California Farm Bureau Federation

Farm bill, water lead agenda for Washington trip

- 5/7/08

By Ching Lee, Assistant Editor

Led by California Farm Bureau Federation First Vice President Paul Wenger, left, a delegation of farmers and ranchers met last week in Washington, D.C. with lawmakers and other high-ranking officials, including U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Ed Schafer, right, and Lloyd Day, administrator of USDA's Agricultural Marketing Service.

As Congress continues to struggle to write a new farm bill, Farm Bureau leaders from throughout the state took their concerns to Capitol Hill last week in hopes of influencing lawmakers on crucial issues affecting California agriculture.

The 17-member delegation, joined by California Farm Bureau Federation officers and staff, worked the halls of Congress to discuss topics ranging from the farm bill, Clean Water Act, immigration and trade.

The April 28-30 trip to Washington, D.C. is part of an ongoing effort by CFBF to develop leadership within the organization as well as provide congressional and agency leaders the opportunity to hear directly from California growers and ranchers on issues that are important to them.

One of those issues is passage of the 2007 Farm Bill, which Congress is still negotiating this week. The 2002 Farm Bill expired in September, and since then the law has been extended six times to allow lawmakers to finish a bill that President Bush will find acceptable.

Frustrated with the bill's progress, the president has asked Congress to extend the current law for a year or longer. The move would delay benefits to California farmers as the new bill offers more than $1.3 billion over the life of the farm bill for specialty crops, as well as increased spending on conservation and nutrition programs. Prolonging the current deadlock also means squandering all progress that has been made in the past year.

A main focus of the Farm Bureau trip was to urge lawmakers to find common ground and move the farm bill forward.

Extending the 2002 Farm Bill beyond this year is not an option for California's farmers and ranchers," said CFBF First Vice President Paul Wenger, who led the delegation. "For the first time in farm bill history, all commodity groups have come to agreement on the future of farm policy. It is time for congressional leaders to overcome any differences and pass the bill successfully so that these vital programs can be executed in a timely manner."

Some key issues remain unresolved for the bill, which is expected to cost nearly $300 billion over five years, with 70 percent of the total directed at food stamps and nutrition. One sticking point involves government crop supports, which the Bush administration has sought to limit. So far the plan that the House and Senate have proposed falls short of the reforms that the president has suggested.

ary Kay Thatcher, farm policy specialist for the American Farm Bureau Federation, in a meeting with the CFBF delegation, said there's a 50/50 chance that Bush will veto the bill.

Another issue that dominated talks with CFBF leaders and legislators and their staff involved the Clean Water Authority Restoration Act, or H.R. 2421, which the Farm Bureau opposes. If the bill passes, it would greatly extend federal regulatory control over wetlands and related water quality issues, opponents say.

This legislation would delete the word "navigable" from the Clean Water Act and broaden the regulatory reach of the Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers to cover all "intrastate waters" and "activities affecting these waters." Under the proposal, the EPA and ACE would regulate nearly every wet area in the nation, including an estimated 55 million acres of prior converted cropland.

Opponents claim if passed, the law would require farmers and ranchers to obtain federal permits to carry out their daily land management activities in areas traditionally reserved for the states. The law also would greatly increase the cost and time associated with managing stock ponds, ditches, gutters and possibly groundwater.

Under the law, landowners would likely need to acquire a federal permit to place a culvert in a ditch or implement conservation practices such as installing buffer strips or restoring wet areas that have no hydrological connection to a traditionally navigable waterway. Farmers say this is counterproductive to their efforts to improve the environment.

Jason Eells, who manages his family's winery and vineyard in San Joaquin County, said H.R. 2421 would have a huge impact on his ability to farm.

"We pump out of the Mokelumne River to irrigate some of our vineyards," he said, adding that he fears the legislation would restrict or ban such activity. "We wouldn't be able to irrigate our crops."

Other farmers say the new proposals would further tie their hands and prevent the conversion of farmlands from one crop to another.

"We all want clean water and clean air," said Yolo County farmer Chuck Dudley, who grows almonds and is a pest control advisor, "but we don't want to shut down all of our agriculture and commerce to get there."

Meanwhile, California's agricultural labor supply situation remains unsettled, and fighting for immigration reform continues to be a top agenda for CFBF leaders. The biggest uncertainty facing agricultural employers is the role the federal government will take in workplace enforcement. Many fear that severe enforcement of the Department of Homeland Security's Social Security number no-match rule could lead to imposed worker shortages.

The rule affects employers who receive no-match letters from the Social Security Administration. These letters tell employers that the name and Social Security number of an employee do not match Social Security records. Under the threat of crippling fines, agricultural employers could be forced to fire key workers. This could start at the height of the summer employment season, farmers say.

"Reaching a legislative solution in an election year won't be easy," said Jack King, CFBF manager of national affairs. "But we have no choice but to push forward and keep the issue alive."

The Farm Bureau continues to push for passage of the Agricultural Job Opportunity, Benefits and Security Act, or AgJOBS, and considers the legislation a viable option for dealing with the agricultural labor situation. The bill's author, California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, is exploring ways to modify the legislation to gain additional support.

In a meeting with CFBF leaders, Feinstein said there is "good solid support in the community" for AgJOBS, but much uncertainty looms regarding how to carry the legislation forward.

"The bottom line is, there are a lot of people here who don't want to touch any issue related to immigration," Feinstein told the CFBF delegation.

Despite these challenges, CFBF leaders pressed lawmakers for a congressional solution that would allow foreign workers to come into the United States to fill jobs where there are no domestic workers and return to their home countries when the work is complete. They say they support improved border enforcement, but enforcement by itself won't solve the country's border problems.

"One of the messages I've been delivering is, don't just give us the stick but also offer us the carrot," said Solano County farmer Joe Martinez. "Immigration reform has got to be a two-prong approach: the stick to take care of our border concerns and the carrot to give us something that we can live with and that farmers can have an adequate supply of labor."

Expanding overseas markets has always been a top priority for California's farmers and ranchers, and a major focus of the Washington trip was to advocate for free trade and urge lawmakers to pass the free trade agreements with Colombia and South Korea. The United States has negotiated deals with both countries, but these deals remain in limbo until Congress approves them.

The Colombia free trade agreement was sent to Congress in early April, but the Democratic-controlled House wants to delay a vote until after the November election. The South Korea pact is expected to be sent to Congress sometime this year. Projected gains are expected to stretch across all sectors of U.S. agriculture under both trade agreements, King said.

In Colombia, there is an estimated increase in agriculture trade of $690 million per year after full implementation of the agreement, he noted.

Under the negotiated free trade agreement with Korea, more than half of current U.S. farm exports to the Asian nation, worth $1.6 billion, will become duty-free immediately, King said.

Despite ongoing political hurdles on issues that affect California agriculture, participants in the trip agreed that farmers and ranchers must continue to reach out to legislators and tell their personal stories.

"I think it's our duty as Farm Bureau members to continually be at the table and communicate the ag perspective to our lawmakers," said Martinez. "We don't know which comment or visit is going to have the impact, but one of them for sure will."

David Van Klaveren, who has an ornamental nursery business and is new to the Stanislaus County board of directors, said the CFBF trip was a "great learning experience" for him.

"This was more of a lobbying effort, to put a face on the issues," he said. "And I believe many of the senators and congressmen and women responded to that. They really listened to our personal issues. I believe it was eye-opening for many of them." #

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