Washington ? Kansas Republican Sens. Pat Roberts and Sam Brownback voted Thursday to limit big government payments to farmers, a move that won overwhelming approval but that jeopardized the Democratic farm bill.

“I think you have to draw the line. There is just no way you can defend these very large payments,” said Roberts, who supported a $275,000-per-farm cap on agriculture subsidies.

“I just don’t see how I, in good conscience, or for that matter Senator Brownback or anybody from Kansas, can vote to continue a farm payment program that discriminates against wheat producers,” Roberts said.

Existing rules give growers unlimited subsidies, plus up to $80,000 more under a separate program that provides fixed annual payments. Payments are structured to be higher to cotton and rice, whose producers say they cost more to grow, and lower to wheat.

At odds with backers

Brownback and Roberts were among the 66-vote majority in the Senate, but they were at odds with American Farm Bureau Federation and other farm groups arguing that payment limits penalize farms that expand to cut costs.

The Kansas Farm Bureau, a staunch backer of both senators, was reluctant to criticize their vote.

“Our organization on the national level opposes caps out of principle,” Kansas Farm Bureau spokesman Mike Matson said. “Where do you draw the line? Any cap is an arbitrary judgment.”

But Matson added “There’s still a long way to go before we see a final product. We’ll continue to work with our congressional delegation to make sure they understand our position.”

Kansas-Missouri split

Lawmakers opposing the cap are from states where southern crops cotton and rice are farmed, which put Brownback and Roberts at odds with their colleagues from neighboring Missouri, Republican Sen. Kit Bond and Democratic Sen. Jean Carnahan. Many rice farmers in southeast Missouri’s Bootheel region get a share of huge subsidy payments to an Arkansas-based cooperative, Riceland Foods Inc.

“For even medium-sized family farmers, it could trigger calls on bank loans,” Bond said. “The reduced payment limit would only be triggered when prices are lower, at a time when the payment would be most needed. We ought to be increasing safety nets for farmers.”

Brett Myers, executive vice president of the Kansas Association of Wheat Growers, said, “What they forget is there are a very few farms out that are not corporate farms. Even though it’s a corporation, it could very easily be a family-owned farm.”

Kansas effects

Roberts said limits would affect very few Kansas farmers.

Brownback’s noted that any of those producers could get payments of up to $275,000.

“I don’t think that argument stands up very well,” he said. “I think this strengthens the farm bill in the eyes of the general public. It’s more targeted to family farms.”

But Brownback acknowledged the Senate’s subsidy cap will lengthen House-Senate negotiations on the measures, after a Senate version passes, because the House’s farm bill would allow farmers to get even larger subsidy payments than they can now.

“It makes conference more difficult, because now you’ve put a challenge in front of some southern commodities,” Brownback said.

Both lawmakers dislike the overall bill, a Democratic-sponsored measure that would cut farm spending by $1.3 billion over 10 years, or $130 million annually, and use the money for food stamps, agricultural research and other programs.

The effort to restrict subsidies gained momentum after several news stories last year about seven-figure payments that some farmers and landowners have been collecting. The Environmental Working Group led the criticism.

“We’ve been struck by the number of members (of Congress) who have publicly and vocally associated themselves with payment limits in a way that has never happened before,” said farm program critic Ken Cook, the environmental group’s president.