08/09/05 Farm Bill Forums - The questions, Pt. 2

As national Farm Bill Forums make their way around the United States through the end of the year, several farm advocates are putting their two cents worth in on how the 2007 Farm Bill can best serve agriculture. To help craft the discussion, U.S.D.A. has six questions posed at its website, www.usda.gov. Each question touches on a specific aspect of federal farm policy with the goal of using those comments to help craft the next Farm Bill. For example, one question for discussion is "How should farm policy be used to maximize our competitiveness and compete with global markets?" Now that seems to be a broad question, with answers coming from any number of directions, as evidenced by the response at the first Farm Bill Forum held in Nashville on national television. Much of the connotation of the question centered on foreign ag subsidies on our products and how to minimize those through negotiated and under-negotiation trade agreements, and the World Trade Organization's current round of ag trade reforms. Those thoughts were summarized by a farmer from Minnesota. MN FARMER: When we have to compete against other nations' subsidies, and they are being subsidized far heavily than what we are, we can not get our monies out of the marketplace. And if you ask any farmer, they would much rather receive their monies out of the marketplace, directly from the elevator or the livestock packing plant, than they would from the federal government. And while Tennessee livestock and row crop farmer Darius Armour's comments stemmed from concerns that the current Farm Bill could be rewritten before the 2007 version is in place, his point that the W.T.O. talks will shape the next Farm Bill was well made. ARMOUR: We do not need to make changes in the current Farm Bill until we know the results of the Doha Rounds of negotiations and what concessions we are going to receive from our trading partners, especially in the area of market access. But the focus also centered on the debate over farm payment limits for growers. Farmer David Templeton believes current subsidy payments are needed for many sectors of ag to foster competitiveness both on a domestic and global scale. TEMPLETON: Payment limits that have been criticized are essential to farmers. Every business in the country practically is getting larger. The family farm is getting larger to compete. And if we were to trim our payment limits, and that led us to have to go back and downsize our farm operations, we would not be profitable. More in our next program.