There's a little-noticed detail to the ongoing farm bill debate that I thought might be of some interest in the context of the presidential primary process. It has to do with Barack Obama and a uncollected restitution payments owed to many black farmers.

The deal is this. Pigford v. Glickman alleged that black farmers had faced institutional and systematic discrimination at the hands of the USDA for years and years, generation after generation. (Dan Glickman was the USDA Secretary at the time the case was filed.) In case after case, black farmers where denied loans and other lines of credit that their white counterparts were regularly granted. After years of wrangling, Pigford was finally settled in 1999 by consent decree. The USDA agreed to a process by which black farmers could apply for restitution.

All well and good, but those applications were due within six months of the settlement. It's been estimated that as many as 74,000 farmers applied for Pigford payments after the deadline. They were shut out of the settlement for good, it seemed.

And so, members of the Congressional Black Caucus have been pushing for Congress to intervene and offer some relief to the farmers who were eligible for Pigford payment but somehow missed the boat. More recently, Barack Obama has gotten in front of the issue. He's co-sponsored legislation championed by the CBC in the House, with the goal of getting in passed as part of the massive Farm Bill. And he's been fairly aggressive against some inappropriate lobbying against the Pigford language by USDA employees. (The USDA is unhappy with the many millions of dollars further restitution might cost.)

In addition to the policy imperative behind Pigford language in the farm bill, it's not bad politics for Obama. Restitution is a very big deal in the rural South -- you know, places like South Carolina, Florida, and the like. It has been for many years, and the flavor of the fight for Pigford compensation is similar to other civil rights fights.

The Senate just finished marking up the farm bill. No word yet on whether Pigford language has survived the sausage making process so far. If it makes it all the way into law, and his campaign sees the political value in it, Pigford may give Obama a healthy boost in some important early states.

Today it emerged that U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns will be stepping down from his post in order to run for the Senate in Nebraska, where he formerly served as Governor. With the prospect of another former Governor, Democrat Bob Kerrey (who also previously represented the state in the Senate), getting in the race, this campaign is shaping up to be one of the most competitive and most watched in the country this cycle (though Bob Novak writes today, "Kerrey vs. Johanns would lean slightly Democratic"). One thing that might not put Johanns over the top is the fact that he has forsaken his primary responsibility in the cabinet -- getting the Farm Bill passed. Luckily that legislation isn't important to Nebraskans. Oh, wait...

Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns's expected decision to run for a Nebraska Senate seat provides a boost for Republicans, but drew quick criticism from some Democrats who say the secretary should finish what he started on the 2007 farm bill.

"Just to take a walk in the middle of a farm bill that only happens once every five years, it borders on irresponsible," Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) told reporters Wednesday. He said Johanns should stay at his post until work concludes on a 2007 farm bill that was approved in the House but faces an uncertain future in the Senate.

"I do think that as the head of the Department of Agriculture, the most responsible thing for him would be to stay with it until we've got it across the finish line," said Sen. Ken Salazar (D-Colo.), who like Conrad is a member of the Agriculture Committee. The current farm bill expires at the end of this month.

The criticism likely foreshadows a Democratic line against Johanns if he becomes the GOP nominee to succeed retiring Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.). Former Democratic Congressman Charlie Stenholm (D-Texas) warned that Johanns could be imposing a self-inflicted blow to his political future in Nebraska, where the farm bill is a huge policy issue.

"It's always helpful that if you sign on for a job, that you complete the job," said Stenholm, who is now a lobbyist on agriculture issues. "If you punt in the third quarter, that can hurt you."

While Johanns is no doubt a strong recruit for the National Republican Senatorial Committee -- their highest profile recruitment thus far, but not necessarily their number one preferred candidate for the race (the incumbent, Chuck Hagel, who would have been a prohibitive favorite) -- he's far from the only candidate in the race. In fact, Johanns is going to have to get out of a bitter and divisive primary against state Attorney General Jon Bruning and former Congressman Hal Daub. And remember, it's only been about a year since Nebraska's Republicans voted down the establishment pick for a statewide office (then-Rep. and former Nebraska Cornhusker coach Tom Osborne in the 2006 gubernatorial primary). So the fact that Johanns is giving up on his number one responsibility, one that is extremely important to Nebraskans, isn't likely to help him much in either a primary or a general election. While this race certainly won't be a gimme for the Democrats with should Kerrey in fact get in the race, there's a real possibility that Nebraska is going to have two Democratic Senators for the first time in more than a decade.

Late Thursday night, the House Agriculture Committee unanimously passed a farm bill that can only be described as astoundingly unresponsive to widespread calls for reform. That bill may be considered by the full House as soon as this week. Now that the farm bill is out of committee, Nancy Pelosi is the most important player in the process. Speaker Pelosi and the House Rules Committee have to choose - and that choice will say much about how they intend to govern. It brings to mind a question Al might ask - Does the House leadership stand with the people or the powerful?

Speaker Pelosi will effectively decide the outcome of the floor debate. That debate should be held after all Americans have the opportunity to make their voices heard regarding the farm bill that has been passed by the Agriculture Committee- and that means delaying floor consideration of the farm bill until after the August recess. After that, the Speaker has three options.

Option 1: She can live up to the repeated promises of the newly elected majority and allow for a full, open, and honest debate. Option 2: She can short-circuit debate, severely curtail or eliminate the number of amendments for floor consideration, and generally run the House in the same fashion as her predecessors. Option 3: She can support real reform on the central issue of farm policy- ending million-dollar subsidy checks to mega-farms.

