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A patchwork of food, farming, conservation and environmental groups fear that lawmakers could act on the 2012 Farm Bill as early as this week with no input from California – the largest agricultural state in the nation.

Leaders of the House and Senate Agriculture committees are proposing $23 billion in cuts – the 2008 Farm Bill’s five-year budget exceeded $300 billion – and could take their proposed legislation directly to the new congressional “supercommittee” to be passed without votes in their own committees or in Congress.

The supercommittee, made up of six senators and six representatives from both parties, has been tasked to come up with $1.2 trillion in federal budget cuts by mid November to reduce the deficit.

A new Farm Bill, which sets the budget for everything from farm support programs and renewable-energy research to food stamps and conservation initiatives, is passed every five years. Many in California’s agriculture community are concerned the new bill will show favoritism to commodity crops – corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton, rice and peanuts – leaving California, largely a specialty crop state emphasizing fruits, vegetables and nuts, with fewer funds for organic farming, environmental protection and research programs.

Currently, California receives only about 5 percent of the money set aside for farm programs despite producing 12 percent of the country’s total agricultural revenue. And with the proposed cuts, the state could get even less.