The SWCS view

Excerpt

IN this issue is an article by Wendy Cohen and her associates at the Center for Resource Economics that summarizes the conservation and environmental protection provisions of the Food, Agriculture, Conservation, and Trade Act (FACTA) of 1990, commonly called the 1990 farm bill. Also in this issue you will find an article by Jeffrey Zinn of the Congressional Research Service that offers his perspective of the farm bill's development over the past year. Both articles should interest many, if not all, JSWC readers.

As Zinn points out, the 1990 farm bill represents the longest bill ever reported to the Senate floor. About 160 pages of law are said to deal directly with conservation, environmental protection, or consumer issues.

Having read the conservation titles and having some appreciation for the complexity of the total bill, I am sympathetic with the admission by former Secretary of Agriculture Richard Lyng shortly before he resigned his position that he had never read the 1985 farm bill (Food Security Act) in its entirety. I suspect that few people have done so in the case of either the 1985 or 1990 farm bill; moreover, I suspect that the number of individuals who understand what …