Farmers manage roughly 70 percent of the American landscape, so it's no suprise to the Ruminant that farmers, ranchers and forest landowners dramatically impact the facte of rare species or the quality of our rivers, lakes and bays.

The good news, according to a report to be released this week, is that farmers have dramatically improved their stewardship of private lands in recent years. There's more work to be done, but America's farmers are obviously very eager to share the cost of a healthier environment.

The problem, it seems, is that Congress is not willing to do its part.

Two out of three farmers offering to share the cost of clean water and wildlife habitat are turned away by USDA — and a proposal by the House Agriculture Committee would not do much to change that sorry statistic.

No wonder the Washington Post and other opinion leaders are urging House Democrats to pass a Farm Bill that meets the needs of more farmers and the environment.

The Ruminant was suprised to see the Heifer, a heritage breed, place a cow pie squarely on top of FARM 21, a proposal to make a transition from farm subsidies that largely flow to large producers of five row crops to a system of risk management accounts.

In particular, the Heifer argued that FARM 21 would favor large farmers in two ways: by allowing large producers to put unlimited funds in their risk management accounts, and by taxing farmers more when they withdraw funds.

In fact, the FARM 21 proposal developed by Indiana farmer Richard Lugar (R-IA) would not require farmer contributions to risk management accounts but would allow farmers to contribute some of their own funds.

However, Lugar's proposal would limit farmer contributions to $10,000 a year. A House companion would limit contributions to $8,000 a year — or the amount the Ruminant can contribute to his IRA.

What's more, account withdrawals during years when sales fall would be taxed at a lower rate than they would during the good years — the sort of income averaging those crazy Australians have been doing in lieu of subsidizing their farmers.

The Ruminant thinks a transition to risk management accounts could help small farmers in several ways.

One, FARM 21 would reduce and restructure subsidies that disproportionately flow to large farmers, allowing them to buy out their smaller neighbors. The largest 10 percent of subsidy recipients collected about two-thirds of all farm subsidies between 1995 and 2005. While some large farmers collected more than $1 million, many subsidized farmers collected less than $1,000. Rising land costs — driven in part by direct payments linked to production history — may be the biggest threat to small farmers.

Two, restructing our safety net would help pay for increases in conservation, nutrition, rural development, renewable energy and other initiatives that help all farmers, regardless of size. For example, FARM 21 would boost funds to expand direct markets between farmers and consumers (which allows the farmer to keep more of the food dollar), increase programs to help farmers develop new products and new markets, and boost popular conservation programs.

The Heifer is rightly concerned that FARM 21 would not provide as much funding as he would like for some programs and no funding for others, such as the Conservation Security Program (CSP). The Ruminant shares his concern. But, regardless of what you might think about FARM 21, Lugar's proposal shows just how hard it will be to meet many urgent priorities with the funds that are currently in the trough.

Even the reductions in farm subsidies proposed in FARM 21 — divided among conservation, nutrition, energy, and rural development initiatives — don't provide nearly enough funding to meet America's urgent energy, environmental, hunger and health challenges. Like the Heifer, the Ruminant supports payments limits. But, even the effective payments limits proposed by Senators Dorgan and Grassley, which the Ruminant supports, won't generate more than $200 million in annual savings.

Here's hoping experts like the Heifer and other members of the herd will find creative ways to help pay for urgent priorities like CSP and leave the cow pies in the pasture.

No one has more to lose — or gain — from our climate crisis than farmers.

After all, farmers depend upon mother nature for their survival, and a changing climate could mean more rain in some places, less rain in others, and severe weather in general.

Today, farmers contribute a relatively small share of America's greenhouse gas emissions — not more than 8 percent — and could easily offset their own emissions and provide carbon offsets to other industries. Overall, experts estimate that agriculture could help reduce America's greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent.

Here's how.

Farmers could use fertilizers with greater precision, reducing emissions of nitrous oxide. Farmers could also cap their animal waste lagoons to capture and burn methane (which is 21 times as potent as carbon dioxide) and could change what they feed their animals to reduce enteric fermentation (this is getting a little personal for the Ruminant).

Capping and burning the methane emitted from 7,000 swine and dairy lagoons could generate enough electricity to annually power 500,000 homes.

As the Ruminant like to say, smells like money.

Farmers could also store more carbon in the soil by changing the way thet till the soil and by restoring grasslands, wetlands and forests. And, farmers could produce ethanol in ways that further reduces greenhouse gas emissions.

Generating carbon offsets to sell to other industries could also boost the bottom line: If a ton of carbon were worth $20 a ton (instead of $4 a ton), farmers could generate anywhere from $5 to $15 billion in new income by simply storing more carbon in the soil, according to experts at Kansas State.

No wonder former Senators Bob Dole and Tom Daschle have called for a mandatory cap on carbon emissions that would allow farmers to sell their offsets.

