Large federal farm payments going to rich farmers such as Ted Turner and former NBA star Scotty Pippin are making it difficult to defend the farm bill, but it's also an uphill fight to tighten the caps on those payments, said Sen. John Thune, R-S.D.
Thune and Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D., favor reducing total payments to farmers and lowering the income eligibility for those payments. The House limited total payments for two types of crop subsidies from $210,000 to $125,000, a reduction of 40 percent in its version of the new farm bill passed in July.
But Thune said he favors a total cap of $250,000 for all types of payments.
Johnson favors a cap of $250,000 for a married couple and $125,000 for an individual producer and eliminating the current loophole allowing triple entities for one operation, according to a written statement.
"Roughly 10 percent of our nation's agriculture producers collect approximately 71 percent of our farm program payments, while our livestock producers are left without a safety net," Johnson said in a written release.
The House bill would also lower eligibility for farm payments to $1 million in adjusted gross income. Current eligibility is $2.5 million of adjusted gross income.
"We also think that's too high," Thune said of the $1 million eligibility threshold. The Bush administration had proposed lowering the income eligibility limit to $200,000, but Thune said that level would never get through the Senate.
The Senate Agriculture Committee is scheduled to begin debate on its version of the farm bill Oct. 23.
Thune and Johnson said they hoped the new farm bill would be finished and ready for the president's signature by the end of the year.
Thune also said it will be difficult to lower payment caps because of opposition from cotton and rice growers in Southern states.
Those farmers have much bigger operations and don't lend themselves to lower payment limits, he said.
He said the Southern state interests have been able to mount coalitions with some of the bigger states to block the lower payment limits.
He also said some South Dakota ag groups, including the South Dakota Corngrowers Association and the South Dakota Farm Bureau, are now resisting payment caps and lowered income eligibility.
"It used to be there was a lot of support for payment limits from farm organizations in South Dakota. Now - even here in South Dakota - some of these farmers because of the size they need to be profitable are growing their operations to where they don't think a $250,000 limit is realistic for them," Thune said.
"The truth of the matter, is it's getting awfully hard to defend some of these farm program payments going to people like Ted Turner and Scotty Pippin, people who are making millions off the farm program who are millionaires."
Turner received $206,948 in farm payments from 1995-2002, according to the Environmental Working Group, which tracks farm payments. Pippin, the retired Chicago Bulls star, received $210,520 over the same period.
Thune noted that the portion of the farm bill funds going to production agriculture continues to decline.
In the current farm bill, Thune said, 28 percent of the money goes to ag commodity programs, the production agriculture portion of the bill, and the remainder goes to nutrition, specialty crops and other parts of the farm bill.
In the House bill passed in July, funding for ag production is down to 12 percent, and 68 percent goes to other programs, he said.
Thune attributed the increase in money for nonag production programs to efforts to get political support for the farm bill from urban congressmen.
"We'll see in the future less emphasis on … what we consider production agriculture and more about some of those other issues," Thune said.
Contact Steve Miller at 394-8417 or steve.miller@rapidcityjournal.com
