The increasingly bitter fight over a free trade agreement between Columbia and the U.S. has stirred farm groups. The Bush administration signed the pact over a year ago and is now asking Congress to ratify the agreement. USDA Secretary Ed Schafer says the deal could increase ag sales by $700 million. President Bush said the new deal would allow US agriculture goods to enter Columbia duty free.

 

R-CALF USA, meanwhile, opposes the pact. The upstart group of ranchers and cattle producers say the new deal would "limit inspections and safety requirements for food imported into the U.S." "The Colombia FTA will only worsen what's already a precarious situation because the goal of this agreement is to facilitate imports into the U.S., which will result not only in an increased food safety risk, but also economic harm to U.S. cattle farmers and ranchers," according to R-CALF official Eric Nelson.

Meanwhile, National Farmers Union President Tom Buis issued a statement today saying it was "premature" to consider the Columbian deal. "America's farmers and ranchers produce the safest, most abundant, most affordable food supply in the world," Buis said. "Yet our trading partners are not required to meet our high labor, environmental, health and safety standards. Our current trade agreements have failed to live up to their promises."

The Wall Street Journal declared this morning that efforts to reform the farm bill have been defeated. (If you have a WSJ subscription, you can get the article here.) Lauren Etter and Greg Hitt write that "farmers, at least so far, have succeeded in stopping the strongest effort in years to shrink the government safety net that doles out billions of dollars to them each year."

"We got rolled," said Rep. Paul Ryan, Wisconsin Republican and would be farm bill reformer. "The agriculture community circled the wagons." It didn't hurt also that ag groups spent more than $80 million on lobbying.

There were strong efforts to change the land. "But now," the Journal reporters write, "serious reform is likely to be left behind like corn husks flung from a combine. As Congress tries to finish writing the new farm bill, the final tab is likely to be larger than the 2002 bill, which totaled more than $260 billion."