Wrangling over a new farm bill will go on another week as the U.S. House of Representatives approved a one-week extension of the 2002 farm bill to April 25.

The current bill was extended twice before, with the second deadline set for the end of this week to give more time for House/Senate conferees to try to reach an agreement.

The Senate was expected to vote on the extension before the current extension expires Friday.

Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., said colleagues had told him as late as Tuesday that unless an agreement was reached by the end of this week, the old farm bill likely would be extended for a year or even two years.

But he said Wednesday's extension could indicate some hope that a farm bill agreement could be reached soon. "It indicates the conferees may be close to a breakthrough," Thune said in a conference call with reporters Wednesday.

"It's a poor way to legislate, with these week-to-week extensions, but if buying another week gets us to where we need to be, I remain hopeful that we can get this done."

Thune, who sits on the Senate Agriculture Committee, is not among the senators on the joint House-Senate farm bill conference committee, but he said he understands that some agreement has been reached on relatively minor elements of the House and Senate versions of the bill.

Thune said he believes major differences remain on elements of the bill important to South Dakota, including a permanent disaster fund, subsidies for crop producers, conservation and energy.

Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, D-S.D., also said House passage of the extension indicates that a final compromise is within reach. "However, the job is not done and there are still difficult decisions to be made," Herseth Sandlin said in a news release.

She said the farm bill must represent a balance of the diverse interests in American agriculture. "In the tight budget situation we're facing, there are limited dollars for many worthy programs but I believe that ultimately, the end product will be very good for South Dakota's producers. As the conferees work through the process, I will continue to weigh in with them on the importance of passing a bill this year that, among other things, maintains a meaningful safety net for producers, includes a strong energy title, and retains the agreement for implementing mandatory country-of-origin labeling as well as well-balanced conservation provisions like sodsaver."

Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D., also said the extension is a positive sign. "There are clearly some policy pieces to hammer out yet before Congress puts something on the president's desk for signature, but I hope we're in the home stretch," Johnson said. "Part of these negotiations involves striking a balance to ensure a solid safety net for our ag producers as well as ensuring other programs have satisfactory funding behind them."

Thune said that, despite current record prices for many agricultural commodities, including corn and wheat, it is still important that the farm bill contain a safety net of subsidies for farmers when prices inevitably fall.

"It is irresponsible to assume farm prices will stay at high levels for the next five years," he said.

Thune said even if a new bill is approved soon, it will be too late to provide key information for farmers who have already made plans for spring planting.

Thune said the Senate has stood behind its version of the new farm bill, which includes several provisions of interest to South Dakota, including the crop subsidy programs, the permanent disaster program, a delay in closing Farm Service Agency offices in South Dakota, and conservation measures including the sod saver provision.

Thune repeated his complaint that the House and Senate farm bills already have dropped the amount of money going into subsidies for farmers to 14 percent of the total bill. He said 68 percent of the money is going to nutrition programs.

Thune said House members from urban states are trying to take even more money from ag programs such as crop insurance and put it into nutrition funds, such as food stamps.

Thune sent a letter Monday to the chairmen and ranking members of both the Senate and House agriculture committees, and the other 58 members of the Farm Bill Conference Committee urging them to adopt the Senate's version of the "sodsaver" provision in the 2008 Farm Bill.

The Senate sodsaver provision denies federally subsidized crop insurance and crop disaster program eligibility for non-insurable crops on native prairie land that is converted to cropland for the first time.

"During the past decade, prairie grassland conversion has transitioned from 'breaking out' fertile prairie land with a high potential to successfully grow commodity crops to 'sodbusting' marginal and fragile prairie land that has very poor prospects of successfully growing a crop in successive years," Thune wrote in the letter.

Much of the dispute over the $280 billion, five-year farm bill is centered on how to pay for it.

The White House has threatened a veto, saying both the current House and Senate versions are too expensive.

Contact Steve Miller at 394-8417 or steve.miller@rapidcityjournal.com.