'Compromise' law under fire from some groups
 Irrigator file photo
Rep. Dennis Cardoza, D-Atwater, defended the bill during a roundtable discussion last week in the Stanislaus County Farm Bureau boardroom, saying it was the best bill the House could pass at the time, though there is room for improvement.
“Politics is the art of the doable,” Cardoza said.
Contributions for Californians
For the first time, the new bill contains $1.6 billion for various fruit and vegetable programs.
The bill includes measures that will provide $215 million to specialty crop growers and provide conservation incentives and nutrition programs.
Cardoza said apricot growers on the West Side could benefit from economic research programs that would study the effects of foreign markets that import dried and canned apricots at extremely low prices, preventing local farmers from being able to compete.
The bill also includes $200 million for pest detection and surveillance, $25 million for organic research and $110 million for farmers market promotion. Another $350 million is included for a federal program that provides fresh fruit, vegetables and nuts to school children.
Specialty crop block grants totaling $365 million will be distributed to states. Block grant money in the past has been used to fund the “California Grown” campaign, in which labels are used to mark produce that is grown in the state.
Another $25 million for fresh-cut produce safety will help with troubles such as last year’s scare involving E. coli-tainted spinach, Cardoza said.
The bill also provides $150 million for air quality mitigation to help farmers comply with federal and local air pollution laws. Cardoza said that is especially important for San Joaquin Valley farmers, who work in an area that has some of the worst air in the nation and the toughest air-quality laws.
The money from the Environmental Quality Incentives Program offers financial and technical help for growers to practice conservation practices. Cardoza said farmers told him that was their top priority for the Farm Bill.
 Cardoza
Though California is the top ag producer in the nation, it was 13th in the nation in receiving payments for federal conservation programs in 2005 and 11th in the nation for receiving crop payments.
“We (in California) should be getting the lion’s share of the money, but we are, in fact, down the list,” Cardoza said.
Disagreement over subsidies
The farm bill stops all payments to farmers who have an annual adjusted gross income of $1 million or more per year. The law now allows businesses and people who make as much as $2.5 million annually to apply for federal subsidy payments.
Some critics say the limits in the farm bill do not go far enough.
In late July, Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns stressed that the Bush administration did not want any subsidies for farmers who earn $200,000 or more each year. He also took aim at a last-minute addition to the bill that would raise money by increasing taxes on international companies with U.S. subsidiaries.
Environmental organizations and fair-trade advocacy groups also have criticized the bill.
The Washington, D.C.-based Environmental Working Group keeps an online database of federal crop subsidies and who gets them. Seventy percent of crop subsidies today go to the top 10 percent wealthiest farms, said Bill Walker, vice president of the group.
Walker said Cardoza’s addition of specialty crop measures to the 2007 farm bill is good, but the bill does not go far enough to curb other major subsidies. The $1 million income cap is “absurdly high,” he said, and the bill has loopholes that would still allow millionaires to take advantage of subsidies.
On the other hand, some growers say some subsidies are necessary.
Steve Carlson of Crows Landing-based Perez Farms said last week that the high cost of water in Fresno County makes cotton subsidies essential.
Environmental Working Group’s site indicates that Perez Farms took in about $3.7 million in crop payments from 1995 to 2005. A large percentage of those subsidies was for cotton grown in Fresno County, according to the site.
However, Perez Farms growers said those figures can be misleading. Subsidies raise the price of cotton from 50 cents per pound to about 70 to 80 cents, Carlson explained. Without them, he said, there is no way Perez Farms could make money with cotton.
In turn, that allows for cheaper products for consumers, said Tom Perez of Perez Farms.
Several fair-trade advocates and environmental groups touted a proposed amendment by Rep. Ron Kind, D-Wisconsin. The amendment would have expanded conservation programs, eliminated payments for growers who make more than $250,000 and gradually reduced crop subsidies.
Critics of the amendment said it would have defeated the purpose it intended by removing a safety net for growers. The amendment was soundly defeated by Congress.
Cardoza described the Kind bill as a mess, saying he felt it would end up doing the same thing as the Freedom to Farm Bill in 1996. That act aimed to dramatically reduce crop subsidies, but it was amended during some economically difficult farming years, resulting in billions of dollars in emergency relief payments to some of the nation’s wealthiest farmers.
“It was kind of like cotton candy at the fair,” Cardoza said of the Kind amendment. “It looks great from the outside, but if you eat too much of it, it makes you sick.”
Hashing things out in the Senate
Despite criticism that the bill doesn’t do enough to eliminate unneeded subsidies, Cardoza said 25 to 30 senators are from states that would never pass a bill with tighter restrictions on subsidies.
The Senate plans to review the bill later this month. The bill passed in the House by a vote of 231 to 191, with most representatives in the Democrat-controlled Congress voting along partisan lines.
Proponents say the bill is a compromise and that its benefits outweigh its disadvantages.
Earl and Tom Perez of Perez Farms said they appreciated that the U.S. Department of Agriculture sought input from farmers for the bill through public meetings around the country.
“I think it’s improved quite a bit over the last (bill),” Earl Perez said.
 |
Subscribe to this comment's feed