Farm Subsidies Face $13 Billion Cut Gorton Expects Budget Bill To Reduce Payments Over Seven Years

A $13 billion, sevenyear cut in farm subsidies likely will be adopted today in a final resolution to balance the federal budget, U.S. Sen. Slade Gorton said.

Spending on price supports that boost incomes of wheat, corn and other farmers during bad years would drop from $8.3 billion to $6.4 billion annually through the year 2002.

The congressional budget bill, if signed by President Clinton, would set parameters for how much can be spent on agriculture. But details will be forged by agriculture committees working on a new farm bill.

“Agriculture is going to take its share of reductions, but I believe it’s safe to say that the share is smaller than other programs,” Gorton, R-Wash., said Wednesday in a conference call to Washington news organizations.

“That means the influence of the federal government in agriculture policy will be smaller,” he said.

Gorton, a member of the Senate Appropriations and Budget committees, said a compromise was struck with House members who wanted to reduce price supports to farmers by $17 billion.

Price supports are the money that makes up lost revenue when market prices fall below a targeted level. Wheat, corn, barley, rice, oats and cotton farmers participate in the program, which taps a pool of taxpayer-supported subsidies.

Gretchen Borck, spokeswoman for the Washington Association of Wheat Growers, said the proposed budget cuts shouldn’t cause too much harm for farmers provided Congress phases in reductions over a few years.

“We want to know there is life after the farm program,” she said. “We’ll lose a few farmers, but that’s to be expected. The majority have gone through a baptism by fire in the past, and they will come through this.”

Gorton, however, would not assure farmers that the federal Export Enhancement Program, more critical than price supports in the Northwest, will survive the cuts. The $800-million-per-year program underwrites sales of wheat and other commodities to overseas buyers.

But budget savings should have the positive effect of depressing interest rates and lowering farm costs, he said.

Gorton said the agriculture committees will begin debate on the 1995 farm bill after a July 4 congressional recess. The bill, which will set the nation’s farm policy for the next five to seven years, likely will reach a full vote in the Senate and House in September.

, DataTimes