House Agriculture Committee leaders are considering reducing the percentage of base acres on which farmers receive farm program payments to help lower spending for the 2007 farm bill.

Committee members could also vote to shift funds from direct payments to a permanent disaster program or other spending categories, Chairman Collin Peterson, D-Minn., told ag reporters during a weekly telephone conference call.

The House Subcommittee on Specialty Crops, Rural Development and Foreign Agriculture approved a proposal to amend the definition of payment acres for the 2008 through 2012 crops of peanuts as meaning 74 percent of the base acres assigned to a farm. Currently, farmers receive payments on 85 percent of base acres.

The subcommittee also voted in its mark-up session on June 6 to raise the marketing loan rate for peanuts from $355 to $375 per ton. The target price for peanuts set at $495 per ton in the 2002 farm bill was left unchanged.

Delta Farm Press