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Farm Views Clash at Forum: California Farmers Seeking Federal Aid Meet With Resistance From the Midwest.

Posted on: Saturday, 4 March 2006, 12:00 CST

By Jim Wasserman, The Sacramento Bee, Calif.

Mar. 4--STOCKTON - The nation's leading farm state seemed to resemble another agricultural planet Friday as Midwest members of the U.S. House Agriculture committee tangled with California farmers over their environmental issues and hopes for a Mexican guest worker program.

Committee members from grain-growing Midwest states appeared unsympathetic to farmers' requests for more environmental funding to meet California's tougher air and water quality rules, and also to their pleas for guest workers to end a labor shortage.

The exchanges, reflecting the vast differences between California's heavily irrigated, labor-intensive produce crops and mechanized eastern grain belts, came during a four-hour hearing on fashioning a new $19 billion annual U.S. farm bill when it expires late next year.

Friday's forum was the third of a dozen hearings expected across the nation this year on the federal government's most critical and contentious farm spending bill.

"I have some sympathy for groups that aren't getting much from the farm bill," said Democratic Rep. Collin Peterson of Minnesota. "But California, in my opinion, gets a little carried away with some of this (environmental) stuff. It seems you want the farm bill to take care of problems that are caused by your urban residents."

Republican Rep. Steve King of Iowa likewise expressed repeated skepticism over farmers' hopes for a guest worker program as part of immigration reform being debated in Congress. In December, a House Republican majority passed an immigration reform measure that is opposed by many Western farmers. It calls for severe crackdowns on illegal immigration and increased security along the U.S.-Mexico border.

"Can you contemplate anywhere in the world where there has been a successful guest worker program?" King asked Stanislaus County fruit and nut grower Vito Chiesa.

Listening as Chiesa and three Central Valley congressmen on the committee lamented a California labor shortage and lack of native-born workers to do farm work, King said: "I see what you're up against here, but we also have to have the rule of law."

Immigration and the environment were among numerous issues Friday as cotton and rice producers asked for continuation of their multimillion-dollar subsidies in a 2007 farm bill.

Fruit, nut and vegetable growers who don't get direct crop support payments sought an increase in the federal $200 million-a-year program that promotes their products overseas. An array of the state's dairy and grape growers, organic farmers and specialty poultry producers asked for new funds to speed mechanization research, better protect the state from invasive insect pests and diseases and help them meet environmental obligations.

The last farm bill in 2002 greatly increased environmental spending through grants from its Environmental Quality Incentives Program. Farmers especially praised the program Friday. It allocated $48.3 million to farmers last year and will grant another $47.7 million in incentives this year to curb water runoff and soil erosion.

The nation's farm bill, a complex web of spending that subsidizes production of major grain crops and cotton and allocates money for loans, rural development and nutrition programs, has already been the subject of hearings in North Carolina and Alabama. Friday's session was a prelude to another being held today in Nebraska.

Committee Chairman and Virginia Republican Bob Goodlatte noted the 2007 farm bill will be written amid a tight federal budget and said all the new millions of dollars that Californians want would have to come from farmers in other states.

"Would you suggest where it should come from?" he asked one panel.

"No," answered panelists, chuckling.

"Now you know how we feel," Goodlatte said.

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Sacramento Bee, Calif.

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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Source: The Sacramento Bee

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