The third option appears to be highly unlikely. Here is Pelosi's three part statement regarding the just-passed-out-of-committee farm bill:

"The Farm Bill represents a critical first step toward reform by eliminating payments to millionaires,

Not so fast. The Committee's sham reform proposal lowered the adjusted gross income limit on farm program payments to a still-astonishing $1,000,000. And if you're married the limit is $2,000,000. Are we supposed to be pleased by this? Who in their right mind thinks this is actual reform?

Contact Pelosi and tell her to reject the Ag Committee's false reform.

Late Friday night, Rep. Collin Peterson (D-MN), chair of the House Agriculture Committee, released a revised version of the 2007 Farm Bill. It will go to the full committee for mark up (further revision) and voting July 17th-19th. Below, some highlights from five programs included in the Farm Bill's Conservation Title.

Conservation Reserve Program: The USDA currently lists 36.8 million acres of farmland as enrolled in CRP contracts and currently being held in wildlife habitat, wetlands, or tree cover. The new mark would expand the program to allow another 2.4 million acres to be enrolled, for a total of 39.2 million acres. Retiring farmers with land enrolled in CRP are encouraged to transfer their land to beginning or socially disadvantaged farmers or ranchers, or to a low-income farmer or rancher intending to practice sustainable grazing or cropping practices. That's really among the best news.

Conservation Security Program: A notable Farm Bill program getting the cold shoulder is the Conservation Security Program, which rewards conservation practices on working farm lands. The Committee fact sheet on the program lists the oft-repeated and valid complaint about this very popular (among its limited recipients) program that the "USDA has not implemented the program nationwide, as the original law required and has restricted CSP participation by limiting program enrollment each year to producers in specified, priority watersheds. This has been controversial and has prevented many eligible farmers from accessing the program."

Peterson's new version addresses this flaw by allocating no new funding for the program until 2012, when Congress is expected to pass a new Farm Bill. Existing contracts could be funded, though the appropriations process has not always fully funded the honoring of these contracts, but no new signups would be allowed until that time.

• Does your local community have "food deserts"? Are there a lot of households facing "food insecurity" (that's what the kids are calling hunger these days)? More communities are getting into the business of forming food policy councils to address the supply and distribution of food, support small local farms, and inform people about where their food is coming from. Is there a food policy council in your community?

• The 2007 U.S. Conference of Mayors adopted a resolution supporting a shift in Farm Bill priorities (pdf). They asked for action to address the loss of agricultural land to urban sprawl, better access to healthy food in low-income areas, increased food stamp benefits, more support for organic agriculture and conservation, and better distribution infrastructure for locally produced food.

• Over a third of the nation's farmers live in New York, Texas, Florida and California. Who knew it wasn't just something that happens in the middle of the country? The governors of those four states wrote a letter to the House and Senate Agriculture Committees (pdf) asking for the Farm Bill to include more support for specialty crops (read: mostly the things you buy in the produce section), greater inclusion of fruits and vegetables in federal nutrition programs, support for organic agriculture, and an expanded investment in farmland conservation. Twenty-six members of California's House delegation also wrote their own letter to the House Agriculture Committee (pdf) asking for greater support for programs that address hunger, poverty and market access for small and medium-sized farms.

• As of 2002, agricultural land use in the United States (pdf) "totaled nearly 1.2 billion acres, just under 52 percent of total U.S. land area." The EPA noted in 2006 that "agricultural nonpoint source (NPS) pollution is the leading source of water quality impacts to surveyed rivers and lakes, the third largest source of impairments to surveyed estuaries, and also a major contributor to ground water contamination and wetlands degradation." If you care about conservation, you may want to perk up your ears whenever people start discussing agricultural policy.

(h/t to the Sustainable Agriculture Coalition for several links)

United States

A couple days ago, the New York Times posted an article about the debate on farm subsidies, leaving readers with a rhetorical query about whether substantial progress was going to be made on cutting them. Umm, probably not. Unless, that is, every single member of the House Committee on Agriculture gets hundreds of phone calls from their constituents asking for caps on farm subsidies pronto. And even then, frankly, the odds are slim.

Consider that the Bush administration's secretary of agriculture got accused of instigating class warfare for some of his stances against farm subsidies, though it must be granted, there are issues with the Bush administration's proposals, as well.

House Agriculture Committee Chairman, Rep. Collin Peterson has yet to publish his revised Farm Bill, but when he does, he says there will be two of them. One will include policies with budget allocations, the other will include policies that will only be funded if offsets are found. Which is to say, they probably won't be funded. My mentors at the Sustainable Agriculture Coalition have put together an action alert highlighting four agricultural sustainablility policies that should go in the real Farm Bill, the one that will be funded. They include support for new farmers and ranchers, conservation incentives for working farmlands, improving local food distribution infrastructure, and support for transitions to organic and sustainable farming.

Last dealt with by me on June 25, the farm bill has moved on a little.

CQ in the Times did a piece on the bill outlining some of the difficulties that the leadership may face on the floor:

Party leaders are concerned the money crunch will incite an intraparty squabble on the House floor because the bill is not likely to satisfy many Democrats outside of the Agriculture panel, aides say.

Many of those lawmakers say their top priorities are land conservation, nutrition, energy and rural development -- accounts for which there is little extra money in the current version of the bill.

It may pass the notice of some in the lefty sphere; but there's politics suppurating from every pore of legislative process, if only you can recognize it when you see it.

As witness the Ron Kind motion to recommit to conferees of HR 2464 (107th), that I discussed earlier today.

Had it not been for the piece from Dan Owens to which that was a comment, I'd have continued in ignorance of the story. As it is - I've had the tip.