By Aliya Sternstein, CQ Staff

Months after enacting a new farm law, lawmakers are rehashing a fundamental argument: What constitutes an “actively engaged” farmer? The debate is more than academic, because only those who meet the criteria can qualify for federal agriculture subsidies.

Some Midwestern lawmakers are urging the Agriculture Department to write regulations that would tighten the definition of “actively engaged” partly by setting a minimum number of hours that someone must spend farming or managing a farm operation. Southern lawmakers say that could shut out farmers who hold multiple jobs and they are urging the department to retain the status quo.

At issue are concerns that wealthy, absentee farmers are gaming the system to collect farm payments. Currently, actively engaged farmers must contribute their own land, money or equipment — and they must either work the farm themselves or manage labor. A 2004 survey by the Government Accountability Office found that most large farm operations meet the requirement by asserting active personal management.

However, the GAO reported, there is no measurable, quantifiable standard for what constitutes active personal management.

“People who appear to have little involvement are receiving farm program payments,” Lawrence J. Dyckman, natural resources and environment director at GAO testified to a Senate committee on June 16, 2004.

Congress left the question unsettled in the new farm law (PL 110-246), although the legislation was accompanied by a manager’s statement that listed “actively engaged” among the criteria the Agriculture Department should consider in setting new eligibly guidelines for assistance.

Iowa’s two senators, Agriculture Chairman Tom Harkin , a Democrat, and the Finance Committee’s ranking Republican, Charles E. Grassley , are calling on the department to establish measurable standards — such as a minimum number of hours that must be spent working on or managing a farm — to prevent payments from going to absentee farmers.

But a group of 64 House members, many from the South, signed a letter to the Agriculture Department last month opposing any change to the definition of an actively engaged farmer.

The House members argue that setting a minimum number of hours for active work or management of a farm could have a ripple effect across the agriculture industry. Young farmers may no longer be able to supplement their farm income by holding off-season jobs and out-of-state landowners may be reluctant to risk their money to buy farmland and lease it out if they cannot collect government payments, the lawmakers argue.

“We encourage you to tread lightly with any changes you propose, any further changes risk jeopardizing the statutory and regulatory balance contemplated by Congress in the new bill,” said the letter for the group led by Rep. Bob Etheridge , D-N.C.

The debate reprises a fight that played out during the farm bill deliberations, when an amendment by Grassley and Byron L. Dorgan , D-N.D., to change the definition of “actively engaged” was rejected. Instead of requiring someone to farm the land or manage it, their amendment — which the Senate rejected — would have required both criteria.

Many Southern lawmakers say they oppose tinkering with the definition for an actively engaged farmer because the new law includes other provisions designed to preclude payments to absentee landlords and wealthy farmers.

Harkin countered that the Agriculture Department should revise the definition “so that we do not close down one set of loopholes only to leave others wide open.”