How long can good times roll down on the farm?

The new farm bill may not include mandated expenditures for research things like creating ethanol from switchgrass, nor a cap on payments for rice and cotton growers, and the Democratic House leadership's unwillingness to exceed the administration's proposal by a needed $10 billion, Sen. Ben Nelson told the Gazette on Sunday.

Bush has threatened to veto the farm bill unless any new spending is offset by reductions elsewhere.

Still, it's unusual for a congressional representative from Nebraska to not be able to talk about troubles like low commodity prices and drought back in farm country.

Thanks in large part to demand for ethanol, as well as a weak dollar that encourages exports, commodity prices are at an historic high.

On Friday, the Gazette reported wheat at 8.48-8.86 a bushel, corn 5.48, milo 9.29 a hundredweight and soybeans 11.1 a bushel.

Of course, the same edition reported a price of $114.86 a barrel for West Texas Intermediate crude oil, meaning the fuel and fertilizer farmers need to produce and transport those crops are also at record high prices.

Still, it's tempting for farmers to "make hay while the sun shines," borrowing money to buy land (pushing farmland prices up), as well as replace and upgrade equipment, grain storage and borrow money to operate.

But, as a story by The Associated Press points out, farm economists wonder how long the federal subsidy of ethanol -- now estimated at $6 billion a year -- will last.

That's especially worrisome because high corn prices are seen as running up food prices, as energy and food production both compete for cropland.

And, while both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton support continued subsidies, John McCain does not.

Old timers may notice that the current ag economy is similar to the mid-1970s, when crop prices were relatively high and farmers went into debt. That was fine until Washington changed policies, including imposing a grain embargo against the Soviet Union after the invasion of Afghanistan.

Farmers kept growing crops, grain surpluses soared and commodity prices and land values dropped.

As a result, thousands of farmers sold out and nearly 300 agricultural banks went out of business.

Farmers were expected to have borrowed $228 billion by the end of the year to operate, $8 billion more than last year and a record for the fourth year in a row.

They're also expected to have borrowed $121 billion to buy land, a 2.8 percent increase over last year.

According to the USDA, from the beginning of 2003 to the end of 2008, total farm debt will have increased by about $52.8 billion, or more than 30 percent.

Perhaps farm policy won't change, and ethanol will continue to be subsidized at its current rate. For the sake of national energy self-reliance, we hope so; or at least hope the United States maintains the capacity to supplement oil with domestically produced biofuels.

If not, however, producers would be wise to get out of debt as quickly as they can to put their operations in as strong a financial position as possible.