Senate Budget Sees $64 Billion for Agriculture

April 5, 2001

The Senate has approved almost $64 billion for agriculture, $5 billion of it for farmer assistance this year. The other $58.5 billion goes for farm program support over the next 10 years. Democrats say it won't be enough. The money is part of the Senate's budget resolution.

Some farm organizations had wanted up to $9 billion to rescue farmers from low grain prices this year and $12 billion a year more for baseline spending. In testimony to both the House and Senate Agriculture and Budget Committees, farm group leaders have pressed the cause for more money for farmers.

The House budget resolution calls for $5.6 billion for a 2001 bailout of farmers and give agriculture and defense access to a multi-billion contingency fund for emergency use.

Senate Agriculture Committee ranking Democrat Tom Harkin (IA) said the budget resolution as approved "sells farm families and rural America short. Not only is it inadequate; it is paid for by raiding money needed to pay for Medicare. We cannot pull the rug out from under farm families and rural America, and we should never pit their interests against the interests of our seniors."

Harkin called for "adequate funding" to write a new farm bill that must be approved next year. The Democrats, he added, wanted to do "much more to protect our family farmers and strengthen rural America."

The Democrats' alternative, which was defeated by the full Senate, would provide $88 billion in additional assistance over 10 years plus $9 billion in this current fiscal year "to address the present economic crisis in agriculture," Harkin said. That "is a much more responsible option than the Republican plan which makes the same fatal mistake of the Freedom to Farm bill by gambling that markets will expand significantly and that prices will rise for farm commodities."

He also criticized the resolution's $350 million a year for conservation; the Democrats wanted $1 billion.