Farm bill: Crop subsidies necessary

With its version of the 2007 farm bill stalled in the U.S. Senate and the Bush administration already threatening a veto of the House version of the $286 billion bill, it appears increasingly unlikely that Congress will complete work on the legislation this year.

In July, the House passed its version of the five-year farm bill. Like the Senate version, it includes crop subsidies for farmers producing corn, cotton, soybeans and rice. In Mississippi, those crops represent four of the state's five top agriculture exports and in cotton and soybeans, two of the state's top five commodities produced.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Service reports that as of 2006 Mississippi has 11.1 million acres of farmland with 5.82 million acres of cropland and 4.14 million acres of harvested cropland.