As of today. 

UPDATE:  It looks like a Bush veto is certain. 

On Wednesday evening, Scott Stanzel, a White House spokesman, reiterated the president’s opposition. “With its massive expansion of subsidies, special interest earmarks and budget gimmicks, this bill is wrong for American taxpayers,” he said. “The president will veto it.” 

The final roll call vote for HR 2419, which is the conference committee version of the Farm Bill, is below the fold.

Final Vote - House
Conference Report on 2008 Farm Bill
May 14, 2008
 
Yes   318
 
No    106

The bill now goes to the Senate for a vote, and then to the President's desk.   The President has pledged to veto the bill.  There is one rumor going around that if the House passes the bill by more than 300, then he might not veto it, to avoid being publicly overridden.   Given the President's strong statements against the bill, that may be wishful thinking.   But time will tell. 
 
 If the President does veto the bill, the bill will need to come back to Congress for a veto override vote, which requires a 2/3 margin of both the House and Senate.  (290 in the House and 67 in the Senate).

Here is the NY Times article on the vote. 

On May 1, 2008, NFU President Tom Buis testified on the causes of high food prices.  His testimony is below the fold.  It is a good summary of all causal factors in higher food prices, and shows the real numbers relating to ethanol.

The full text of the Conference Committee Report pertaining to the Title XI - Livestock in the Farm Bill is reprinted in full below the fold.  It is also on the House Ag Committee website today. 

As Yogi Berra Would Say: It’s Déjà Vu All Over Again
By: Daryll Ray
Published: May 9, 2008

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce opposes the Farm Bill. 

One stated reason is subsidies.  They don't like subsidies.  Which is like the pot calling the kettle black.  Many of their members live and die on far larger aggregate, and per entity, subsidies.

But they don't like arbitration choice.  The conference committee's Farm Bill allows agricultural producers to opt-out of contract clauses mandating arbitration when the contract is signed.  This is a weaker provision than OCM sought, and the Senate version of the bill contained, which was that the clauses would be inapplicable so farmers could later choose whether to arbitrate.

Arbitration is secret and expensive.  Farmers often must pay over $10K just to start an arbitration as opposed to $250 to file a complaint in court.  And if the company did wrong, the decision is secret in an arbitration decision.  The courts are paid by our dollars and the court file is public.  We can know of bad actors and bad conduct based, in part, on past decisions made in the courts.

But Big Business runs more efficiently when their lawyers can draft contracts that consumers and producers cannot change.  Dictatorship is more efficient than democracy. And Big Business gets really irritated about having wrongdoing exposed publicly.

Here is the Chamber's statement:

ARBITRATION

          While the arbitration provision contained in Title XI of the bill is an improvement from that originally included in the Senate version, the Chamber still opposes the provision.  Of particular concern is the new Section 210(e) that the Farm Bill would add to Title II of the Packers and Stockyards Act dealing with "unlawful practices."  This new section is potentially broad enough to effectively outlaw arbitration agreements when there is a pricing differential between agreeing or declining to enter into an arbitration clause in a livestock related contract.  This result occurs because Section 210(e) prohibits "any action that has the intent or effect of limiting the ability of a producer or grower to freely make a choice" regarding arbitration.  (Emphasis added).  In essence, a pricing differential could be argued to have a limiting effect on a party's choice regarding arbitration, thus making it potentially economically impractical for the parties to the contract to offer an arbitration option.  The long-term effect of this provision would cause serious damage to the general use and availability of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) as well as ultimately weaken the Federal Arbitration Act.

Industry leaders in agricultural biotechnology are seeking hundreds of patents on crops designed to cope with global warming, according to a new report by the ETC Group: "Patenting the Climate Genes...And Capturing the Climate Agenda."

The Washington Post reports:

"The ETC report concludes that biotech giants are hoping to leverage climate change as a way to get into resistant markets, and it warns that the move could undermine public-sector plant-breeding institutions such as those coordinated by the United Nations and the World Bank, which have long made their improved varieties freely available."

ETC's research director, Hope Shand, adds, "When a market is dominated by a handful of large multinational companies, the research agenda gets biased toward proprietary products...Monopoly control of plant genes is a bad idea under any circumstance. During a global food crisis, it is unacceptable and has to be challenged."   

 "I don't mind Monsanto developing these tools. I mind that we don't have an economic ecology that lets other companies compete with them," said Richard Jefferson, founder and chief executive of Cambia, a nonprofit institute based in Australia that helps companies worldwide sort through patent holdings so they can build on one another's work instead of stymieing one another. Under the current system for patenting genes, he said, "the little guys shake out and the big guys end up in a place a lot like a cartel."

The Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy published a similar report last year, "Patents: Taken for Granted in Plans for a Global Biofuels Market" (opens PDF), which highlights biotechnology firms' rush to patent crops used for biofuels and examines the beneficiaries of low patent standards in the U.S.

CBS Evening News recently ran a story on Monsanto's pursuit of farmers for patent infringement. As this clip shows, some farmers targeted by Monsanto have never purchased its products, yet still face harassment and threats to their livelihood. Below is the CBS footage. The full text of the program is here.

Creekstone wants to test animals for BSE.  With their own money.  And their own lab. 

The top meat packers do not want Creekstone to test for BSE.  The meat packers.  Those folks that don't want government intrusion in the markets.  Thus, it follows thatUSDA does not want the firm to test for BSE.  

So, USDA told Creekstone it could not test.  Creekstone sued.  A lower court ruling said USDA cannot prohibit Creekstone's private testing.  USDA appealed.  Oral argument occurred last Friday, May 9, 2008.  Apparently the argument went well.