Summary: The South, Peanuts, Rice and to an extent Cotton rose up and at least for now, opposed the Senate Farm Bill proposal. Senators from the south, and yes Republican Senators are speaking out against what they see as a lack of an equitable program for southern crops. Namely rice, peanuts and to a certain extent cotton. Saxby Chambliss - R Georgia, and John Boozman -R Arkansas. I also find it interesting that Larry Combest, former House Agricultural Comm. Chairman helped organize the letter that opposed the Senate Farm Bill Draft, at least for now. Cochran - R Mississippi, and the Republican Senate leader McConnell - Kentucky also voted against the bill. Where are you going to find the money to make them happy? Is there enough Political will to keep a form of Direct Payments for them, or raise target prices like they would like ? Farm Bill fight is still Regional not political, at least not yet. Stabenow and Roberts did not have their bases covered. That is surprising to many observers. Things like this do not generally move unless they have broad support. This Southern Slowdown of the Farm Bill will make it that much harder to get anything done before the 2012 election. I am not saying they should not have done it. They need to do what they think is best for their farmers. Stabenow did change some things to placate two very powerful democratic senators from North Dakota and Montana. One chairman of the Finance comm., the other chairman of the Budget comm. Did the corn growers over reach? Will all this support for corn, be used against ethanol, etc., at a later time? It looks to me corn got everything it wanted and then some in this Senate draft. So, does this mean since there are around 300,000 corn farmers and 5,000 rice farmers, corn should get a better deal. Now I know a lot of corn producers will say the payments going to crops down south have dwarfed what ever corn and or soybeans have gotten in the past, but corn also gets a lot from the ethanol backing by the feds. Now the process goes to the house. This is where the real fight is. Senate Bill is what I think the Ag Committee in the house will start from, but will Lucas go along? Getting a Bill out of the Senate Ag committee is a start, and increases the odds a farm bill will be done before the November election, but this by no means is a sure thing.
