Even in the midst of this harsh winter, the nation's farmers are planning for Spring. It's harder than usual for them because farm programs passed in 1990 began expiring late last year, and Congress hasn't replaced them yet. Now there's a scramble underway on Capitol Hill to do it. Kwame Holman reports.

KWAME HOLMAN: For the past 60 years the federal government has had its hand firmly on the controls of farm policy in this country. It's done so by offering farmers a program that regulates what and how much they can plant and, in return, pays them subsidies as protection against low market prices and buys up surpluses when farmers grow too much. The result has been guaranteed income for farmers, steady food supplies at level prices for consumers.

SPOKESMAN: The committee will come to order.

KWAME HOLMAN: But on Capitol Hill, where all the talk is of less government, not more, many members of Congress have decided now is the time to leave farming to the farmers. The job of working out that transition has fallen in part to Pat Roberts, chairman of the House Agriculture Committee. Roberts says proposed cuts in the federal budget will make it impossible to run the current farm program the way it's been run for the last six decades.

REP. PAT ROBERTS, Chairman, Agriculture Committee: In terms of the price projections in the next two years, we will lose 20, 30, 40 percent of the available funding for agriculture. And we will be left with policy rubble. And we will have structure, we will preserve the structure, but we will not have the appropriate funds to manage any kind of a farm program.

KWAME HOLMAN: So Roberts has a plan to restructure American farm policy radically. It generally would eliminate price supports paid to farmers, replacing them with fixed but declining payments over the next seven years. And farmers would be allowed the flexibility to plant whatever they want as much as they want. The current price support system would continue, however, with only minor changes for peanut and sugar growers. But when the House Agriculture Committee met late yesterday, former Chairman Kika De La Garza, Democrat from Texas, expressed his concern about changing American farm policy.

REP. KIKA DE LA GARZA, (D) Texas: We're the best-fed nation in the world for the least amount of disposable income of the major industrialized countries in the world.

KWAME HOLMAN: Democrat Cal Dooley of California objected to that part of that Roberts plan that guarantees a fixed payment to farmers over the next seven years.

REP. CAL DOOLEY, (D) California: A program which, in essence, will provide farmers or provide individuals with checks from the taxpayers regardless of what the commodity price is, we would have if this bill is passed into law next year, when we have the opportunity to contract now even for cotton prices, at almost record high prices, that we've seen perhaps in the last decade, that we would see taxpayers writing checks in this era at this time it would almost result in a maximum benefit.

KWAME HOLMAN: But Republican Nick Smith of Michigan called on Dooley to defend the program he and other Democrats have offered as an alternative.

REP. NICK SMITH, (R) Michigan: My figures show that you take 17 billion dollars away from farmer payments and you use 'em for other things such as $2.5 billion for rural development, $2.5 billion for a secretary slush fund, spends $2.5 billion for crop insurance subsidies. Are you suggesting that is a better way to help farmers?

REP. CAL DOOLEY: If I can respond, Mr. Smith.

REP. NICK SMITH: I would yield.

REP. CAL DOOLEY: And I think you, as I, are farmers, and I think that's correct, and my family, my brother--

REP. NICK SMITH: Correct with me.

REP. CAL DOOLEY: --my brother, my sister are farmers. My cousins are farmers. My uncles and aunts are farmers, and I guess what we're saying is, is that, yes, we're taking $17 billion from the taxpayer payments through the freedom to farm contract, and what we're saying is, is that perhaps there's a better way to invest that money which is not solely in the interest of the farmer but is also in the interest of the American taxpayers who are the ones that are funding these payments. And what we're saying is that the American taxpayer is going to be far more supportive of a farm program that is predicated on the basic premise of providing a safety net than providing a direct payment, regardless of price.

REP. NICK SMITH: I would suggest that in this transition to a free market system for agriculture we shouldn't be talking about taking money and using it for slush funds for secretaries of agriculture for rural development; we should try to use the money in such a way, No. 1, that we make the transition to a market-oriented economy, and No. 2, that we make sure that the American agricultural industry continues to be as efficient and productive to produce the low cost, high quality foods that we have in the past.

SPOKESMAN: The clerk will call--

KWAME HOLMAN: In the end, three Democrats joined all the Republicans in approving the Roberts Farm Bill. It's expected to be approved by the full House tomorrow. But Agriculture Sec. Dan Glickman recommended today the President veto the bill unless major changes are made when it gets to the Senate.