Farm Fare

As U.S. farmers struggled through their worst times since the Depression and Washington spent record sums on agricultural subsidies, Congress wrestled with two measures aimed at a major reordering of federal farm policy. Last week, after eleven months of often acrimonious debate on a farm-assistance bill and a brief but tense four weeks writing legislation to rescue the Farm Credit System, the House and Senate passed both on successive days. Summing up the importance that he and Agriculture Committee Chairman Jesse Helms attached to passage of the measure, a complicated package that weighs 13 lbs., Senate Majority Leader Robert Dole pointed to the largest box under his office Christmas tree and quipped, "That big one is the farm bill."

Agriculture Secretary John Block announced that the President would sign the farm bill, despite earlier threats to veto it. Although Congress provided $52 billion in overall subsidies to farmers over the next three years, twice the amount Reagan had originally wanted, the farm bill nevertheless will allow Block gradually to lower guaranteed minimum prices to producers of wheat, corn and other basic commodities. The Administration hopes this feature will force farmers to become more competitive food exporters. Overseas sales of U.S. agricultural products declined from $44 billion in 1981 to $31 billion in 1985, largely because farmers could get more by selling to the Government than to foreign buyers at lower world-market prices.

The second bill establishes an indirect federal backup to the ailing Farm Credit System, the privately owned cooperative that holds about one-third of the nation's $213 billion farm debt. The measure seeks to redistribute the system's assets by requiring prosperous banks to help financially pressed institutions. It also offers the prospect of assistance in the event of a credit collapse, but only if specifically approved by Congress. The bill was rushed to passage to reassure the Wall Street bond market, which each year buys some $100 billion of the system's paper.