Farmers Likely To Get Aid Money $8.7 Billion Relief Package Could Clear Congress This Week

Congress expects to approve $8.7 billion in emergency farm aid sometime this week, but it won’t ease trade sanctions, Washington senators said Wednesday.

The $69 billion agriculture spending bill passed the House last week and could clear the Senate as early as today. President Clinton is expected to sign it.

The bill includes $5.5 billion in payments to farmers who face low prices because of poor foreign markets. Sen. Slade Gorton, who said he will vote for the bill, estimated wheat growers would receive 60 to 63 cents per bushel in aid.

The bill also has aid for apple, fruit and vegetable growers who lost crops due to weather. But Gorton said it’s unclear how much money apple growers will receive.

The decision on those payments is “completely up to the secretary of agriculture how much relief he wants to give them,” Gorton said.

Sen. Patty Murray said she is unsure how she will vote on the bill because of questions over payments for apple growers and the removal of sanctions relief.

“Although apples are in there, it is going to be very difficult for (growers) to access that money,” Murray said.

Gorton called the loss of sanctions relief “the greatest disappointment” in the bill. “Members of the House of Representatives, especially from the Southeast, were vehemently opposed to lifting sanctions on Cuba,” he said.

Wheat growers and Northwest members of Congress have been campaigning against trade barriers throughout the session. They want to lift sanctions on food and medicine so more foreign markets will open to America’s struggling farmers. The initial Senate bill included a provision that would have removed those sanctions, but the House-Senate conference committee deleted it.

A strong supporter of sanctions relief, Rep. George Nethercutt, tried to add those changes to the spending bill in June. The Spokane Republican participated in the conference discussions on the final version of the bill.

Although he was unhappy with that version because sanctions relief was removed, he ultimately voted for it.

“We need to get this assistance to our farmers,” Nethercutt said. “Even though I’m dissatisfied with the process and the content of the final bill … (I) felt the good outweighed the bad.”

Gorton said he is especially pleased with the $3.9 million in research money Washington state will receive to study potatoes, cherries, apples, wheat, barley, peas and lentils, hops, canola, grapes and floriculture.

Steve Appel of the Washington State Farm Bureau came to the capital last month to petition for disaster relief and an end to sanctions.

“I thought this was a golden opportunity that we were no longer going to use food as a foreign policy tool,” Appel said. “Now my concern is: Can we get a legislative fix to the sanctions question as a separate piece of legislation?”

Appel said he is pleased with the relief package Congress has assembled, but is eager for the money to reach Washington farms. “We need to get the money out there for folks to survive, Appel said.