Powerful Interests Ally to Restructure Agriculture Subsidies

But White House aides, aware of the importance of the farm-bill money to red states with midterm elections nearing, did not recommend a veto. Before signing the legislation, Bush praised Combest for a "job well done."

Combest's legislative victory turned out to be his last big farm battle. He resigned from the House for personal reasons in 2003. Shortly before he left, the National Cotton Council paid for him and his wife to travel to its annual meeting in Tampa. There Combest was awarded the Harry S. Baker Distinguished Service Award for Cotton for his "invaluable assistance to the U.S. cotton industry."

The New Battle

Combest, now a lobbyist for the USA Rice Federation, has called on Congress to extend the bill he helped write -- which expires Sept. 30, 2007 -- rather than draft new legislation. That is also the position of the American Farm Bureau Federation, which has 5.2 million members. "You have programs that have been in place for 60 years," said the group's president, Bob Stallman, a Texas rice grower. "You have to be careful or you can have very destructive effects in farm country."

The farm groups are counting on the new Democratic chairmen of the Senate and House agriculture committees, Sen. Tom Harkin (Iowa) and Rep. Collin C. Peterson (Minn.), who have long supported the subsidy system.

But a number of political and economic forces have changed since the last farm bill, and those seeking reform think the tide is flowing in their direction.

Corn farmers are making record profits because of their sales to ethanol plants across the Midwest. That calls into question whether it is politically sustainable for them to continue receiving billions of dollars a year in automatic federal allowances.

International pressure also has been building against U.S. subsidies. The World Trade Organization, the Geneva-based supreme court of the global economy, ruled last year that key U.S. cotton subsidies are illegal. The United States must remove the subsidies, or Brazil, which filed the complaint, can retaliate. Other foreign challenges to other subsidies are possible.

Another difference is that money for a new farm bill will be tighter than in 2001 because the government is facing big budget deficits. "Expect a smaller pie," the House Agriculture Committee's chief economist recently told members in a briefing paper.

Vilsack, the Iowa governor, said emerging markets for crops, such as corn-based ethanol, make it more likely there will be sustained demand and good prices "without the necessity of subsidizing crops to the extent we have."

Vilsack, who once represented farmers in his law practice, said many farmers are uneasy about the subsidy system and how it can distort the market for crops and land. "They'll take the checks," he said, "but most would prefer a system where the market sets prices."

Kind and Grassley plan to renew their efforts to cut some subsidies and redistribute others. Kind's new bill would offer incentives to farmers to expand conservation efforts and bring U.S. policy in line with WTO rules.

"It ain't an easy fight," said Rick Swartz, a Washington lawyer who works with the Alliance for Sensible Agriculture Policies, an informal grouping of diverse organizations lobbying for change. "There's a lot of inertia, and you've got ag committee members whose states get the bulk of the money."

Swartz has said the alliance participants, which include the well-heeled Club for Growth, plan to spend about $10 million over the next 18 months lobbying for changes in the farm bill.

The involvement of groups such as Oxfam America and Bread for the World "enables lawmakers who oppose subsidies to use the moral argument" against farm-state members who trot out images of struggling American family farmers, said a senior congressional aide.

Oxfam America President Raymond C. Offenheiser said the group will step up its lobbying. "We think there is a vision for American agriculture that doesn't just deliver benefits to a small group of people," he said.

Offenheiser said Oxfam already has brought farmers from Africa to meet U.S. farmers in the Midwest.

"We wanted to show," he said, "how they're both victims of the last farm bill."

Research editor Alice Crites contributed to this report.