“We had a lot of things that came together and pushed prices up for a wide variety of products the last couple of years,” said Patrick Westhoff, Director of the Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute (FAPRI) during a visit at the St. Louis Agribusiness Club. “We expect a lot of volatility in the year ahead.”

One of the main reasons is an “ordinary garden variety one” – the weather. “People tend to forget that sometimes,” said Westhoff. On top of that, the biggest factors to consider are land markets and what Congress will decide to do with farm policy. No surprises there!

He notes that tight stocks will continue to keep corn prices particularly volatile. “Every little piece of news, either positive or negative, can make the market move around a lot,” Westhoff added.

Westhoff believes that the spending cuts presented to the “super committee” by the House and Senate agriculture leadership should help start the conversation for a new farm bill in 2012, “but it certainly won’t be the end of that conversation.”

Listen to Chuck Zimmerman’s interview with Patrick Westhoff here: Patrick Westhoff Interview

Among the topics of interest were farm policy, this year’s crop, the American Ethanol partnership with NASCAR, USFRA, exports and atrazine. I hit on just about all of those subjects during my interview with Garry. Here’s some of his comments:

Farm Bill – “Passing farm bills usually takes about 15 months, and ironically, this one – if it happens – will be one of the quickest ever in history.”

Corn Crop – “All the adversity we’ve had, and here we are with the 4th largest corn crop. I’m thoroughly amazed.”

USFRA - “We’ve been laying a lot of the ground work here to get the message out to defend agriculture. We have everybody working together on the same page for the first time, telling our story.”

Trade – “These three free trade agreements give us the impetus to move forward to improve our infrastructure – locks and dams on the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers.”

American Ethanol – “We have been going back over the advertising and we’re at 71% acceptance, that’s with 75 million fans throughout the United States.”

Atrazine – “It’s been a stalwart, it works, it’s inexpensive, it keeps the price of food affordable for the American public.”

Listen to my interview with Garry here: NCGA president Garry Niemeyer

Two congressmen from the state of Illinois visited the big show in Decatur. Freshman Congressman House Agriculture Committee member Bobby Schilling (R-IL) participated in a press conference with the National Corn Growers Association on Tuesday. “I think as most people are aware, it’s been quite a storm in Washington, D.C., the last seven months,” Schilling said. “Coming out of the business sector right into Congress, it’s been quite frustrating for me to see what’s happening in our nation’s capitol.”

As far as the farm bill is concerned, Schilling says the “super committee” on reducing the deficit may make decisions that will impact farm programs so the agriculture committee needs to make recommendations on how spending could be cut. “Because if we don’t they will just go after dollar amounts without looking at where appropriate cuts could be made,” he said.

Listen to some of Congressman Schilling’s comments during the press conference here. Cong. Bobby Schilling

Congressman Tim Johnson (R-IL), who also serves on the House Agriculture Committee, visited Farm Progress Show on Wednesday to meet with farmers like Illinois Corn Growers President Jim Reed (R) pictured here with him. Johnson says he is optimistic that they can come up with a farm bill that’s “workable and still meets the confines of what we have to deal with in terms of limited dollars.”

He wants to make sure there continues to be a safety net for farmers. “And we need to make sure the House Agriculture Committee and people who know American agriculture are the people framing policy,” Johnson said.

Johnson also shares the concerns that farmers in the state have about government regulations making it more difficult to farm. “USDA, USDOT and most particularly EPA tying our left hand is a real burden,” he said. “This administration more than any other administration in history has done more to damage the ability of farmers to make a living.”

Listen to Meghan Grebner of Brownfield Ag News and me interview Cong. Johnson here. Cong. Tim Johnson

2011 Farm Progress Show Photo Album

Farmers have at least one friend in Congress these days in Representative Stephen Fincher (R-TN), who *in an address to the 2011 Southern Peanut Growers Conference said he was the “working farmer currently serving in the House.”*

“We’re 7th generation cotton farmers from the Frog Jump community in West Tennessee and still actively farm,” Rep. Fincher told me in an interview. “It’s an honor to serve in Washington and represent rural ag communities.”

Fincher is one of the freshman class in Congress that is shaking up the status quo in the Capitol and he is very concerned about cuts in agriculture funding being considered on the federal level. “Farmers understand that we’ve all got to tighten our belts a little bit, but we can’t kid ourselves and think that we can balance the budget on the back of one percent of the budget, which is what ag gets.”

Because of the current hot political climate in Washington, Fincher would like to see the current Farm Bill extended until after the 2012 election when cooler heads might prevail. “Where we could sit down and have a reasonable discussion about our next 5-6 years in the ag world,” he said. “I’m afraid from some of the comments made by some of our colleagues in Washington that they want to slash and burn the Farm Bill on the ag side!”

Listen to my interview with Rep. Fincher here: Congressman Stephen Fincher

Today, the first field hearing is being held in the home state of chairwoman Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, featuring agricultural representatives of all sectors, from corn and soybeans to cherries and apples. Last week, the committee held its first official Farm Bill hearing, with testimony from Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, former secretary Dan Glickman, Michigan farmer Barry Mumby, and others.

