Farm Policy Legislation for the 1970's: The Farm Bureau Position

Abstract

W HEN I accepted this assignment last February, I mistakenly assumed that I would have plenty of time to prepare my paper. I was, of course, well aware of the fact that controversy over a major farm bill often extends into the final days of a Congressional session; however, I was counting on an early adjournment. While the slow progress of farm legislation through the Congress has made problems for me, the action that took place in the House of Representatives last week certainly makes this a good time to discuss farm policy. Controversy is not new to farm legislation. It is always difficult to solve economic problems through the political process and this seems to be particularly true in agriculture. The current controversy is a part of a battle over the direction of farm policy that has been going on almost continuously since shortly after the end of World War II. The Food and Agriculture Act of 1965, which the Congress is now trying to replace, reflected Congressional rejection of mandatory controls for feed grains and the 1963 referendum vote against wheat quotas. When the four-year term of the Act of 1965 was extended for an additional year in 1968, the supporters of this action argued that (1) the new Administration, to be elected in November 1968, would need additional time to formulate and enact constructive proposals; and (2) a simple extension was the best way to dispose of a host of troublesome amendments, one of which would have placed a limit of $20,000 on individual payments. Thus, the 1968 extension of the 1965 Act provided a preview of the problems that have been encountered this year. The development of new farm legislation has been complicated by the House Agriculture Committee's long-standing policy of tying a number of unrelated programs together in an omnibus bill. The obvious purpose of this policy is to force the supporters of individual proposals to support the Committee's complete package. While the omnibus approach may tend to unite some supporters of unrelated proposals, it also can cause groups, such as Farm Bureau, to op-