The next Farm Bill should help our farmers get ready for a carbon cap by providing new funds to "set their carbon baselines" — to measure current emissions — and to accelerate ways that third parties can certify greenhouse gas reductions.

A carbon market could turn straw into gold in more ways than one.

The Ruminant was shocked — SHOCKED!! — to learn that corn flakes cost $12 a box in Australia, where capitalists have apparently taken over the country and gradually replaced their farm subsidies with a system of tax-deferred savings accounts.

That's according to a Missouri Congressman who warned consumers at a House Agriculture Committee vote that Kellogg's corn flakes cost $12 a box in the land down under and that a similar fate would befall Americans if we replaced our depression-era subsidies with a system of risk management acounts and revenue insurance tools, as proposed by House reformers.

WHAT ABOUT THE CHILDREN?????

Not so fast. The Ruminant hopped over to Australia to do a little shopping and we were shocked – SHOCKED!! — to find that an 18 ounce box of Kellogg's corn flakes in Sydney costs only $3.41 in US dollars.

Wait a minute. The congressman has to pay $3.79 for the same box of cereal at the Capitol Hill Safeway. And, the Congressman has to pay $3.49 for the same box of cereal at the HyVee in Saint Joseph — 8 cents more than those crazy capitalists pay in Australia.

Apparently, every American consumer does not have to be as "frightened" as Congressman Frank Lucas, who called a proposal by Reps. Ron Kind (D-WI) and Jeff Flake (R-AZ) a "danger to every consumer of agricultural products."

Clearly, members of the House Agriculture Committee — which represents the handful of districts that collect the lion's share of farm subsidies — are frightened. But, the Ruminant suspects they are mostly frightened that more farmers and communities will get a fair share of farm spending than they are by the prospect of higher prices at the Palm.

Right now, just 19 districts collect half of all farm spending.

Most of the corn and soybeans grown in Missouri goes in a pig or a pump. Eliminating corn subsidies, according to noted agricultural economist Bruce Babcock, would increase the price of pork by less than two cents a pound (and no one is proposing to eliminate corn subsidies). That's because the cost of feeding the pig is just a fraction of the cost of processing and transporting the pork.

We don't have a cheap food policy in America. We don't even have a cheap meat policy!!

According to Babcock, the "mythical connection" between subsidies and food prices ignores many "nuances." He's nicer than the Ruminant.

Adopting a farm safety net that is as modern and entrepreneurial as our farmers won't change the price of food.

But, reform will help farmers most in need of assistance and provide new resources to accelerate the development of ethanol made from crop wastes and perennial grasses like switchgrass — which would reduce pressure on corn supplies and actually reduce food prices.

What's more, reform would provide more funds to feed actual hungry Americans through the food stamp program. Those are the people who can't afford a box of Kellogg's corn flakes at any price.

"Subsidies basically go to white farmers."That's the view of Mississippi farmer Roger Morris, a black farmer who grows sweet potatoes, soybeans and vegetables. Morris is profiled in the latest installment of the Washington Post's harvesting cash series

That's also the view of USDA's census, which reports that roughly 10 percent of black and Latino farmers grow the crops that are eligible for subsidies. What's more, most of those minority farmers lucky enough to grow subsidized crops collect less than $200 a month.

There was a time when many black farmers grew crops like cotton and corn that are eligible for subsidies.

But, too often, black farmers wererdenied the loans and other subsidies provided by USDA to their white neighbors. As a result, the number of black farmers has plumetted to less than 20,000.

A few years ago, USDA owned up to the agency's past and agreed to pay black farmers as part of a consent decree. To read a summary, check out reports by CRS and EWG.

Unfortunately, "direct" subsidy payments — which are linked to a producer's production history rather than current market conditions — reinforce this legacy by linking payments to the past. Extending the current farm bill — as the House Agriculture Committee is poised to do — would provide $26 billion in direct payments to larger land owners and operators, further driving up the cost of renting land and making it harder for small farmers to survive.

While some large farmers annually collect more than $50,00 in direct payments, most collect less than $1,000 a year.

Now is the time to restructure our farm safety net to help all farmers. In particular, Congress should reduce and restructure our direct payments to help more farmers weather the ups and downs of agriculture, make investments, and plan for the future.

Proposals to make a transition to risk management coulds would be an important step in the right direction. Under one proposal, farmers could use the accounts to cover the "shallow losses" that are not covered by a farmer's crop or revenue insurance policy.

By reducing the cost of the current safety net, such proposals would also provide new resources to invest to rural development initiatives that create new markets for black and Latino farmers and create new jobs in rural counties. New resources could also be used to increase energy and environment programs, which flow to all farmers and ranchers.

In general, Congress needs to ensure that farmers have access to all USDA programs.

