EMERSON WANTS SANCTIONS LIFTED TO HELP TRADE

Congress could boost farm exports by lifting trade sanctions against Cuba and five other nations, U.S. Rep. Jo Ann Emerson said Friday.

Emerson said trade sanctions should be lifted against Cuba, Libya, Sudan, Iran, Iraq and Vietnam. The United States also needs to promote greater trade with China.

"We have trade opportunities. We simply aren't taking advantage of them," she said in a telephone conference call to reporters from her Washington office.

Emerson said she hopes the sanctions will be lifted as part of a farm-aid package being worked out in a House-Senate conference committee.

Emerson said she hopes Congress in any compromise measure will agree to provide at least $7.4 billion in aid to farmers. That is the amount approved by the Senate last month.

That money would go to farmers to address market losses, but it won't address crops lost to drought and flooding, the Cape Girardeau Republican said.

If disaster aid isn't included in the conference committee measure, it needs to be addressed later this year in a separate bill, Emerson said.

The congresswoman said she isn't ready to do away with the GOP-authored 1996 "Freedom to Farm" law.

But, she said, major changes are needed because "there is no safety net in our farm bill."

She welcomed Texas congressman Larry Combest's plan to hold hearings next year with a view toward reworking the farm bill. Combest chairs the House Agriculture Committee.

Republicans previously have resisted rewriting the law, which ended the Depression-era system of farm subsidies.

Commodity prices plummeted last year because of a worldwide glut of grain and are forecast to remain low through 2000.

The 1996 law scaled back price-supporting subsidies and ended restrictions on what farmers could plant.

In return, farmers were guaranteed fixed but declining annual payments through 2002 when the law will expire.

Critics say that doesn't provide enough help when commodity prices are low.

"First of all, there is no doubt our farmers are hurting across the board," Emerson said. "It doesn't matter if you are in the livestock business or the row-crop business."

The 1996 farm bill relied heavily on boosting farm exports.

But Emerson said European nations will continue to subsidize their farmers.

"The Europeans went hungry during World War II. They had no food, therefore they feel very strongly they have to protect their agricultural producers, no matter what," said Emerson.

She said such thinking won't change until there is a new generation of European leaders.

Rep. Charles Stenholm, D-Texas, has proposed a new system of subsidies that would be tied to crop yields and commodity prices.