The Senate failed to come up with the necessary three-fifths vote to end debate on the farm bill Wednesday, effectively killing chances of the bill passing this year.

The 54-43 vote to limit debate to another 30 hours was the culmination of a highly partisan battle that makes it likely Congress will have less money to spend on farm programs when it resumes debate next year, said Senate Agriculture Committee Chair Tom Harkin (D-IA).

"I think this is a sad day and not a very bright Christmas next week for farmers and ranchers and people who live in rural America," Harkin said on the floor of the Senate. "We are going to put our farmers and ranchers in a terrible position next year, all because of the vote that was held 15 minutes ago."

Senator Richard Lugar, the ranking Republican on the Senate Agriculture Committee, said the additional money for agriculture that Harkin is seeking to protect, isn't available now that the nation has entered a recession and "hasn't been there for a long time."

"This bill was crafted to benefit a fairly small number of farmers in America," he said, adding that most of the money would go to just 10% of the farmers in his home state of Indiana. "What about the other 90%?"

"I'm grateful that we have a second chance to do something better for American farmers," Lugar said.

In a telephone press conference after the vote, Harkin said the same bill remains on the floor of the Senate and that he'll bring it up for a vote again when Senators return to Washington in January.

"I see no reason to rewrite the bill that came out of committee," Harkin said.

Harkin said he thinks one reason Republicans didn't want to end debate on the farm bill is that they wanted to attach an economic stimulus bill to it that hadn't been agreed to by Democratic leadership in Congress. He speculated that the administration's budget for agriculture next year will be smaller.

Harkin said the delay is likely to make it more difficult for some farmers to get fi nancing for next year's crops, especially for farmers in the South who will be seeking loans in January and February.

Mary Kay Thatcher, a lobbyist for American Farm Bureau, one of 32 groups that was urging members of the Senate to pass a farm bill this year, acknowledged that it will be difficult to save the $73.5 billion in additional farm program spending (over 10 years) that Congress had agreed to this year.

"What we expect is a continuing fight for ways to move the farm bill along and to protect the $73.5 billion," she told @griculture Online. But the Congressional Budget Office will release a new federal budget estimate on January 24, the day after Congress returns to Washington. That could increase resistance among urban members of Congress to spending money on farm programs, she said.

Meanwhile, "We'll be making a concerted effort in the next month to keep farmers informed and fired up," she said.