Editorial

Despite hurdles, U.S. needs clear farm policy

The Bible reminds us that the poor, like wars and rumors of war, will always be with us.

So, it seems, with the issue of farm subsidies.

The U.S. House of Representatives has passed a farm bill with a an all-time record price tag of $170 billion. Critics both left and right decry the measure, and House Republicans defied White House opposition to pass it.

Writing on our Opinion page last week -- and supplying facts we've seen nowhere else, state Rep. Peter Myers of Sikeston made the case that a safety net is needed to support the agricultural producers who provide our food and fiber.

He also points to the fact that the huge farm-payment figures we've seen recently are gross loan figures, dollars that are paid back with cash or the farm commodities that are mortgaged.

Myers has some considerable expertise on the subject, owing to his decades as an agricultural producer followed by service in the No. 3 job at the U.S. Department of Agriculture during the Reagan administration. He also served as director of the USDA's Soil Conservation Service.

The fact is that we are in the fourth consecutive year of Depression-level farm prices, and there are no easy ways out, no pat answers.

One proven way to help the situation faced by our agribusiness producers is to expand foreign markets. To do this, President Bush needs the Trade Promotion Authority he is asking for from Congress. This is authority every president since Gerald Ford has enjoyed. It allows the administration to negotiate trade agreements with other countries.

The authority lapsed during the Clinton administration, and Congress didn't grant renewal of it, partly because the former president didn't make it a priority. This president is asking for it, and should get it.

Meanwhile, take with a grain of salt anything you hear from radical environmental organizations spinning a simplistic view of farm policy.

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