Steve Murphy of rural Girard has been farming for about 35 years. It's never cost him as much as it will this year to plant a crop.
The price for fertilizer has almost doubled. Seed costs have increased as much as 40 percent. And the price of the fuel Murphy needs to run his machinery has gone through the roof.
But, citing record grain prices as the reason for months of delays, congress on Friday passed yet another extension of the law that regulates support to farm and nutrition programs across the nation.
The latest farm bill, adopted in 2001, expired in September. This makes the sixth time legislator have sent an extension to the president, rather than a finished farm bill.
It's true that grain prices earlier this year reached record levels, with wheat topping $12 per bushel at local elevators and corn and soybeans garnering equally-increased prices. But that's only half the story.
“It makes it extremely difficult,” Murphy said. “We have high prices for the grain. But the input prices have gone up so much, the net isn't that much greater, what with all the risks you've got involved.”
The last legislation was in place for seven years. Historically, farm bills have lasted anywhere from one year to as much as 10 years, said Judy Jacquinoit, local director of the Farm Service Agency office at the U. S. Department of Agriculture Service Center in Girard.
“Everybody knows that farm prices fluctuate erratically,” Murphy said. “They just happen to be high right now.
“You can bet prices won't be as high as they have been. You have to look at it as an average. You can count on it not being the same this year as it will be in the future.”
The latest extension will expire May 16. That gives legislators less than two weeks now to either iron out their differences and pass a new farm bill, or adopt another extension, Jacquinoit said.
“We've been waiting for them to do something,” she said. “The last we heard, they were getting closer. But we didn't expect this two week extension.”
And the waiting is equally as frustrating for Jacquinoit as it it for the farmers. No body knows exactly what it is that's preventing congress from reaching a consensus and sending a finished bill to the president for his signature.
“What we really don't know is what's in that farm bill that's keeping them from getting it passed,” Jacquinoit said. “It may be something that somebody put in there and it has nothing to do with the farm bill.”
But President Bush has repeatedly threatened to veto any bill that's “bloated” with farmer subsidies. Opponents of the bill, both the House and the Senate versions, have said there's just too much money earmarked for farm payments, money they claim is going to so-called “rich” farmers who don't need it.
But that isn't what's actually happening, said Dean Stites, county agent at the K-State Extension Center in Girard.
“If you really examine it, you'll find out the average farmer isn't getting rich off of farm subsidies,” Stites said. “In some years, that's the sum total of their income. If they didn't have a subsidy, they wouldn't have an income.”
Jacquinoit agreed.
“One of the things you don't hear (opponents of the bill) mention is anything about input costs,” she said. “We hear a lot about the high prices, but we don't hear anything about what it costs to put the crop in.”
Despite the high costs and not knowing what the future holds, farmers are proceeding apace with spring planting. They really have no choice.
“Farmers can't afford to just let that land lay there,” Jacquinoit said. “It's got to produce something.”
There's been talk about a possible one year extension of the current legislation. That would leave the future of the farm bill to the next administration. It would also give farmers and farm agents some of the answers they've been hoping for more than half a year.
“If they just extend it, it'll be a continuation of what we've had in past years,” Murphy said. “At least then we'll know what we've got. That would be helpful to know how to plan for the future.”