Where oh Where Has Our Farm Bill Gone?

We've been wondering why and where did our Farm Bill disappear? First, the outgoing Secretary of Agriculture did more than a dozen hearings on what should go into the Farm Bill and then the Congress worked ... and worked ... and worked to answer farmers' and their rural communities' needs. The House supported a bill that gave high priority to farm program, and the Senate gave additional priority to rural development. And then the great disappearance happened.

Today, National Farmers Union President Tom Buis made comments regarding the problem, saying, "The problem from the beginning has been the White House's reluctance to provide adequate funding to address the challenges in rural America, including vital nutrition, conservation, renewable energy and other farm bill programs." See more story at Cattle Network.

Also among those problems is how to deal with disaster payments. Traditionally, providing disaster assistance used to be a bi-partisan deal. No matter which side of the aisle, farm state representatives knew their state would have a weather-related disaster sooner or later, so everyone pitched in.

But in 2005, things changed. At President Bush's request, the disaster assistance bill for farmers stricken by drought was locked up in committee ... no votes allowed ... by then Chairman Bob Goodlatte (VA), and there it remained until 2007 when Democrats took over the Majority. The result -- long story short, was that the bill passed almost immediately and on May 25, 2007, President Bush finally signed it into law.

Now ... the new problem is that USDA can't (won't?) write the checks so here we are -- Feb. 13, 2008, and farmers who were stricken with disaster in 2005 (three years ago) still do not have the assistance.

This kind of wait is unacceptable. It puts more pressure on Congress to create a new permanent disaster assistance program ... and now that this program is in the Farm Bill, both USDA and President Bush are once again dragging their feet, failing to meet rural communities' needs.