Lawmakers Call for Farm Bill Summit with Administration

Twenty-four farm state lawmakers want an emergency meeting with Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman and Budget Director Mitch Daniels to discuss the "urgent need" to write a new federal farm program. Veneman and Daniels have met frequently over the past two weeks with farm group representatives and members of Congress to urge that any effort to write a new farm program to replace "Freedom to Farm" be delayed at least until sometime next year. The lawmakers want a new farm bill written this year and want Veneman and Daniels to rethink their opposition to doing so.

In a response to the letter, generated by Sens. Kent Conrad and Byron Dorgan, North Dakota Democrats, Veneman said she and Daniels would "welcome the opportunity to meet" with the members signing the letter, but she emphasized that both Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Tom Harkin (D-IA) and ranking Republican Sen. Richard Lugar (IN) be included in any such meeting.

"A bipartisan meeting is a more productive approach to discuss this issue," she said. In addition, she said it would be important that Sen. Pete Domenici (R-NM) be included as well as the Senate leadership. Domenici is the top Republican on the Senate Budget Committee.

Veneman said she will represent U.S. agricultural interests at the World Trade Organization meeting in Doha this month, but "upon my return, we will be happy to clear our schedules to fulfill your request" for a meeting.

In their letter, the senators argued that farm prices that collapsed when Freedom to Farm law was in effect have remained depressed ever since. Also, they added, budget realities policymakers will confront next year allow no room for delay.

"We feel this would have serious repercussions for family farmers, since the level of funding now set aside for agriculture is not likely to be available next year," they wrote. "Delaying consideration will undoubtedly make the already difficult process of writing a new Farm Bill even more contentious."

"Fiscal Year 2002 budget resolution approved by Congress this past May, with the administration's full support, specifically provided the additional resources necessary for Congress to write a new multi-year farm bill," the senators wrote. "The funding increase recognized that the annual ad hoc assistance measures of recent years reflected a failure of current policy and the need to provide improved stability and certainty for agriculture."