Farm bill contains money for formerly unsubsidized crops

By MICHAEL DOYLE
Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Fruit and vegetable farmers put their cards on the table Tuesday with a multibillion-dollar bill that's part wish list and part bargaining chip.

The legislation introduced by Rep. Dennis Cardoza, D-Merced, would dramatically boost federal spending on so-called specialty crops. It's a big turnaround for hundreds of unsubsidized crops, from asparagus to walnuts.

"Non-traditional crops have never had a seat at the table when Congress wrote a farm bill," Cardoza said, "but that is all about to change."

Nonetheless, the specialty crop bill also poses new budgetary and political dilemmas. There will be competition for money, pressure from trading partners and a fight over planting flexibility.

"Everything is negotiable," said Cardoza, who chairs the House horticulture and organic agriculture subcommittee.

Half a dozen other House members joined Cardoza in introducing the 120-page bill, drafted over many months with the significant help of farm associations. It tracks some recommendations made by the Bush administration, which has also urged greater spending on specialty crops.

The bill does not provide traditional crop subsidies, such as those serving cotton, rice and wheat farmers. Instead, the money would fund research, marketing, conservation and federal crop purchases. School lunch programs would get more fruits and vegetables, for instance, and overseas food advertising more taxpayer aid.

"One thing we need assistance with is opening up those (foreign) markets," said Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Bakersfield.

The bill's provisions include:

_ Increasing the Market Access Program to $350 million a year, up from the current maximum of $200 million. The money pays for overseas ads and marketing by groups like the California Cling Peach Board and the California Kiwifruit Commission.

_ Providing grants to boost fruit and vegetable consumption. This money eventually would climb to $100 million a year and likewise flow through agricultural trade organizations; farm co-operatives such as Sunkist would also be eligible.

_ Building a $500 million-a-year program of specialty crop bloc grants paid to states, distributed in part according to each state's level of fruit and vegetable production. California would get the biggest share.

In a new twist, the rewritten bill also would shift thousands of agricultural port and border inspectors back to the Agriculture Department. The inspectors are currently part of the Department of Homeland Security, where their morale is low.

"Some (believe) that non-agriculture inspectors at their ports view the agriculture mission as less important," the Government Accountability Office noted in a recent report.

Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein has introduced a companion bill to move the inspectors back to the Agriculture Department. The move likely would face resistance from Bush administration officials, who had initiated the Department of Homeland Security.

More broadly, the specialty crop bill faces other challenges. The fruit and vegetable growers could end up competing for limited funds with politically powerful commodities. The commodity producers also could insist on being able to grow fruits and vegetables on land where they currently face limits. Those planting limits already face challenge by U.S. trading partners.

"I am sympathetic to the specialty crop producers," said Tim Johnson, president of the Sacramento-based California Rice Commission, "but this may be an issue that's bigger than them."

The specialty crop bill's expected five-year cost would be roughly $5 billion, if Congress adopted every proposal. That significantly exceeds current specialty crop spending, although exact comparisons are difficult.

Even so, the specialty crop spending would remain below the subsidies lavished on parts of the South and Midwest.

For instance, Iowa reaped $2.2 billion in overall Agriculture Department payments in 2005, a database compiled by the Environmental Working Group shows. By contrast, total farm payments reached $649 million California.

"Agricultural politics is not partisan," noted Rep. Rick Larson, D-Wash. "It tends to be regional, sometimes unfortunately."

The House Agriculture Committee will begin to begin to act in about June. The full House is expected to act in July, and a final bill arrive by the early fall.

(Contact Michael Doyle at mdoyle(at)mcclatchydc.com.)