Prairie Ramblings

Cooties, Kumquats and Other Obscurities in the New Farm Bill

By Tracy Sayler
tsayler@prairieagcomm.com

So after much hoopla, we have a new farm bill, officially called the “Farm Security And Rural Investment Act of 2002.” The new law is vast and encompassing, much like Bill Clinton’s sex life.  A lot of what’s in it has yet to be explained (the life of the new farm bill, not the sex life of ex-prez Bill), but apparently, as they line up to hike land rent, many landlords already have it figured out.

Signup for the new farm bill begins whenever the USDA Farm Service Agency can make sense of it. I do not envy these people, especially at the county level.  Interpreting and administering convoluted farm program rules to a bunch of impatient, cranky farmers? No thank you.  I’ll take up coal mining or cleaning Porta Potties first. 

If you’ve been reading up on the new law, you know that program crops will be covered by marketing assistance loans, direct payments and counter-cyclical payments that are triggered, according to official program language, “upon which time wherein market prices herewith go into the toilet.”

Son-of-Freedom-to-Farm includes many first-time provisions.  For instance, becoming a designated loan commodity for the first time is lentil, which should not be confused with Yentil, the yawner of a film made once upon a time by annoying Hollywood glitz bag Barbara Streisand.

Following are other little known provisions of the new farm bill (or at least, they are provisions that should have been included, had I been on the Congressional conference committee, where I would have favored cranking out a compromise over beers and a best two-out-of-three game of “rock, paper, scissors”):

Subtitle B, Section 8, Aquaculture: Authorizes a study on the state of mental health of the seven people in this country who actually request anchovies as a pizza topping.

Subtitle F, Section 2, International Trade: Permits duty-free sales of herbicide up to a certain amount of gallons of active ingredient at border shops. If I can save money by buying a few bottles of cheaper whisky across the border, by gosh, why not glyphosate?

Subtitle A, Section 4, Marketing: Authorizes a higher direct program payment for farm operations that employ women to make the grain selling decisions, as women are less likely to become emotionally attached to harvested grain (unlike many storage-happy guys; you know who you are), which contributes to burdensome grain stocks.

Subtitle A, Section 5, Marketing: Directs the Secretary to disburse market experts across the country to explain how the basis works, because too many people out there still don’t get it.

Subtitle C, Section 15, Natural Resources: A program shall be established to monitor and implement eradication measures to prevent the spread of Rosie O’Donnell’s chest hair.

Subtitle B, Section 8, Agricultural Information: Bans overpaid keynote speakers at ag conferences and farm meetings from delivering clichéd speeches about how agriculture is changing, with more technology in the future, and how we’ll all need to adapt, blah, blah, blah. Enough already!

Subtitle D, Section 24, Fruits and Vegetables: Directs the Secretary to explain what the heck a persimmons is. While we’re at it, let’s look into the kumquat too.

Subtitle A, Section 1, Biotechnology: All right you smart-alecky gene jocks. Forget about Roundup Ready this n’ that. Let’s do something about these blasted mosquitoes, and now!

Subtitle C, Section 3, Research: Since members of PETA object to the use of animals as test subjects for research purposes, the Secretary is authorized to use members of PETA as test subjects for research purposes.

Subtitle G, Section 4, Pest Control: Authorizes the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service to look into the request of third graders to stop the spread of cooties (imaginary or otherwise) on the playground.  Oh yeah, while you’re at it, give us a status report on the spread of those killer bees.

Subtitle G, Section 5, Pest Control: Should swarms of killer bees be found, APHIS is directed to work with biotech researchers in capturing and crossing said bees with the DNA from the nation’s top crime-sniffing dogs. The Secretary is then authorized to work with the CIA to unleash the new crime-sniffing killer dog-bees in the Middle East in search of Osama Bin Laden and the rest of his jihad jerks.