Latino farmers and ranchers are the fasting growing sector in agriculture — because they are taking their cues from the market place, not from the government. To learn more about the success of Latino farmers, visit WCVI's website.

The next Farm Bill should help all farmers — regardless of what they grow or where they live.

A vote yesterday to extend farm subsidies that flow to a handful of farmers in a handful of states was about as surprising as mold growing in a wet basement.

After all, the subcommittee overseeing farm subsidies represents districts that collected about $10 billion over the last three years. It was also no surprise that the same subcommittee voted against proposals to replace our depression era subsidies with a system of risk management accounts.

Several members said "not one of their farmers" would support reforming a system that provides them millions of taxpayer dollars even when the prices they can earn selling corn and cotton are going through the roof. Shocking!!

Several members also compared Ron Kind's FARM 21 proposal a buyout proposal from Citigroup to the "freedom to farm" proposal adopted in 1996.

But, Kind and Citgroup would not eliminate all subsidies, as Congress did in 1996. Instead, Kind's FARM 21 proposal would replace our current subsidies with a system of risk management accounts that farmers could use to weather the ups and downs of agriculture, make investments, and plan for the future.

What's more, FARM 21 would not change the subsidies provided for crop and revenue insurance — subsidies that cost the taxpayers $5 billion a year. Rather, FARM 21 would help farmers cover the "shallow" losses that are not covered by a farmer's crop or revenue insurance policy, which typically covers the "deep" losses caused by a drought or flood.

Citigroup's buyout proposal is completely optional and does not impact either the crop insurance program or the loan program that provide a floor for many farmers.

There are three other significant developments since 1996 that make the time ripe for reform.

One is the dramatic expansion of crop and revenue insurance policies. Today, 80 percent of the land growing subsidized crops like corn and cotton is covered by a crop or revenue insurance policy, and the coverage levels purchased by farmers are steadily growing.

The second is surging demand for corn to produce ethanol, which is driving corn prices to record levels. As corn prices have increased and more farmers have planted corn, soybean and wheat supplies have tightened as well, driving those prices higher as well. This year, Congress may expand the current ethanol mandate, driving demand for corn even higher.

The third is that every measure of farmer wealth — farm household income, net farm income, debt-to-equity ratios — are off the charts. Most commercial farmers are doing much better than the average American, and the credit for this success belongs to our farmers, not to our depression-era subsidies.

As the Washington Post reports, the committee's decision to extend the current safety net sets the stage for floor fight that many farmers will welcome.

The 2007 Farm Bill is starting to look a lot like the 2002 Farm Bill.

On Tuesday, a House subcommittee will vote on a new farm safety net that looks an awful lot like the current safety net — one that serves more like a security blanket.

The proposal would modestly tweak the price guarantees that make some forms of farming about as risky as crossing at the light. It would keep in place the "three-legged stool" of counter-cyclical, loan deficiency, and direct payments established in the 2002 Farm Bill.

As a result, most farm spending would continue to flow to a handful of farmers in a handful of districts — farmers in just 19 congressional districts would continue to collect more than half of all farm spending. The House proposal would not link subsidies to environmental performance, as some members of Congress have proposed, or expand existing "conservation compliance" requirements to more lands or environmental challenges. And, most importantly, the House proposal would not reduce and restructure farm subsidies to help meet America's pressing energy, environment, hunger and health challenges.

It should be no suprise that the fox is getting second helpings from the hen house. After all, he isn't just guarding the hen house — he built the hen house!

Many members of the House Agriculture Committee represent the congressional districts that collect the lion's share of farm subsidies.

In fact, eight of the top ten congressional districts collecting about one-third of all farm spending between 2003 and 2005 are represented by legislators who serve on the Committee.

It should be no surprise that legislators like Jerry Moran (R-KS) (whose district ranked second in farm spending between 2003 and 2005) would support efforts to extend farm and food policies that provide little or no help to 90 percent of America's farmers.

What puzzles the Ruminant is that legislators like Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), who represents the Shenandoah Valley (and ranked 184th between 2003 and 2005), Tim Holden (D-PA) or Virginia Foxx (R-NC) would support extension of a farm bill that provided their farmers less than $20 million between 2003 and 2005.

During the same period, farmers in Steve King's Iowa district (6th on the list) collected $1.1 billion. Jeepers!

In fact, only 100 members of the House brought home more than $50 million between 2003 and 2005. But, those 100 or so members collected about 90 percent of all farm spending. That means that roughly 330 members of the House — including every member of Congress from Florida, New York and Pennsylvania — collected less than $50 million in farm payments between 2005 and 2005.

Those who hoped the 2007 Farm Bill would help many more farmers and communities might instead hope that the next Farm Bill will be written on the floor of the House — where the chickens have the foxes outnumbered. The Ruminant hopes that the House leaders will work together to avoid a floor fight that will pits farmers against farmers.  

