Every five years or so the United States Congress debates agriculture and farm subsidy policy and eventually passes pieces of legislation referred to in layman terms as “Farm Bills.”

These Farm Bills dictate what the U.S. agricultural policy will look like in the foreseeable future. However, since the early 1980s there was little change from one U.S. farm bill to the next.

This continual passage of unchanged farm policy has created a system that is outdated and is inhibiting competition and efficiency in the agricultural market, hampering trade negotiations and costing the American taxpayer billions of dollars each year.

To fix these policies, we need to move away from flat crop target prices (corn is set at less than $2.70 per bushel since 1982, regardless of inflation), and towards a system that allows for free market competition and still protects agriculture with an insurance program that would be available to all farmers.

Such a system is proposed in a recent piece of legislation titled the “Fresh Act,” sponsored by Senators Frank Lautenberg and Dick Lugar.

Passing the Fresh Act would be incredibly beneficial to the vast majority of Americans for several reasons. First, it is available to all farmers.

The current policy is unfairly distributed, six percent of farmers receive 70 percent of the subsidies, with benefits disproportionately given to large corporate farms, while small farms are much less likely to receive government funding.

The Fresh Act would also pay benefits only when farmers lose money, meaning that only farmers who need the funds would receive them.

The current policy pays some farmers whether or not they are actually in need of government assistance.

The funds saved by subsidizing only those farmers who need assistance would allow the government to increase investment in agricultural programs, including putting $3 billion toward organic crops, $6 billion toward environmental conservation programs, $4 billion toward hunger relief programs and would still save taxpayers $3 billion a year during the current program.

The Fresh Act is still beneficial because it would bring the United States into compliance with current world trade treaties. Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada and the European Union each have separately file complaints to the World Trade Organization (WTO) regarding U.S. corn subsidies.

Changing farm policy would not only end these international legal proceedings overnight, but would help advance the Doha Round of WTO negotiations, bringing the United States billions in trade investment and revenue.

Despite these benefits of the Fresh Act, congress continues the current subsidy programs, because of pressure from corporate farm lobbying groups.

Legislation supporting these archaic policies has already passed the House and the Senate’s Agriculture Committee. However, the senate coalition supporting the Fresh Act, led by Lautenberg and Lugar, plans on fighting for real policy change that is both politically and financially practical.

Please e-mail your senators and ask them to support sensibility, support the Fresh Act.

Columnist: John Bateman - 10/31/07