June, 2018
Lincoln -- The best thing that could happen right now to help Nebraska's faltering agricultural economy would be for our three congressmen – Bacon, Smith, and Fortenberry – to tell their Republican House leadership to support the just-passed Senate farm bill and consign the terrible House farm bill to history.
The House version is a partisan, divisive bill that wastes money needlessly and counterproductively; it cuts conservation programs to do so; it futher squeezes farmers at a time of low commodity prices and high property taxes. The bill's farm policy provisions are adamately opposed by left, center, and right. Its transparent purpose is to create an election-year wedge issue over food stamps; in other words, farmers' need for a decent farm bill will be held hostage to demagogic attacks on the poor.
The Senate version is a bi-partisan effort that maintains programs such as the Conservation Stewardship Program, much used by Nebraska farmers. The House version zeros it out in favor of giving taxpayer help to more CAFO developments (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations), which citizens in many Nebraska counties are vehemently opposing.*
The Senate version limits the number of non-farm managers who can benefit from farm subsidies, in the form of the Grassley Amendment. Excessive subsidies to non-farmers drive land prices upward and keep them there, not only burdening real farmers with high property taxes but limiting the entry of young farmers into agriculture. (Unfortunately, the similar Durbin-Grassley amendment was not included in the Senate bill, which would have means-tested crop-insurance subsidies to further take pressure off property taxes.**)
The Senate bill also gives support to local and regional agricultural programs, where there is huge potential for job development according to the St. Louis Fed in its encouraging report, Harvesting Opportunity. Nebraska could be in the forefront if the Senate bill passes.
All Nebraska eyes should be on Senator Deb Fischer, a member of the Senate Agriculture Committee which produced the Senate-passed bill, to see if she will try to unite the Nebraska congressional delegation in favor of the bi-partisan and clearly superior Senate bill. So far, her record both as a state and U.S. senator leaves much to be desired in terms of Nebraska agriculture. She now has a chance to remedy at least part of that unfortunate legacy by telling her Nebraska colleagues in Washington not to sacrifice the future of the state to a shameless scheme that is now unfolding in all its ugliness.
This could also be a test of Governor Rickett's leadership. Will he advise the Nebraska House delegation to drop their support of the House bill, and also weigh in for our state with the Speaker and the President?
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* Colfax, Washington, and Lancaster counties are the latest to witness citizen uprisings against CAFOs. If you want to see what goes on in a pountry CAFO, watch the new documentary movie "Eating Animals." Despite its unfortunate name, it is worth a watch. (My own family – Oberg Hatcheries – goes way back in the poultry industry, when chickens were raised on small farms as a part of diversified farming.)
** Senator Durbin had too little company from his fellow Democrats on the farm bill, as their strategy is to be bi-partisan at all costs and not put forth a Democratic vision of what rural America needs. I think this is a big mistake. Rural America is hurting in so many ways; the farm bill would have been a chance for Democrats to get back into winning in states like Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania (and holding Minnesota), where rural voters hold the balance of power. Many of these voters would be attracted to Democratic initiatives on conservation, nutrition, opioid control, diversified farming, and jobs from the growing local and regional food markets. Yet the Democrats' "Better Deal" is silent on all these issues, giving the impression that Democrats are content in doubling down on their failed 2016 bi-coastal, popular-vote strategy and conceding the heartland and the electoral college to the other party, perhaps in perpetuity.
