
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, March 26, 1991                   TAG: 9103260509
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-2   EDITION: EVENING 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

STUDY URGES REVAMPING FARM AID

Farmers, consumers and the environment would benefit if major countries would separate government payments to farmers from specific commodity production programs, a research report said today.

The World Resources Institute study said "multilateral decoupling" of commodity programs from government payments should be a primary goal in the current Uruguay Round of negotiations under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.

This approach "approximates the goals of the U.S. government in the current round of GATT talks," the report said.

"Such a shift in agricultural policy would encourage low-input farming methods, raise soil productivity and greatly reduce chemical and sediment runoff from agricultural land," it said.

Case studies in Pennsylvania and Nebraska showed that multilateral decoupling would "provide the greatest economic value to society and benefit farmers financially while drastically reducing environmental damage."

The report, as others have noted, said U.S. farm programs have cost taxpayers dearly for decades, recently averaging about $12 billion a year to provide support for major farm commodities.

Most of this money, or income transfers, has not gone to small low-income farmers but to the largest producers.

"Moreover, many farm policies are inconsistent," the report said. "To boost production, for example, government subsidizes irrigation, extension services, research and infrastructure - but simultaneously restricts cultivated acreage and pursues other policies to cut overproduction."

Farm commodity programs also "carry with them serious unintended environmental costs," it said.

"Farm supports contribute to soil erosion, the overuse of agricultural chemicals and the loss of wildlife habitat," the report said. "Policies that raise the payments farmers receive for their crops, but restrict the acreage they can plant, encourage intensive cropping and input use on the land that is planted."

The report said the 1990 farm law "went further in establishing environmental provisions than any previous act" but "still maintains the distorting effect of commodity programs on most farmland."

by CNB