Sunday, April 02, 2000
Legislators told: Fix farm laws
BY EARNEST WINSTON
The Cincinnati Enquirer
UNION TOWNSHIP — A cross-section of Tristate farmers told members of the U.S. House Agriculture Committee on Saturday how to improve federal agriculture policies.
During the more than four-hour meeting at Lakota East High School in Butler County, 16 farmers discussed expanding international trade, fixing the tax code, reducing market regulation, improving risk-management tools and ways to improve the country's crop insurance program.
More than 300 farmers and others attended.
The bipartisan field hearing, of which Rep. John Boehner, R-West Chester, was host, was the fifth of 10 being held across the country this spring to get farmers' views on how to improve federal farm policy.
Jeannine Wiley said she and her husband, Edward, who raise corn, soybeans, wheat, hay and livestock on their 600- to 700-acre farm in Marysville, Ind., were forced to sell their hogs in September 1999 because they couldn't break even.
“There is no good safety net for livestock farmers. There needs to be more of a check-and-balance system on buyers of our products,” said Mrs. Wiley, the only woman to testify before the committee.
“When we are at a break-even point selling our hogs, why is pork still so high for the consumer in the grocery store? Someone should be accountable for seeing that everyone gets their fair share in this global marketplace.”
As the committee prepares to review the nation's farm policies, the farmers who spoke also want House members to address the role of government in agriculture.
“Personally, I would like to see you out of our lives, and everything be rosy and perfect,” Mrs. Wiley said. “But in a lot of ways we need each other. We need to work together.”
Many of the farmers who testified urged the government to open up new markets abroad, including a permanent trade agreement with China. They said new markets boost commodity prices.
“The lack of a trading agreement with China is no excuse for the lack of an aggressive export program. There are plenty of other countries that we could be exporting to,” said Thomas Spellmire, a Lebanon farmer.
Some farmers said several recommendations politicians made to improve the 1996 Freedom to Farm Act have not occurred. The farm law ended 60 years of a complicated federal system of set-aside land and crop subsidies.
Joe Steiner, a corn and soybean producer in Mason, said estate tax laws continue to hurt farmers and legislation to repeal existing sanctions on agricultural and medical products was torn out of the fiscal year 2000 agriculture appropriations bill last year.
Mr. Steiner, a member of the board of trustees of the Ohio Soybean Association, said the limited progress made on these and other issues “meant there were no new sources of demand or protection against losses when supplies rose and prices fell in 1998 and 1999.”
Mr. Boehner is critical of the government's failure to follow through on elements of the 1996 act, including expanded agricultural trade, tax relief for farmers and crop insurance reform.
“This is a critical time for the American farmer. The decisions we make in the months and years ahead will have a tremendous impact on the future of U.S. agriculture,” said Mr. Boehner.
Committee members invited farmers to submit written testimony within 30 days of Saturday's hearing. Ten copies of farmers' recommendations, including name, address and phone number, should be mailed to: Chief Clerk, c/o House Committee on Agriculture, 1301 Longworth Building, Washington, D.C. 20515.
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