Over the weekend, negotiations on a new trillion dollar farm bill took one step forward even amongst the drama over the government shutdown. On Saturday, the House voted to marry its previously-passed farm bill- and food stamp-only bills together, setting up a potential farm bill conference with the Senate. This week, the Senate renamed its conferees to further the process, but due to larger fiscal fights over government funding and the debt ceiling, the House has yet to name its conferees in order for farm bill negotiations to begin between the two bodies. Even if a conference is convened, huge discrepancies on controversial issues remain, including funding for:  (1) energy programs (House provided no mandatory funding while Senate provided nearly $1 billion), (2) the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (House passed $40 billion in cuts compared to the Senate’s $4 billion), and (3) whether crop subsidy programs should be accountable to taxpayers or include common sense limits on the amount of taxpayer subsidies any one agribusiness can receive. 

Agricultural producers do not need a new trillion dollar farm bill to have an adequate safety net:

• The primary federal support for agriculture – highly subsidized crop insurance – is a permanent program that never expires.
• Subsidized crop insurance cost taxpayers a record $14 billion in FY2012. Amongst the worst drought since the 1950s, agriculture “suffered” with its second most profitable year (down just $5 billion from the 2011 record of $118 billion). Both the House- and Senate-passed farm bills would increase spending on unlimited crop insurance subsidies by $9 and $5 billion, respectively, instead of analyzing what did and didn’t work last year.
• Farmers and ranchers undertook 2013 production decisions under a one-year extension of the 2008 farm bill, which didn’t pass until 92 days after the bill expired, and are now projected to reap their most profitable year in history.
• Other scare tactics that farm subsidy proponents attempted to use at the end of 2012, such as a “dairy cliff” causing milk prices to jump to $8 per gallon on New Year’s Day, were nothing but a hoax. And unless politics gets in the way, it will likely be the same story this year.

Instead of enacting new agribusiness income guarantee programs, government-set target prices, and other special interest carve-outs, Congress should instead pass a short-term farm bill extension that immediately and fully eliminates the wasteful and outdated direct payment program. This once “temporary” program provides subsidies to agribusinesses regardless of farm income or current crop prices. Late last week, Senators Flake (R-AZ) and McCaskill (D-MO) led a letter with 18 other bipartisan lawmakers, also demanding that direct payments be cut in an extension. In the longer-term, Congress should go back to the drawing board and devise a more cost-effective, transparent, accountable, and responsive farm safety net that saves at least $100 billion, eliminates outdated permanent farm bill law, and allows for a full, open, and separate debate on the nutrition and agriculture portions of the farm bill. Anything less will deprive taxpayers of much needed and long overdue savings on wasteful and unnecessary subsidy programs.