THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, February 21, 1996 TAG: 9602210415
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY PAUL CLANCY, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 114 lines
Congress appears ready to end decades of micro-managing what farmers grow and sell, removing at the same time a safety net that dates back to the New Deal. For many farmers in Hampton Roads, that couldn't come soon enough.
``As far as I'm concerned, I couldn't care less about government programs in 1996,'' says Lyle Pugh, who farms 2,200 acres in Chesapeake. ``My son and I are going to join forces this year, work our tails off and make it on our own.''
That seems to be the prevailing sentiment among farmers who extract food and fiber from the rich, loamy soil of the region.
They'll gladly trade what has been the security of government price supports and other programs for the freedom to plant what they want, when they want.
A bill passed by the Senate and headed for House consideration would end price supports and acreage set-asides that have, since the Depression, both protected farmers in hard times and restricted what they could plant.
Among the crops directly affected are such Tidewater bellwethers as corn, wheat and cotton. But because prices have been high lately, local farmers have less need for already-dwindling government support payments and seem ready to do without them altogether.
Don Horsley, who farms 2,800 acres near Back Bay in Virginia Beach, says of the farm program: ``I'd rather be able to make a living without it. It's not a good image for farmers when price supports are characterized as being just another welfare program. As far as I'm concerned, the least amount of government the better.''
Price supports tend to stymie initiative, farmers say. They must plant no more on average than they have over the past five years - and often less. Based on market trends, the secretary of agriculture decides each year how much of that average farmers can plant. The government then pays them to set aside the rest.
Getting paid for not planting. Farmers say they hate this as much as the public does. ``We get criticized for taking part in just another welfare program,'' says Horsley. ``I don't like that. You'd like to think the free enterprise system will take off and go from there.''
They'll still get paid. In fact, the Senate version of the bill is under heavy criticism for the lump-sum payments it promises over a period of seven years, even if they are finally phased out. Opponents hope to modify that provision when the bill gets to the House.
The big change would be ending price supports. Instead of being handcuffed by an average of what they've planted in past years, farmers like Pugh and Horsley and others in the area can watch the market and decide what to plant. If it looks as though they can earn more planting soybeans than corn - or vice versa - they'll be free to do so.
They have such freedom now only if they voluntarily disqualify themselves from possible price support payments.
``We need to be free to compete in the international market,'' says Virginia Beach farmer Eddie Vaughan, who plants nine other farms besides his own. ``If the controls are really taken off, it'll be a great thing.'' But he adds: ``I wonder if it'll ever be taken off, it's such a big business for the whole country.''
At the moment, world demand for grain is rising. And, locally, North Carolina's growing hog farms have pushed up the price of feed grains. So Hampton Roads farmers have done well lately and seem ready to throw down the crutches.
Farms are still big business in the region, even after decades of losing ground to suburban development. The region that includes Chesapeake, Suffolk and Virginia Beach, and Isle of Wight and James City counties, has more than a quarter-million acres of farmland yielding more than $70 million a year.
Most of it comes from peanuts, wheat, soybeans and corn, but farms producing specialty crops like strawberries, sweet potatoes and pumpkins have also done well.
Local farmland is generally rich, holds moisture well, has a long growing season and has been blessed with good rain: not too little and not too much.
``This land in Virginia Beach is some of the most productive land in the state,'' says Horsley.
Much of the farmland in Hampton Roads is farmed by a relative handful of families. Through arrangements handed down from family to family over decades, they rent far more land than they own. That's good for them because they need volume to make a profit, and good for families who are no longer able to farm.
All the while, there's growing pressure on farmers to sell to developers as suburbia moves evermore to the south. Some local governments, including Virginia Beach, a leader in a nationwide movement, have agriculture reserve programs that pay families for development rights to keep the land off the housing market.
Virginia Beach Agriculture Director Louis Cullipher says local farmers are willing to do away with government supports - as long as other countries follow suit. ``We can compete, just as long as everybody's playing by the same rules,'' he says.
Wheat farmers have already sold this year's crop to local granaries or they've locked in good prices through futures markets. The only thing that'll keep them from doing well this year is bad weather. Or bad luck. ``With the prices that are out there, there's no reason a profit can't be made,'' says Pugh.
Right now, Hampton Roads wheat farmers are waiting for dry weather. That will allow them to get heavy equipment on their fields, applying a top coat of nitrogen on the crop they planted last October. The harvest is in June.
Near Don Horsley's home off Land of Promise Road near Back Bay, a chilly wind whips across his fields.
``That's good for the land,'' he says, ducking into a shed where two powerful tractors wait. ``The sooner it gets dry the better. I'm ready to get started.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by MORT FRYMAN, The Virginian-Pilot
Chesapeake farmer Lyle Pugh says he'll be too busy this growing
season to worry about government programs.
Chart
Farming in Hampton Roads
by CNB