THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, March 29, 1996 TAG: 9603290740
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A6 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: STAFF AND WIRE REPORT
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium: 69 lines
The Senate, in a 74-26 vote, Thursday passed a sweeping change in the government's farm programs, sending a compromise bill to the House of Representatives for final passage and then on to President Clinton for his expected signature.
The bill, which split Senate Democrats on Thursday, would end most farm subsidies over the next seven years.
But farmers who raise such crops as wheat, corn, soybeans and cotton would continue to receive fixed, declining payments from Washington until 2002.
In return, the federal government would give up its role in helping to dictate most farmers' planting decisions, leaving them to plant on the basis of the market.
As the new farm program neared the end of its tortuous legislative journey, Republicans cheered an effort that first threatened to divide them but ultimately brought them together to reduce the federal government's role in agriculture.
``From now on the federal government will stop trying to control how much food, feed and fiber our nation produces,'' said Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Dick Lugar, R-Ind., ``Instead, we will trust the market for the first time in a long while to direct those signals.''
While all but one Senate Republican voted in favor of passage, Democrats in the end were the ones who split over the measure. Twenty-two Democrats voted for it; 25 voted against.
With farmers across the nation readying their crops for planting, lawmakers in both House and Senate rushed to complete the bill before recessing for several weeks. The delay in the bill - which was to have been completed by last September - had caused great uncertainty among farmers, whose planting decisions have largely been dictated by the Washington programs since the mid-1930s.
Clinton has said he has ``very serious reservations'' about the bill but conceded he would likely sign it. His administration had sought provisions for a continued ``safety net'' that would help farmers weather crop disasters and other severe market fluctuations after 2003.
In Hampton Roads, farms are still big business. 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.
Among the crops directly affected by the proposed bill 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. MEMO: This story was compiled from reports by The Los Angeles Times and The
Virginian-Pilot staff. ILLUSTRATION: Graphic
HOW THEY VOTED
A ``yes'' vote is a vote to pass the bill.
John W. Warner, R-Va. Yes
Charles S. Robb, D-Va. Yes
Jesse A. Helms, R-N.C. Yes
Lauch Faircloth, R-N.C. Yes
by CNB