The United States Congress last week tried to send American farmers a $4.2 billion (U.S.) aid package, in addition to several billion dollars in subsidies already allotted under the 1996 farm bill.
President Bill Clinton vetoed it Oct. 8 and sent it back requesting more money be added.
American farm leaders expect a compromise package with a heftier subsidy will be worked out by this week.
During a telephone news conference Oct. 9 from Colorado, U.S. National Farmers Union president Leland Swenson called on the politicians to offer up a package worth more than $7 billion.
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He suggested it include direct aid to farmers hurt by low commodity prices, assistance to livestock feeders, money through the International Monetary Fund to help poor foreign countries buy more American product and a country-of-origin requirement for meat imports.
“Help is needed now,” he said. “The farm crisis has moved well beyond the farmgate, affecting implement dealers and others who sell to farmers.”
Swenson said the aid package proposed by the Republican-dominated Congress was inadequate and was justifiably killed by the White House.
It included direct aid of just 13 cents per bushel (more than $7 per tonne Canadian) to wheat farmers, he complained. In contrast to that $400 million to the wheat sector, he said the package would have included $300 million in subsidies to companies planning to export poultry to Russia. Swenson said the aid should be increased and concentrated on farmers in need rather than corporate subsidies.
“The president didn’t veto the bill because he is against assistance to farmers in a time of crisis,” said the president of the NFU, a group generally identified with Democratic party policies.
“He vetoed the bill because it wasn’t enough assistance for farmers in a time of crisis.”
Farm bureau upset
The American Farm Bureau, more closely aligned with Republican Party policies, criticized Clinton for his veto.
Bureau president Dean Kleckner said the farm relief is needed now. He urged a quick Capitol Hill compromise.
“This veto represents a lost opportunity for the administration to help farmers,” he said in a statement issued from the bureau’s head offices in Chicago. “The president could have made a real difference at a difficult time for American agriculture.”
Kleckner also criticized the possibility that the Democratic president and his congressional allies would be pushing for a higher U.S. loan rate as one of the ways to help farmers. That idea would effectively increase the floor price for commodities.
He said any increase in the loan rate would help farmers, but at the price of making their commodities less competitive in world markets.
