It offered farmers relief from rigid federal planting requirements while providing fixed-support payments. The law initially boosted subsidies to help farmers during the transition, but will gradually decrease them in coming years. Further, farm debt is nowhere near the crisis levels of the 1980s. Total farm business debt at the end of 1997 was more than 16 percent below the 1984 peak. With subsidies now starting to decline, farmers of cotton, corn, wheat, soybean and other crops are more exposed to the vagaries of the market just when the good prices of recent years are becoming a thing of the past.
Any farm bill seems to be working and people are happy if there are good prices.
No farm bill works if prices fall. Combest fought other Republicans during debate on the bill, seeking a better deal for cotton growers important to his state. He ultimately voted for it. Such a change would provide farmers with higher federal payments if prices fell. Daschle and Gephardt both opposed the 1996 law.