(Omaha World-Herald) -- Little is being said about farm policy during this year's presidential race, with bad economic news from Wall Street overshadowing most other issues. But Midlands farmers and ranchers are nervously looking for clues about their economic futures. Billions of dollars could be at stake. John McCain says he would eliminate subsidies if he could -- including the ethanol subsidies and mandates that created new markets for corn and raised prices for the grain. Barack Obama supports ag subsidies but says he would shift some dollars from the biggest and richest farms to do more for small family farms, organic farms and young farmers starting out. Farmers said they are craving more details. "We haven't heard enough about agriculture in this country, from either candidate," said Jeff Metz, a wheat farmer from Angora, Neb. who is a Republican supporting McCain because he fears that Obama will raise taxes. Joy Philippi, a 51-year-old Obama supporter who raises hogs and grain on 400 acres near Bruning, Neb., also has questions about inevitable budget cuts. But with a farm bill that will remain in place until 2012, the next president may have little opportunity to significantly change U.S. farm policy, according to Brad Lubben, a policy specialist at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Still, Nebraska, Iowa and Illinois each collected more than $1 billion in crop subsidy payments in 2005, a recent peak year for subsidy payments, according to an analysis by the Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit research organization that maintains a Internet database tracking farm subsidies. Metz said farmers' willingness to spend their payments on anything from a new combine to home repairs means that farm payments benefit Main Street as well as the countryside. Meanwhile, the Environmental Working Group contends that subsidies should be directed toward the farms "that are really struggling and really need help." During Senate debate on the 2008 farm bill, both Obama and McCain supported provisions that would have more strictly limited benefits paid to wealthy farmers and landowners. The final version of the 2008 farm bill included a $2.5 million total cap on the income a farming couple can earn and still receive subsidy payments; and a $340,000 total limit on most crop subsidies.
