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Another vexing deterrent to change has been the federal commodity program, which bases the subsidy payments a farmer receives on the number of acres planted in specified crops like corn. Thus farmers who rely heavily on chemical fertilizers and pesticides to grow corn year after year are rewarded with larger payments, while those who renew their land by rotating corn with other crops are penalized. Last year a National Academy of Sciences committee urged Congress to correct the bias. The committee also recommended that cosmetic standards for fruits and vegetables be relaxed. "The standards force farmers to use more pesticides," notes Iowa State agronomist John Pesek, who chaired the panel, "but when an orange gets squeezed into juice, who cares what it looks like?" As pressure from environmentalists mounts, Congress may be more inclined than ever to make such changes. Already the U.S. Senate agriculture committee has tacked an ambitious water-quality program onto its version of the 1990 Farm Bill.
Regardless of what the government decides, a broad shift in attitude has begun. "It used to be chemicals were so cheap that if a little bit was good, more was better," observes Dean Kleckner, president of the American Farm Bureau Federation, the nation's largest farmers' organization. "That's no longer true. Today we use as little as we can to get the job done, and ten years from now we'll be using even less." In the end, the best hope for change resides not in laws but in the intelligence of those with the most to lose if the farm environment is despoiled.