”t happen if the current version of the Farm Bill is approved by Congress, said Pam Jacob, director of the state”s Food Stamp program.
Jacob said the provision was added by congressmen keen on stopping privatization of Food Stamp services in states such as Indiana and Texas, where contractors were given authority to determine who was eligible for the program. But the proviso goes beyond that, she said, and would prevent Kansas from using private organizations to help enroll people, though it is still state employees here who make all eligibility decisions. The new provision would allow the state to continue its recruiting partnerships with non-profit groups but shut the door on collaborations such as the one with H’R Block.
“We have a
lot of concerns about it because we”re all about partnering with for-profits and nonprofits,” Jacob said. “We just partner with the community getting the word out.”
The Food Stamp program represents the costliest portion of the Farm Bill. Because of that, other nutrition programs, and crop subsidy programs in the legislation that influence how and what Americans eat, some have said it should be called the Food Bill.
The mark ups also would ease Food Stamp eligibility standards somewhat, allowing education and retirement savings to be excluded from asset limits. Experts said that would most benefit working families temporarily in need of the food aid because of lay-offs. It also would allow parents who pay for child care to deduct the full costs of that from their eligibility calculations. Currently, parents can only exclude a portion of that cost. For military families, combat pay also could be deducted.
“All these have a caveat built in,” Jacob said, noting that the $5.4 billion in additional Food Stramp spending has been approved conditional on
“offsets” or cuts made elsewhere in the budget. “It”s the first time I”ve actually seen them write it into the legislation that this will only happen if they find the offsets. That does not bode well because where does the offset come from? If they find the money to pay for those somewhere else in the Food Stamp program then we”re cutting off our left hand to beef up our right.”
The commodity subcommittee left intact the current crop subsidy regime. Critics said that keeps in place incentives that promote conglomeration and push small farms out of business.
Commodity programs have been under heavy fire from various sources during this Farm Bill reauthorization. The last bill was passed in 2002. Some want its commodity title rewritten because it costs too much. Others say its subsidies are inequitably distributed, favoring a minority of big operators. Still others say the commodity supports have kept corn prices unnaturally low and made the grain a staple of high-calorie, highly processed foods that nutritionists link to obesity, diabetes and related health problems.
“There”s lots of subsidies going into cheap corn, which is what makes cheap everything else,” in the processed food chain, said Dan Nagengast, executive director of the Kansas Rural Center, a sustainable farm organization that opposes the current system. “Why should Twinkies be cheaper than carrots when they have something like 27 ingredients, many of them synthetic, and carrots you just pull out of the ground and wash?”
But backers of the commodity programs said they were tentatively pleased, particularly because the first-round of work on the legislation left unscathed direct payment subsidies. Recipient farmers typically use direct payments or the promise of them to negotiate annual operating loans with bankers.
“The final bill is a long way from being put together,” said Jere White, executive director of the Kansas Corn Growers Association in Garnett. “The thing we liked about what did happen was that it kept the doors open for everyone”s proposals and kept the current Farm Bill safety net intact for the next round of discussions. And we very easily could have lost that before we got into this next round.”
White, who also represents the state”s sorghum growers, said his organization was particularly pleased that 2nd District Congresswoman Nancy Boyda, D-Kan. succeeded in attaching an amendment that would equalize loan rates for corn and sorghum in each county.
White said guaranteed loan rates in the current Farm Bill were lower for sorghum because the crop historically has sold for less than corn. But thanks to new demand from ethanol plants and those preferring feed grains that haven”t been genetically engineered, sorghum prices can match or sometimes exceed those for corn.
In other action, the subcommittee also transferred responsibility for food safety to the U.S. Department of Agriculture instead of the Department of Homeland Security.
The full House Agriculture committee is expected to begin working the bill soon after the July 4 holiday and have it ready for floor debate by the end of July. The Senate lags the House in working the bill, which Congress is expected to complete in September.
-Mike Shields is a staff writer for KHI News Service, which specializes in coverage of health issues facing Kansans. He can be reached at
mshields@khi.org
or at 785-233-5443, ext. 123.