The plight of rain-ruined Northeast Mississippi farmers holds the attention of the region’s congressional delegation, underscored by separate packages of legislation for relief in the Senate and House, and on Monday with a visit by U.S. Agriculture Undersecretary Michael Scuse, who heads operations for farms and foreign trade.

Sens. Thad Cochran and Roger Wicker jointly back relief legislation in the Senate; U.S. Rep. Travis Childers has a bill in process in the House. Cochran, Wicker and Childers all have joined with members of the Arkansas delegation to sponsor bills addressing similar problems in both states, and others, too.

Bipartisanship obviously is essential in moving toward a timely, effective finished product that would provide substantial financial support for farmers whose fields were choked with sometimes-record rainfall that has cut yields in virtually every major crop: soybeans, cotton, sweet potatoes, and peanuts, cumulatively devastating potential profitability for many row-crop producers.

Mississippi State University’s agricultural economists place crop losses at $485 million statewide.

Farmers across Northeast Mississippi hit hardest by fall rains already had suffered with drought conditions during the summer.

All 24 counties in the 1st Congressional District, which encompasses virtually all of Northeast Mississippi, have been declared primary disaster areas, which is the first step toward empowering farm disaster relief.

The Cochran-Wicker-Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., bill in the Senate, filed Nov. 20, would help farmers who have been unable to harvest crops because of excessive rain since early September, and the bill would provide help for livestock farmers, too. The bill would provide direct payment assistance to producers in counties nationwide declared “primary” disaster areas by the USDA as of Nov. 17, 2009.

In addition to the Direct Payments, the Senate bill would make $650 million available to assist specialty crop producers impacted by natural disasters. Funding would be available via payment to states. The Senate bill also has $150 million in assistance to livestock producers whose operations have been adversely affected by weather-related disasters.

The full cost of the Senate disaster assistance legislation has been placed at $2.19 billion by the Congressional Budget Office, but it would use funds available from the Troubled Asset Relief Program, usually called the financial bailout of 2008.

We believe Cochran, Wicker and Childers, while in different chambers and different parties, are singing from the same book. We hope their congressional colleagues join them.

The Obama administration has been accused of insensitivity and lack of knowledge about the needs of rural America. Effective disaster legislation is a good way to prove critics wrong.