Wichita ? A day after lawmakers reached a tentative deal on a farm bill, many Kansas farmers remained wary of it.

The compromise bill would boost farm spending by about 70 percent, and marked a reversal of the 1996 market-oriented approach of the farm program it replaces.

Price guarantees, known as loan rates, will be increased for major crops, and the bill revives a target price system, abolished by the 1996 Freedom to Farm Act, to provide additional income.

Larned farmer Tom Giessel said the proposal overall is a step in the right direction, but it does not go far enough and should provide more money for farmers.

“I made my commitment to produce food for the people. I love doing it. I want to continue doing it, but I have to have the income,” Giessel said.

“I have to be able to repay the money I borrow. I have to have a return on my land and capital investment. And besides that I have a family, no different than anyone else in this nation.”

Terms of the new six-year deal were sketchy, and remain subject to change pending some final negotiations and revisions in cost estimates. No figures on the financial effect to Kansas were available.

The bill also will include a new subsidy program for dairy farmers; a requirement that meat, fish and produce be labeled with the country of origin, starting in two years; and a new $2 billion conservation program to reward crop farmers for improved environmental practices, lawmakers said.

Out in farm country, the proposed farm bill met with a mixed response from farmers many who were relieved that they have something more solid to bank on.

“It could have been a lot worse. I think we should be happy we have it done. We have wheat in the ground this year that isn’t under program now,” said Brett Myers, executive vice president for the Kansas Association of Wheat Growers.

He said the bill at least gives farmers, and their bankers, an idea of some of the fixed payments they can expect.

“It doesn’t look horribly wrong, but it is not the moon either,” Myers said.

Farmer Donn Teske called the farm bill compromise a Band-Aid, saying it does nothing to put a floor on market prices. Despite the bigger farm bill, it does not provide as much money to farmers than they got in past years with the farm bailouts.

“I’ve had to go off the farm to feed my family, and this isn’t going to allow me to farm full time,” he said. “It is a third less than we have been getting in government payments.”