Making the transition to a system of risk management accounts, as Senator Richard Lugar has proposed, would result in huge balances.

That's according to analysis completed by two former USDA economists working for the Ruminant. According to their analysis, Lugar's FARM 21 proposal would result in account balances greater than $10 billion by 2012. That's alot of hay.

Here's how it world work: farmers would be required to put a bigger and bigger share of their direct payment (a subsidy payment linked to a farmer's historic production) into their accounts. When prices fall, farmers could withdraw funds to cover the "shallow" losses that aren't cover by their crop and revenue insurance policies.

Because crop prices are so high (and expected to remain high in response to demand for ethanol), few farmers will need to withdraw funds, according to the new analysis.

So, most farmers would enjoy significant balances, especially corn, soybean and wheat farmers.

Farmer contributions to accounts — which are pemitted but not required — are not included in the analysis, so account balances would probably be even bigger than forecast.

Creating risk management accounts would not only help farmers weather the ups and downs of agriculture but would also help farmers make investments and plan for the future.

Upon retirement, the account balances would be treated as a traditional IRA, reducing pressure to treat their farm as their pension.

No wonder so many newspapers are urging legislators to support a transition to risk management accounts. Who could oppose a proposal that would meet the real needs of farmers but also permit new investments that meet our energy, environmental, health and hunger challenges?  

There's no better example of the environmental challenges posed by agriculture than the 6,600 square mile "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico.

The nutrients in fertilizer and manure than help crops grow also fuel the growth of algae, which consume oxygen as they die and decompose. Eventually, oxygen levels fall too low to support marine life, killing some organisms and driving away others.

In 2001, a White House task force pledged to reduce the dead zone by using fertilizers with greater care and restoring wetlands to intercept and filter polluted runoff. The 2002 Farm Bill doubled funding for farmland stewardship, but more than $4 billion were cut to pay for disaster assistance and two out of three farmers offering to share the cost of clean water continue to be turned away.

Now, the Saint Louis Post Dispatch warns, surging corn production could make the dead zone even bigger.

But this week, a group of scientists will release a study that shows that the dead zone could largely be eliminated through a combination of actions: more precise fertilizer applications, wetland and grassland restoration, expanding pasture-based livestock operations and growing energy crops like switchgrass. The study shows that farmers could reduce the amount of nitrogen — a component of fertilizer — reaching the Gulf by 40 percent with no impact on their bottomline.

Bringing the dead zone back to life will require one thing more — that Congress dramatically expand farmland stewardship programs when legislators renew farm policies in the 2007 Farm Bill, according to the study.

More than 200 members of the House of Representatives have co-sponsored bills, including the Healthy Farms bill and the Eat Healthy bill, to double USDA conservation spending.

But, so far, House leaders have placed outdated farm subsidies ahead of farmland stewardship. As the Des Moines Register said this month, Congress needs to make conservation "the top farm bill priority" if we hope to clean up our rivers, lakes and bays and meet our other big environment challenges.

Ever since the Dust Bowl, Americans have provided a safety net for our farmers. But, the creators of the "temporary" progam designed to lift farmers out of the Great Depression could not have imagined Maurice Wilder.

Wilder, a Florida developer, collected about $1.8 million in farm subsidies in 2005, according to the Environmental Working Group.

Wilder is not the only millionaire collecting farm subsidies. Loopholes in existing law allow farmers to easily evade limits on who can collect subsidies and how much they can collect.

A better course might be to gradually replace our outdated subsidies with a system of risk management accounts and revenue insurance tools. The Ruminant hopes House and Senate leaders will ruminate over promising new ideas.

Under a plan developed by Indiana Senator Richard Lugar , farmers would make a transition to a system of farmer-held risk management accounts that would help farmers weather the ups and downs of agriculture, make investments, and plan for the future.

In particular, subsidized crop farmers would be required to put a larger and larger share of their "direct" subsidy payments into risk management accounts. Farmers could contribute some of their own funds, but a match would not be required.

When sales fall below 95% of a farmer's average gross sales, a farmer can withdraw funds to cover the "shallow" losses that are not covered by revenue or crop insurance policies. Farmers could also withdraw funds to purchase crop or revenue insurance or to make investments in rural enterprises.

What's left in the account would serve as a farmer's IRA.

Given agriculture's success — due in no small measure to the growth of ethanol — and the dramatic expansion of crop and revenue insurance coverage, Congress finally has a chance to restructure and reduce the outdated subsidies that help few farmers and regions.

There's never been a better time to reform farm subsidies.

In 2007, farm income is expected to be $66.6 billion, up $8.8 billion from 2006 and $9 billion higher than the ten-year average. Average farm household income is nearly twice the amount of ordinary households and large commercial farms — the farms that collect the lion's share of farm subsidies — will enjoy household income greater than $270,000 this year.