Farm bill has unusual focus: fruits, veggies

This bill puts new emphasis on what the Department of Agriculture calls specialty crops: fruits, vegetables and nuts from trees. They make up a third of the nation's cash crop receipts -- a full 50% of receipts if floriculture and greenhouse plant sales are counted -- and, until now, they haven't drawn much federal money or attention.

Expanded competition from overseas -- as well as a change in the government's nutrition pyramid in 2005, new concerns about nutrition in the federally funded school meals program, and the growing organic foods market -- have all helped to elevate specialty crops in the agriculture funding debate.

"The specialty crop group has always been tangentially involved, and now we expect to be in the middle of things," said John Keeling, executive vice president and chief executive of the National Potato Council. "This promises to be a more open process than before."

Past farm funding measures have been dominated by the needs of what the agriculture industry calls "program crops" or, more informally, "the big five" -- corn, wheat, soybeans, rice and cotton. Those crops are used not just to feed people, but for products as diverse as corn syrup sweeteners, animal feed, fabrics and ethanol.

A new emphasis

Now that emphasis is changing. In 2003, fruit and vegetable growers pushed a Specialty Crop Competitiveness Act through Congress, elevating their industry's profile and the need to fund crop research and market expansion. But that funding is just a fraction of the $12 billion that the Congressional Budget Office estimates will be spent annually until 2016 under Agriculture Department programs to pay farmers for failed crops, land set-asides and disaster relief.

About two years ago, the produce growers also formed an alliance to promote their agenda in Congress. And the House in January established a subcommittee on horticulture and organic agriculture.

Charles Conner, deputy secretary of Agriculture, told a House committee last month that the latest farm bill would "create greater equity in farm policy by increasing support for specialty crop growers through an array of changes that will enhance their ability to compete in the marketplace."