Is the New Deal approach to helping farmers outdated? And will the new renewable-fuels concept of using corn to make ethanol harm rather than help America's agricultural communities?

"Yes" is the answer to both, according to one expert in the field. He is Jim French, a Kansas farmer who formerly worked with the Kansas Rural Center and now is the lead organizer in the agriculture campaign for Oxfam, the international relief agency. Because his farm lies in territory ravaged during the Dust Bowl era of the 1930s, Jim is particularly concerned by federal farm policy, including the 2007 Farm Bill now being debated by Congress.

According to Jim, the United States should promote conservation rather than production, especially for the five crops that currently are heavily subsidized -- corn, wheat, cotton, rice and soybeans.

This has important implications for Pennsylvania.

My conversation with Jim came at a Munsell Family Reunion in Colorado, attended by 100 descendants or in-laws of my mother's family line. Jim married Lisa, a second cousin of mine, presently a board member of the Kansas State Water Authority. Jim and Lisa are parents of Ruth Anne French, a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford who plans a future in conservation law.

Jim half-smiles as he talks about working with Bush administration officials to change the direction of the farm subsidy program while, at the same time, questioning the Bush push for ethanol.

Jim worries that the ethanol program will entice farmers in the drier portions of the Great Plains to plant corn on fragile land in areas with little rain -- the very practice that led to the Dust Bowl. Planting corn there requires irrigation, which means pumping irreplaceable water from the vast underground Ogallala Reservoir underlying much of western Kansas, eastern Colorado and the panhandles of Oklahoma and Texas.

If ethanol would help cut our reliance on imported oil, the effort should concentrate on processing such crops as switch grass, rather than corn, which require less energy to turn into fuel.

All of this is wrapped up in the concept of federal farm aid, established during President Franklin Roosevelt's time to stabilize swings in income for farmers and farm communities by subsidizing major crops with a price floor. But as the decades have passed, the result has been consistent overproduction, something that benefits large agribusiness firms more than small farmers. The current setup makes it particularly hard for young farmers to enter the system.

Jim contends, "We should be using our federal aid dollars to help farmers pursue conservation practices good for everyone -- sequestering carbon to provide clean air by promoting tree planting and grass covering, and providing clean water through proper soil practices. Public money for public benefits."

As an official of Oxfam, Jim also has seen firsthand the results for farmers and farm communities overseas when U.S. agricultural surpluses are dumped in their countries at artificially low subsidized prices. This is true not only for the big five crops but for 24 others -- including peanuts, beets, barley and oats. This practice squashes the efforts of many Third World nations to become more self-reliant and to earn money by selling crops on world markets. Cutbacks in our overproduction could be more helpful to them than direct foreign aid.

Right now, Jim says, hopes for change lie with the U.S. Senate as it takes up a status-quo bill passed earlier by the House. Here there is an interesting alignment between Bush administration proposals and those of a group of conservation-minded Democratic senators. A key is the Farm Safety Net Improvement Act of 2007 (S. 1872) introduced by Sens. Dick Durbin of Illinois and Sherrod Brown of Ohio. This bill would replace trade-distorting subsidies with a safety net based on what a farmer earns rather than on how much he or she produces.

What about Pennsylvania?

Jim says the Keystone State should applaud these new approaches to farm subsidies. Of the 50 states, Pennsylvania, home of the Amish and the setting for thousands of small farms and dairies, ranks 31st in federal farm aid. Pennsylvania got just over $1 billion over the past 10 years, compared to $14 billion for similarly sized Iowa.

My belief is that city folks and most rural people would rather help small farmers and pay for proper conservation practices that save the land. And in our state, we are best at the sort of products provided by small farms and dairies: fruits, vegetables, cheese, milk and grass-fed meats. Subsidies that help our farmers protect their land and manage their risk would be a winning combination for generations ahead.

Therefore, Pennsylvanians ought to urge Sens. Arlen Specter and Bob Casey to help fashion in the Senate a better bill than the one passed by the House. Our nation should not continue to pour money into a handful of crops and a handful of pockets, to the detriment of our land and small farmers.