Ag Dept. proposes farm program overhaul

The U.S. Agriculture Department is proposing changes in farm programs to better help farmers hurt by droughts, floods and other disasters, Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns said.

Current price support programs tend to help farmers when they grow the biggest crops, but give them too little help when they are unable to grow normal crops, he said Monday in a talk with 10 governors attending a Western Governors' Association annual meeting.

Johanns said farmers have told him "you pay me the most when I need you the least, and you pay me the least when I need you the most."

Under the current system, when farmers grow a bumper crop of corn, soybeans or wheat, prices tend to drop and farmers qualify for price-support payments, Johanns said. But a farmer with a crop failure cannot get those payments.

Under the department's proposal, farm revenue would be taken into account in determining payments to farmers, Johanns said.

Johanns, a former governor of Nebraska, spent about an hour discussing the 2007 Farm Bill with the governors. He said he hopes Congress will pass the measure by September.

Farmers now are left wondering each year whether Congress will approve some drought disaster relief, Johanns said.

"There is nothing more unpredictable for farmers than wondering if disaster relief will come forward in a legislative package," he said.

The Farm Bill is being considered at a time when prices for corn and other commodities are high, with much of the corn crop being used to make ethanol as a gasoline additive.

Meanwhile, Johanns told the governors that farmers in the Midwest and West are supporting the Agriculture Department's proposal to cut farm subsidies to anyone making more than $200,000 a year in adjusted gross income, but southern farmers oppose the plan. The current income cap is $2.5 million.

The proposed farm bill also would provide more support to beginning farmers and conservation programs such as the Conservation Reserve Program, which pays farmers to idle environmentally sensitive land, Johanns said.

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WICHITA, Kan. (AP) _ The nation's farmers are expected to harvest a wheat crop 24 percent bigger than last year's drought-plagued crop, the government said.

The National Agricultural Statistics Service released a revised estimate Monday that projected winter wheat production at 1.61 billion bushels nationwide, down only slightly from the agency's forecast a month ago.

Its figure is based on a projected national average yield of 42.2 bushels per acre from 37.2 million acres.

The vast majority of that acreage is in Kansas, where farmers are expected to bring in 361 million bushels. The forecast is based on an average yield of 38 bushels per acre from 9.5 million acres, Kansas Agricultural Statistics Service said.

Last year, Kansas farmers, struggling with a prolonged drought, averaged 32 bushels an acre from 9.1 million harvested acres. The 2006 harvest in the state totaled 291.2 million bushels.

Compared with a year ago, production in northwest Kansas was expected to be up 142 percent above last year. In west-central Kansas the forecast was up 121 percent from last year, while southwest Kansas could see crops as much as 114 percent bigger than last year.