Love it or hate it, the 2007 Farm Bill should be on its way to the White House sometime early next month for President Bush's signature or veto.

At least part of the credit for that forward progress on an important piece of legislation that will govern America's agricultural, food and nutrition policies for the next five years goes to Sen. John Thune.

After months of partisan wrangling over a stalled farm bill, senators late last week passed, 79-14, a $288 billion bill that maintains much of the status quo of the last farm bill, but at least gives South Dakota farmers and ranchers the benefit of knowing what federal programs they might expect for the 2008 production year.

Thune helped forge an agreement to limit amendments to 20 on each side of the aisle, and he managed the floor debate on the bill for the Republicans.

More importantly, Thune's push to add an ethanol mandate amendment to the farm bill may have helped break a similar logjam on the energy bill that also passed the Senate last week. By maneuvering to add increases to the Renewable Fuel Standard to the farm bill, it spurred Democrats, who wanted farm-state support for the energy bill, to include those higher RFS in that legislation instead.

Like both Thune and Sen. Tim Johnson, we are disappointed in some aspects of the Senate's 2007 Farm Bill. Especially frustrating is the lack of more meaningful subsidy payment limits and no lowering of the adjusted gross income limit currently in place to qualify for participation in federal farm programs.

Thune and Johnson both voted to limit total subsidy payments to $250,000 per farm, but that amendment failed. The current payment limits of $360,000, for ag producers who can have an AGI of $2.5 million, remain in the Senate bill. As we have stated in previous editorials, echoing the president's statements, we don't believe taxpayers should subsidize millionaire farmers.

But the bill improves country-of-origin labeling law that should help South Dakota ranchers market their product. It contains a permanent disaster program that should be an improvement over the government's past ad hoc approach to agricultural disasters. And it maintains a strong conservation component that is essential to another important South Dakota industry -- pheasant hunting.

In a state whose economy is built around agriculture, any movement on the farm bill is good news. We were encouraged by Thune's leadership on this issue, and we anxiously await the final version of it that Congress will hammer out in conference committee.