LAWMAKERS SEEK HELP FOR AILING FARMERS

Southeast Missouri's farmers need to harvest federal dollars to survive this year's drought and poor export sales, U.S. Rep. Jo Ann Emerson said Thursday.

"We are in pretty tough shape right now," said Emerson, who plans to tour Southeast Missouri farms during her annual agriculture tour, Aug. 16 through 19.

The tour will include visits with farmers, ranchers and agribusiness owners in the sprawling 8th Congressional District.

Emerson said some farmers in the Bootheel have lost 70 percent of their corn crop to drought. The cotton crop also is in poor shape.

"We are in big, big trouble," said Emerson.

The Cape Girardeau Republican said she and other lawmakers will introduce the Farm and Ranch Emergency Assistance Act to provide nearly $8 billion in disaster relief to the nation's farmers. The proposed bill would include $6.3 billion in market-loss payments, including $325 million for livestock and dairy farmers. It also would pump another $500 million into the crop insurance program.

She and three other House Republicans from farm states discussed the need for farm aid in a telephone conference call with reporters Thursday.

Besides Emerson, Reps. Jerry Moran of Kansas, John Thune of South Dakota and Rick Hill of Montana participated in the long-distance news conference from their Washington offices.

The lawmakers met with House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., to push the aid package. They are among eight House members who back the bill.

"The timeline is critical," said Moran. "Our farmers are making decisions for next year. They are talking to bankers about what they are going to do."

Moran said he was frustrated Congress hasn't acted sooner. "Congress moves so slowly anyway when everything is just right," he said.

Moran said the proposed farm aid is just a stop-gap measure to tide farmers over for another year while Congress and the administration try to solve the problems facing agriculture.

Thune said the aid package won't get to the House floor before September when Congress returns from its August recess. Thune said the new House bill will be used as a bargaining chip in ironing out an aid package with the Senate.

Emerson, who is on the House agriculture appropriation committee, plans to push the aid package in conference committee meetings between House and Senate negotiators.

The Senate aid package is slightly less than that proposed in the new House bill. The Senate on Wednesday approved a $60.7 billion agriculture funding measure that includes $7.5 billion for emergency assistance to farmers.

Farmers have seen a price collapse for their products caused by decreased export demand and higher-than-normal production in other countries, said U.S. Sen. Christopher "Kit" Bond, R-Mo.

"Given the drought conditions in many areas of the country, this package may require additional sums of crop-loss assistance," Bond said.

Last year Congress responded with $6 billion in emergency relief.

The University of Missouri's Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute expects cash receipts for crops to drop another $3 billion this year following the $8 billion drop from the 1996 levels. Exports are down $10 billion, soybeans and wheat are at their lowest level in a generation, and corn prices are at a 10-year low, Bond said.

U.S. Sen. John Ashcroft, R-Mo., also has voiced concern about the dire condition of agriculture. He won passage in the Senate of a measure that would lift current food and medicine embargoes and require congressional approval of any future embargoes.

The Emerson bill also would remove such trade sanctions.

"At a time of drought and financial hardship from low prices, this will protect farmers from being used as pawns of diplomacy," Ashcroft said.

The agricultural industry is a cornerstone of Missouri's economy, Ashcroft said. Missouri was home to 102,000 farms in 1997, ranking it second in the nation. Missouri's farms produced and sold more than $5.56 billion of agricultural products in 1997. Of that amount, almost $1.55 billion came from overseas exports.