Farm bill has state lawmakers split

Kansas Democrats on Wednesday joined the vast majority of House lawmakers in supporting the latest farm bill, but the state’s Republicans said they could not support a measure that cuts direct payments and the crop insurance program. The $290 billion measure passed on a 318-106 vote with enough bipartisan support to withstand a threatened presidential veto. Senate lawmakers are expected to pass the bill today with an equally veto-proof margin.

Republican Rep. Jerry Moran, who represents all of western Kansas, said the state’s farmers would be hurt by cuts of $313 million in direct payments over three years and $5.7 billion taken out of crop insurance support for agents and companies.

Direct payments are subsidies paid to farmers of certain crops regardless of commodity prices.

“Direct payments are more important now than ever with these increasing input costs for fertilizer and fuel,” Moran said. “Perhaps it’s a modest reduction, but I worry that once we start down this path, direct payments will be the place that Congress looks to cut money to spend someplace else.”

Democrat Nancy Boyda, of Topeka, said the bill is far from perfect, but called the measure a reasonable compromise that won the backing of most major farm groups, including the Kansas Farm Bureau.

“I think we all worked to restore those cuts to direct payments, but let’s not fool ourselves into thinking that direct payments were slashed,” Boyda said. “Over 10 years you’ll see less than one half of a percent of the direct payments cut, which I’m not saying is a good thing, but we just need to keep it in perspective.”

“The farm groups are not happy about it, but it could have been worse and they know it,” Boyda said.

The bill contains tax relief for recovery efforts in tornado-damaged Greensburg and helps state-inspected meat and poultry plants to sell their products out of state, lifting a restriction Kansas meat packing plants have opposed for years.

Kansas Farm Bureau President Steve Baccus said his group supported the bill, despite some misgivings, and encouraged the state’s delegation to vote for it.

“We don’t like the fact that they had cuts to direct payments and cuts to federal crop insurance which is extremely important to our folks,” Baccus said.