As the 2007 Farm Bill continues to slowly slog its way through the Senate, some farmers and agribusiness operators are becoming anxious to know what kind of federal farm programs they’re going to be dealing with next year.

The bill, which covers a wide variety of federal initiatives from commodity and rural development programs to the food stamp system, was expected to be finished in the summer. Now it’s the middle of October, and the Senate Agriculture Committee has yet to hold a hearing.

The U.S. House of Representatives, with much infighting and backbiting, passed its version of the Farm Bill in the last week of July. The Senate was supposed to follow up quickly and hammer out its version, but as weeks became months, some have begun to wonder if the 2007 Farm Bill may become the 2008 Farm Bill.

Iowa farmers are now running full steam ahead in harvest mode, hauling in what is expected to be a record crop of corn. And once those fields are harvested, decisions must be made for next year. Decisions must be made about fall tillage, fertilizing and pest control, and the federal farm programs play an important role in that decision-making process.

Alan Ammons, a corn and soybean farmer and agricultural real estate salesman in Monroe County, said it’s important for farmers to know soon what those farm programs will be like.
“We fertilized on my place right behind the combine, with the plan that we’d plant corn next year,” said Ammons. Now he’s just hoping the 2007 Farm Bill doesn’t result in “some wild new ramification in the program that would tell us that we didn’t want to do that on all those acres.”

But Ammons said most farmers in his area are probably assuming that strong prices for corn and soybeans will continue through next year, which lessens the concern about a government safety net. “Right now, I doubt that it will matter so much with the corn and soybean prices the way they are.” Nonetheless, Ammons said, with the extremely high prices farmers are paying for seed, fertilizer and equipment, those high commodity prices still result in slim margins for the farmer. “A farmer can get out on a limb a long, long ways,” said Ammons, and he has to hope that “either weather or the government farm program doesn’t come along and chop it off behind you.”

The Senate Agriculture Committee, chaired by Iowa Democrat Sen. Tom Harkin, has been delayed mostly by financial constraints. Last week the Senate Finance Committee, after a long and public argument about funding for the Farm Bill, finally came through with an additional $17 billion.

Harkin immediately scheduled committee hearings to get started, only to postpone them several hours later. This week the Congress has been on recess, so it won’t be until next week when Harkin will finally get to gavel his committee to order. But just getting started with the committee process doesn’t mean the bill will be finished quickly.

The ag committee process could take a full week or more, and then the bill must go to the full Senate where it could get delayed again. And once a Senate bill is passed, the House and Senate must then convene a conference committee to resolve the differences between their two bills.

It could be well into November or later before a farm bill ever reaches the desk of President George W. Bush, who, by the way, has already threatened a veto.

In an interview with Iowa Independent, Iowa Farm Bureau National Policy Advisor Mark Salvador said his organization is very concerned about the late farm bill. “We’ve spent a lot of time scratching our heads thinking about what this means,” said Salvador. “There are several programs that expired on Sept. 30. Those include conservation programs and rural development and energy, things like that. We are concerned about the continuity of those programs, there’s no doubt about that.”

But Salvador said that given target prices, long range prices and today’s relative strength in the commodity market, “people are producing for the marketplace and I don’t think there’s that much consideration given to the safety net today.” He noted, however, that while it’s not a huge issue here in Iowa, “the winter wheat guys have already planted their crop or are just wrapping that process up. I know the wheat industry is very interested to know what kind of law they’re going to have to work with.”

The American Farm Bureau Federation and more than 60 other organizations came together to write a letter to senators urging them to end the gridlock and finish the farm bill. Those groups include such varied interests as the National Farmers Union, Pheasants Forever, America’s Second Harvest, the United Methodist Church and A Jewish Response to Hunger.

Harkin spokesperson Kate Cyrul told Iowa Independent in an e-mail last week that the 2002 Farm Bill provisions that expired on Sept. 30 have been extended. “The Senate passed what’s called a CR, or Continuing Resolution, which provides stopgap funding until Nov. 16. Basically, any provisions of the farm bill that run on a fiscal year, say the Food Stamp Program, for example, are covered under the CR,” said Cyrul. She said that the committee will begin its farm bill hearings as soon as possible.

Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley, who serves on the agriculture committee and the finance committee, said this week in a conference call with reporters that he expects the ag committee to get started next week.

“Senator Harkin took a stand months ago that we all knew was clear, that he wasn’t going to bring a bill up until he knew exactly how much money he was going to have,” said Grassley. “It took us in the finance committee a while to put together our package, which obviously, we just voted out last Thursday.”

Update: Harkin spokesperson Kate Cyrul today stated that the week of Oct. 22 is a “strong possibility” as the date when the Senate Agriculture Committee will convene to vote on the farm bill.