Brenna Wulfkuhle pauses from grooming a heifer to talk with one of her daughters, Kelsey, 10, through adjusting a cow's halter. While most of the cattle the Wulfkuhles raise are sold for slaughter, six were groomed this year for show. As Congress wrestles with the Bush administration's new proposal on awarding farm subsidies, it leaves area growers like the Wulfkuhles waiting to see how lawmaker decisions could change their way of life.

Ryan Edmonds, Berryton, joined by one of the Wulfkuhle family pets, roams the grazing pasture of the Rocking H Ranch, checking for any heifers that could be in labor before shutting down operations for the night.

Bryan Fishburn, Stull, drives a feed truck between cattle pens on the Rocking H Ranch, delivering a mixture of corn and sileage into feeding troughs for cattle raised on the ranch. The cattle are separated and fed according to weaning stages. The Wulfkuhle family owns Rocking H Ranch, which is west of Clinton Lake. They also grow grain, corn and beans; right now, high grain prices help growers like the Wulfkuhles.

Mark Wulfkuhle, left, supervises while his nephew Brett Vannicola repairs a tear in a farm truck tire.

Farmers across the nation are watching as Congress wrangles over the Bush administration’s new proposal on how to award farm subsidies.

For Mark Wulfkuhle, president of Rocking H Ranch in western Douglas County, the complex issue concerning reauthorization of the Farm Bill has positive and negative aspects.

Aside from their cattle operation, Wulfkuhle and his family grow about 400 acres of wheat, plus another 400 acres set aside for corn and another 400 acres for beans.

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns offered a proposal this year that advocates more land conservation and development of renewable energy.

“We as farmers appreciate that they are willing to help pay us to make these changes rather than regulating us to make these changes because we want to be good stewards of the land as well,” Wulfkuhle said. “But sometimes it’s very cost-prohibitive.”

According to the Environmental Working Group database, which monitors the amount of conservation, disaster and commodity subsidies that the federal government pays, Rocking H Ranch only received about $40,000 in conservation subsidies from 1995 to 2005, compared to $58,000 in disaster subsidies and $390,000 in commodity subsidies.

Farmers receive subsidies when crop prices dip below a certain level. Overall, Rocking H Ranch received the seventh most amount of subsidies in Douglas County during that 10-year span.

Aware of the criticism of assistance from federal farm programs, Wulfkuhle and other Douglas County farmers say the current system works well.

“They aren’t just throwing money at us. We have different stipulations that we have to follow in order to get these farm payments,” said Mark Wulfkuhle, president of Rocking H Ranch west of Clinton Lake.

Recent higher grain and corn prices have led to less subsidies being distributed nationally.

Johanns unveiled the proposal for the 2007 Farm Bill, which spends about $10 billion less than the 2002 bill.

The possibility of receiving less in commodity farm subsidies may be of concern to Kansas farmers.

Several Douglas County farmers, including rancher and Douglas County Farm Bureau President Stan Larson, have voiced support for following the 2002 Farm Bill.

Things are going relatively well now with high grain prices, but they say farm programs help keep farmers in business during the tough years.

“It would make profitability a lot more difficult,” Wulfkuhle said, on what would happen if assistance from farm programs were to drop. “The main thing, if most of your farmers go broke or can’t make a profit, we’re not going to plant crops if we can’t at least get back our expenses.”

“As long as the price of grain stays up, I think we’ll be fine,” said Mike Wintermantel, who farms and raises cattle west of the Baldwin Junction.

The alternative also worries him. According to the same database, Wintermantel’s operation was 19th in the county in amount of subsidies received from 1995 to 2005. His farm received very little in conservation subsidies.

“We’ll just have to see what next year brings and just hope for the best,” he said.

Wulfkuhle said keeping American farms profitable is a national and world security issue because the country has such effective farm land, and farmers are able to export so much grain.

Having so much production at home keeps food prices low compared to the rest of the world, he said. And many other countries rely on getting food from the United States.

“(With subsidies from the current farm bill,) we pretty much know within 70 percent of what we are going to get; we can budget in pretty closely what our farm payments will be,” he said.

Although crop prices are currently beneficial, farmers face other difficulties, such as more expensive fertilizer and fuel, Wintermantel and Wulfkuhle said.