FARM BILL NEAR RECONCILIATION IN THE HOUSE

This week the primary farm bill legislation was being finalized in a House and Senate conference committee on the budget reconciliation bill. The legislation that the president vetoed on Monday was the continuing resolution, which would have provided money to operate the entire federal work force until the budget reconciliation bill is passed and sent to the president. Sounds complicated. It is.

Where does that leave the primary 1995 farm bill? At last count it appears that we will have Freedom to Farm with some modifications: A seven-year contract with the federal government whereby each producer will receive payments based on the history of the producers' farms. Three entities will still be allowed to participate in program payments as in the 1990 Farm Bill, but the payment limitation will be dropped to $40,000 per person or entity.

There will be marketing loans for cotton and rice and normal crop loans for feed grains and wheat. Producers will have complete flexibility to plant on their base acres, and there will be no acreage reduction. Payments under the contracts will be based on 85 percent of base acres for the first two years and then drop to 70 percent of base acres for the last five years of the contract. It appears that a pool of dollars for contract payments will be tied to the budget baseline. If that is the case, then each year's payments to individual producers may be a percentage of the total pot of dollars for that year. There also appears to be unlimited planting flexibility on the 15 percent and later 30 percent flex acres. Some fine-tuning is still being done by staff members of the conference committee. We won't really know the final details until we see the legislation sent to the president in the budget reconciliation legislation, and then he may veto it for reasons other than farm programs.

There is pressure in the House to fold the Soil Conservation Service into the domain of the USDA under-secretary who is responsible for farm programs, Foreign Agriculture Service, FmHA and Federal Crop Insurance. This battle is going on in the House Agriculture Committee and may not be resolved until the farm bill goes to conference committee and the senators add their thoughts. Dairy legislation is becoming very controversial and also will not be resolved until it goes to the conference committee.

The Conservation Reserve Program will drop to 25 million acres. There is also an effort in the House Ag Committee to weaken the conservation provisions of the 1985 and 1990 farm bills.

The primary crop provisions of farm legislation are being tied into the budget reconciliation bill. The balance of farm legislation is still being debated as part of a genuine farm bill, which we may not see in final form until sometime in December.

Peter C. Myers Sr. is a former U.S. deputy secretary of agriculture and is currently president of Adopt A Farm Family of America Inc., which is a Christian outreach to farm and ranch families in the United States.