Congressman Collin Peterson, chairman of the House of Representatives' Agriculture Committee, has indicated that he would like to have his committee begin consideration of the full 2007 Farm Bill in late June, with final action by the Committee prior to the July 4 recess, reports the Wildlife Management Institute. If Chairman Peterson can keep the legislation moving through his Committee on the proposed, ambitious schedule, the full House may be able to address the legislation by the week of July 16.

The current (2002) Farm Bill is scheduled to expire at the end of September.

Senate activity on the Farm Bill appears to be a bit behind the House. Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee Chairman, Tom Harkin, was hopeful that his committee also could take action on the bill by the end of June, but now that looks to be unlikely.

One of the major Farm Bill discussion topics in recent days involves lowering the cap on the amount of crop subsidy payments a producer can receive. Currently, annual subsidy payments are capped at $360,000 per individual farmer. However, there are loopholes that enabled some producers to exceed the cap. Considerations are underway in both Committees to close the loopholes and lower the annual cap amount. By the same token, it has been suggested that, if farm commodity subsidies are subjected to reform, conservation program payments also should be capped.

Little alarm has been raised about this in the conservation community, mainly because most of the significant conservation programs already have caps in place. The Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) ceiling for payment to individual farmers, for example, is $50,000 per year.