As the House and Senate Agriculture committees appear headed for informal conference negotiations in August, seven groups highly critical of the House-passed farm bill held a joint news conference on Tuesday to discuss their priorities and the possibility of another extension of the 2008 farm bill rather than passage of a bill this year.

The groups that held the joint news conference were the Humane Society of the United States, Oxfam America, Defenders of Wildlife, National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, Natural Resources Defense Council, United Food and Commercial Workers and the Environmental Working Group

(See following stories on the views of Oxfam and the Humane Society.)

Leaders of two groups — the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition and the Environmental Working Group — said it is much more likely that Congress will pass another extension of the 2008 bill rather than finish a conference.

Ferd Hoefner of the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition said that NSAC’s member groups, who represent smaller, environmentally-minded farmers, will tell members of Congress “we need a farm bill,” but will also focus on what shape an extension should take because that is more likely.

An extension “can’t look like last year’s,” said Hoefner. That bill extended without changes the direct payments that crop farmers get whether prices are high or low and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program better known as SNAP or food stamps.

The extension bill, Hoefner said, should include reforms and not leave out programs that did not get funding in the current extension.

Hoefner said that Congress could take the $4.9 billion in the direct payments program and use it to fund assistance for livestock producers, organic farmers, new, beginning and minority farmers and specialty crops.

He acknowledged that such a shift would take money away from the budget for farmers who produce corn, soybeans, cotton, wheat and other commodities and give it to other farmers, which might produce opposition from those groups, but he said that should not cause a problem because commodity groups are already well funded through other programs.

NSAC’s priorities in the farm bill start with subsidy payment limits, and Hoefner noted that both the House and Senate farm bills contain payment limit reform and that the Senate bill contains “important” sodsaver and conservation compliance provisions that are not in the House bill.

Scott Faber of the Environmental Working Group also said that “an extension is most likely scenario” and that extending direct payments for another year would be “crazy.” He also said that the direct payment money should be used to fund programs that were not extended last year.

EWG has also focused on changes to the commodity programs and crop insurance.

Asked about the opposition of the Heritage Foundation and the Club for Growth to the farm bills, Faber said that “no one should be surprised” that groups concerned with the deficit would oppose “the most fiscally irresponsible farm bill ever” and that “every American should be angry about increasing crop insurance subsidies.” But the conservative groups have also called for cuts to the conservation and nutrition programs that EWG favors. Asked about food stamps, Faber said that the changes “should not pull the rug out from under the poorest people.”

Mia Dell, the chief lobbyist for the United Food and Commercial Workers, said that her organization was “appalled” that the House left food stamps out of the farm bill that it passed.

Dell noted that UFCW has 1.3 million members who work in food processing and retail and said Republican members of the House should look at food stamps as “an economic stimulator” rather than just a social assistance program.

Representatives of the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Defenders of Wildlife criticized the House bill for cutting conservation programs.