Johanns: Streamline ag programs

WASHINGTON — Sen. Mike Johanns, R-Neb., said Thursday that some of his old proposals from his days as U.S. secretary of agriculture could be dusted off and used in putting together the next farm bill.

Specifically, he cited efforts to consolidate many of the complex and overlapping conservation programs covered by the farm bill.

“We’d sit down at the USDA and start talking about conservation programs, and it didn’t take long and we were confused,” Johanns said during his weekly conference call with reporters. “There’s just a whole host of them. So doing some things to try to deal with that would be very helpful.”

Johanns ran the Agriculture Department under President George W. Bush when Congress was working on the last farm bill, which expires in September. Johanns noted that with a new farm bill on the horizon, his calendar is filling up with meetings with agriculture-related groups.

Johanns said he also will be looking to protect crop insurance in the farm bill discussions. Those programs represent a tempting target for budget cutters, and the standard criticism is that they spend too much on administrative and overhead costs.

But Johanns said crop insurance is important to farmers.

“Crop insurance really is the new safety net and it’s a system that’s working,” Johanns said.

He noted that farmers pay premiums so they have skin in the game and that payments are tied to actual losses.

Also, crop insurance already has gone under the budget knife to help pare back the deficit.

“We’ve given at the office on that one,” Johanns said. “I really would push back against somebody who says, ‘Look, we can continue to take more and more out of this program.’ There’s a point at which the program’s not very effective, and we don’t want to end up there.”

Contact the writer:

202-630-4823, joe.morton@owh.com

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