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By MIKE CORN
and SARAH KESSINGER
Harris News Service
First comes the Iraq War.
Once that issue is settled -- if it can be settled -- Congress likely will take up the 2007 federal farm bill, said Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kansas.
When the Senate reconvened Tuesday, the first order of the day, according to Roberts, was going to be to determine what needs to be done in Iraq, with a rising call for troop reductions.
"I'm thinking late September, early October," Roberts said of when the Senate will take up the farm bill. "In the meantime, we'll have to get an extension."
The farm bill is set to expire Sept. 30, but how an extension will work still is uncertain because of differing timetables for the various crops affected.
Roberts isn't exactly sure what approach a new farm bill should take, but he's not satisfied with the bill that passed the House prior to the August recess.
"We know we have to improve that," he said of the House version.
The $286 billion, five-year House version, which passed 231-191, lowers the limits on subsidies from $2.5 million. Now, only farmers with annual average incomes below $1 million -- $2 million for a farm couple -- would receive subsidies. That's much higher than the $200,000 income cap proposed by President Bush.
The House bill also extends new aid to fruit and vegetable growers and increases nutrition program funding.
On the Senate side, Senate Agriculture Chairman Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, is circulating a proposal that would restore more funding for conservation.
It also calls for little change to subsidies and continuing the current crop insurance program with minor modifications.
It also calls for a crop insurance enhancement program to cover disaster-type problems.
Proponents of new subsidy caps aren't likely to win this year, said Ernie Goss, economist at Creighton University in Omaha, Neb.
"I think the resistance to a cap from the South is too great," Goss said of congressional members representing cotton and rice producers.
Harkin's proposal likely would fit Roberts' objectives.
The Kansas senator's greatest concerns are the House-proposed changes in crop insurance. Roberts said the farm bill should provide a safety net for farmers when they lose a crop.
"We need to strengthen the crop insurance program, not cut it," he said.
Cutting that much will not strengthen the program.
"That pretty well kills it out here," he said of farmers in the High Plains.
Roberts also isn't keen on the notion of assessing $7 billion in taxes on foreign companies based in the United States.
"These are American jobs," he said.
Democrats, however, complain the foreign companies pay less in taxes than American businesses.
Second District Rep. Nancy Boyda, D-Kansas, said she favored the House bill for that and other reasons, including provisions that support farms in her district and more funding for food stamps for the state's growing number of low-income families.
"We want to make sure real farmers are getting the payments they need for conservation, for a safety net, for direct payments as input prices increase," Boyda said. "We want to make sure the independent farmer is the target of these payments."
Roberts also worries the House bill "ignored the World Trade Organization."
Under WTO provisions, he said, subsidies can be construed as trade-distorting; crop insurance is not considered a problem.
Roberts isn't sure what to say about the focus on agriculture and the subsidies that are being paid to farmers.
He thinks it's wrong to "judge a farmer's well-being and wealth by the number of acres he farms. To be cost efficient, you have to farm a lot of acres."
And the farm bill isn't just about farming anymore. It provides most funding for nutrition programs, as well as forestry, conservation, rural development and other areas.
"It certainly isn't just a farm bill," he said, wondering aloud what it might be called.
It would have to be some sort of acronym, he noted.
"It would take the whole alphabet now."
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