Biofuels are top farm-bill goal in rural U.S. poll

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Rural Americans say the top priority for the new U.S. farm law should be more investment in renewable energy, which could expand the ethanol boom that has brought jobs and cash to the countryside, according to a poll released on Wednesday.

Renewable energy, which can include solar and wind power as well as biofuels, outranked farm subsidy caps and farmland preservation as farm-bill goals in a telephone survey of 804 likely voters in rural areas.

A think tank, the Center on Rural Strategies, released the poll as Congress was in the early stages of overhauling farm policy. The chairman of the House Agriculture Committee was expected to unveil a new outline for the farm bill later this week.

Environmentalists, antihunger groups, specialty crop growers, fiscal hawks and small-farm advocates say major changes are needed in the farm program. They want more money for land stewardship and public nutrition programs and stricter limits on subsidies to big farmers.

Agriculture subcommittee members voted last week to extend the current grain, cotton and soybean subsidies for five more years. One member of the Agriculture Committee said chairman Collin Peterson, a Minnesota Democrat, was working on an "improved" version of a five-year extension.

In rural America, ethanol is valued as a home-grown alternative to imported oil, a price-boosting market for corn and other crops, and an employer that pays good wages.

"Ethanol may be the single most important value-added industry," said Matt Hartwig of the Renewable Fuels Association, an ethanol trade group. By one measure, RFA said, the ethanol industry was responsible for 163,000 jobs.

More investment in renewable fuels was backed by 37 percent of poll participants, out of seven choices of how "to improve the farm bill. In fourth place, backed by 25 percent, was "place caps on federal government subsidies to farms worth more than $3 million." Fifth place went to protecting farms from urban development.

A dozen officials from cattle and meatpackers met in House Agriculture Committee offices on Wednesday to discuss possible revisions to a law requiring country-of-origin labels on red meats after September 30, 2008. There is disagreement whether the revisions, if there is agreement on a package, should be part of the farm bill or a funding bill for agricultural programs.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the Connecticut Democrat who chairs the House Appropriations subcommittee on agriculture, said "we're looking at ... what the framework will be" for labeling.

Food makers and grocers say the law will create a bookkeeping nightmare and needs to be simplified to be workable. The ranchers' group R-CALF United Stockgrowers of America says packers want to undermine the law.