Color my pork purple

Mix red and blue colors and you get a purple byproduct. The same thing happened when Republicans (red) and Democrats (blue) in Congress offered up their latest versions of the farm bill.

The last farm bill was authorized in 2008 and projected spending $604 billion over 10 years. The new House and Senate agricultural-committee versions project a 60 percent increase over the 2008 allocation, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The basic disagreement now between the House and Senate agricultural committees is limited to whether the new authorization should be $963 billion or $950 billion over 10 years.

When I see the term “farm bill,” I instinctively think images of “The Grapes of Wrath,” starring a poor, struggling farmer in overalls plowing a field with a withered horse. Remember that the original farm bill was written in 1933, during the depths of the Great Depression, to help farmers survive the hazards of the Dust Bowl. The image, however, bears no resemblance to reality.

Former President Jimmy Carter and his family pocketed $272,288 in subsidy payments between 1995 and 2012. During the same period, USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack received $82,874 while his undersecretary collected over $1 million. Mark and David Rockefeller were beneficiaries of farm-bill payments to the tune of $947,075, and elected Congressional representatives Frank Lucas and Charles Grassley took in a $1 million together while sitting on their respective agricultural committees. Topping the list is Riceland Foods, Inc., the world’s largest miller and marketer of rice. The company, with more than $1.5 billion in annual sales, collected $554.3 million.

It’s clear that the farm bill has morphed from a government effort to help desperate farmers stabilize crop prices and insure any crop losses, to a welfare program for prosperous farmers and even for those who don’t operate farms. I’m pretty sure there are no farms in Manhattan, yet the government still disbursed $9 million in subsidies over seven years to borough residents. Add to this $4.7 billion in subsidies for the Nature Conservancy (1995-2012) which, ironically, opposes the conversion of natural habitat to cropland, and the Audubon Society, which accepted $932,801.

In addition to subsidizing prosperous Americans, the so-called farm bill also dispenses large sums for the nation’s food-stamp program, forestry projects, the energy and telecommunication (broadband deployment) industries, and for rural development. In fact, almost 80 percent of the nearly $1 trillion proposed supports just food stamps, which leads some to suggest that we rename the legislation the “food-stamp bill.”

What’s most interesting to me is that no one inside the Beltway is asking whether farmers still need government assistance to manage the risks associated with farming. In the 80 years since the original farm bill was passed, technology has eliminated many of the risks that used to plague farmers, who today can manage their businesses without taxpayer subsidies by purchasing futures contracts, using credit reserves, employing crop diversification, and buying private insurance. The time seems appropriate to consider ending taxpayer subsidies, since the USDA forecasts that net farm income will reach $128 billion this year, the highest level in four decades.

Is Congress likely to reduce its support of those feeding at the “farm-bill” trough? The pork dispensed in this 1,000-page piece of legislation is too tempting, especially since urban and rural interests have been bundled with those of environmentalists and the energy and telecommunications industries. Any differences between Republicans and Democrats on the final farm-bill legislation are only at the margins.

The effects of the new farm bill will be particularly perverse. Wealthy farmers will become even more wealthy, driving up their demand for farmland. This, in turn, raises the price to small farmers and squeezes them out of the market or into niche markets. The nation’s obesity problem is concentrated among the recipients of food stamps, who now will benefit from a 60 percent increase in taxpayer largesse. The taxpayers can also be expected to pick up the bloated health-care tab as the food-stamp recipients require more medical care.

Environmental groups will receive more money to convert our natural resources into farmland, which runs counter to their mission. They are encouraging wealthy farmers to plant crops on marginal farm lands that will require more chemical management. And the legislators, who benefit from the very bills they pass, will continue to ignore the obvious conflict of interest that would be considered criminal in the private sector.

What a deal! Taxpayers pay the bill and consumers pay higher prices for the food they buy.

I hope that our elected representatives in Washington will be struck by a bolt of logic, but optimism eludes me. If they can’t go cold turkey and eliminate the farm bill that’s now being considering for renewal, let them at least seriously reform the program by separating food stamps from agricultural programs, eliminating direct payments, cap the crop-insurance subsidies, and limit farm subsidies to small farmers.

Painting pork purple does not help the commonweal. Republicans and Democrats would better serve the country by delivering a powerful example of cutting federal spending and thereby setting the economy on a course toward fiscal soundness.

Norman Poltenson is publisher of The Central New York Business Journal. Contact him at npoltenson@cnybj.com