It’s just as well for United States agriculture secretary Mike Johanns that his proposals for a new farm bill do not require a thumbs up from Canadians.
Reactions north of the 49th parallel last week to Johanns’ proposals for the next five years of American farm programming were skeptical, critical, underwhelmed and a bit envious. The proposed changes suggest at least $17.5 billion US a year in farm supports.
“They still are looking at heavy subsidies to farmers and that will affect production, prices and markets,” said Victor Jarjour, chief representative for the Canadian Wheat Board in Ottawa.
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“There are some interesting twists in there but the bottom line is that this remains a very rich farm support program,” said Canadian Federation of Agriculture president Bob Friesen.
Federal agriculture minister Chuck Strahl said the consensus within the World Trade Organization is that to be meaningful, American farm supports should be cut to less than $15 billion annually.
“It looks like he is proposing to spend it differently with a big whack of cash for environmental and other things,” Strahl told reporters. “But we are still concerned about the amount of money. It is how it is spent (that matters) but also the amount. He’s talking $19 billion. This seems to be way out of line.”
In Regina, Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan president Ken McBride said Canadian farmers can only be envious of the continued U.S. support for farmers.
“What they are doing helps their country but hurts ours,” he said. “The last three years have been the three best years for farm income in the U.S. and the three worst years for Canadian farm income. Why does our government continue to refuse to close this gap? Why do they refuse to emulate success?”
Johanns’ announcement of proposals for the next version of the U.S. Farm Bill was just the beginning of the process. In fact, the American congressmen and senators from whom he does need approval may not be much more flattering than the Canadian critics.
Congress will begin hearings soon on the new farm bill and the Democratic-controlled Houses will be hearing from both the American Farm Bureau and the U.S. National Farmers Union that farm support spending should increase.
Johanns was trying to sell his proposals as a $10 billion decrease in spending over five years to 2012, although the $87.3 billion in program spending he projected did not include adhoc payments.
“There is a real history of American emergency payments when income falls so claims of a cut are not very credible,” said Friesen.
The core farm bill proposals from the White House include several key items:
- A switch from price supports to farm revenue supports, setting minimum support levels at 85 percent of historic income levels using the Olympic average of the past five years with the best and worst years dropped.
- A $7.8 billion increase in conservation funding, $5 billion more for specialty crop producers and $1.6 billion in funding for renewable energy research and development.
In Washington, Johanns said it was a proposal for a more “market oriented” farm policy.