While USDA is not planning to propose a version of the Farm Bill as it has in the past, Vilsack recognized the obvious fact that agriculture policy will be affected by budget cuts. “I have no doubts that the next Farm Bill will be smaller than the one agreed to in 2008. In acknowledging that reality, I hope that this Committee will give serious thought to your priorities for American agriculture – your priorities for USDA – and to the values of the American people,” he told the committee.

As Co-Chair of The Chicago Council’s Global Agricultural Development Initiative, Glickman focused his testimony on America’s role in reducing global hunger and poverty through food aid programs included under the Farm Bill, while Mumby urged the committee to protect farmers with an adequate safety net. “I must say that this Committee has a daunting task and every farmer in the US as well as the rest of the world will be watching very carefully to analyze the effects of your Bill on their lives for the next few years,” he said.

Farmers have good reason to be concerned about what Congress will do this time around, since the percentage of dollars allocated to actual production agriculture in the legislation continues to decline to the point where it was only about 10 percent in the 2008 bill. Traditional support programs could very well be in jeopardy, as some are calling for a complete overhaul of agricultural policy. A recent report from the National Research Council Committee on Twenty-First Century Systems Agriculture proposed a “whole-system redesign” of U.S. agriculture that would “incorporate innovative agricultural systems such as organic farming, grass-fed and other alternative livestock production systems, mixed crop and livestock systems, and perennial grains…. it would require significant changes in market structures, policy incentives and public funding for agricultural science.”

The Farm Bill has undergone many transformations over the years, with some programs falling by the wayside and new programs taking their place. Even the name has changed over the years – it actually has never been called the “Farm Bill” – initially called the Agricultural Adjustment Act in 1933 and most recently the Food, Conservation, and Energy Act in 2008.

No matter what the name, the legislation has always recognized the importance of maintaining a strong agriculture industry for the security of the nation, something Congress needs to continue to keep in mind as the process to create a new “Farm Bill” begins.

In our society we will spend ludicrous sums on money on things like cars, cell phones, or even a cup of trendy coffee, yet we continue to demand access to all the bounty Mother Nature has to offer at discount prices.

It is a modern miracle that the largest consumptive offenders on the planet – Americans – also have the cheapest food supply on terra firma. We spend less than 10% of our disposable income on actual food items compared to other developed nations that spend as much as 15% to 50% of what they earn to put food on the table.

There are numerous factors that make this access to cheap and abundant food possible including a wildly productive agricultural core that produces key crops like wheat, corn, and soybeans. These staple crops provide the very foundation of the “real” food pyramid. These are crops that we have learned to grow fairly predictably on a large scale even when Mother Nature hits us with challenging weather. In the worst-case scenario when weather, insects or disease reduces the size of these crops we have a certain amount in reserve.

However, with a growing emphasis on more fruits and vegetable in our diet, there are also those calling for more and more taxpayers dollars to shift from existing farm programs to encourage and expand farmers markets and produce production. Striking a reasonable balance won’t be easy but it will be critical.

While many produce items have a shelf life of weeks or months at best, corn, soybeans and wheat can be transported more readily and stored for years.  The authors of the original farm bill understood this and chose to put their emphasis and limited budget into programs that help growers of these keystone crops make it through tough times.

Times have changed and the farm bill is antiquated in many ways, but the importance of these key crops has not waned. The farm bill in the U.S. is not a perfect piece of legislation, few are that have become this big and cumbersome.

But today’s “farm bill” is a misnomer since the lion’s share of the expenditures go to social programs like women, infant and children, school lunches, food stamps and even forestry. Yet critics like to cultivate the illusion that it all goes to farmers.

As we continue to analyze and discuss these consumer support programs – yes, it is a consumer program that helps guarantees you the aforementioned cheap food over the long haul – it is important we do a little homework before making wholesale changes.

In the interim keep this in mind; if we stopped growing green beans or carrots tomorrow the world would not end. But if we see big reductions in crops like corn, soybeans or wheat the loss of essential oils, protein and other precious calories would change the food universe as you know it. Likely wouldn’t do our economy or our balance of trade much good either.

In the letter, Ranking Republican Member of the Senate Agriculture Committee Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) and the other senators told Vilsack that “Congress can reauthorize the school nutrition programs, provide adequate funding to meet the urgent needs of our children, while at the same time maintain the support promised in the 2008 farm bill to U.S. production agriculture.” They added the USDA has “responsibility for a wide variety of interests and should be able to advocate for one without vilifying another.”

Vilsack’s comments also came up last week when the board of the National Corn Growers Association met with him in Washington to discuss a number of issues.

“We let the secretary know that we hoped in the future the department would not pit one set of stakeholders against another,” said NCGA Chairman Ron Litterer. “We all need to work together.”

NCGA President Bob Dickey said they appreciated the opportunity to sit down with the Secretary. “It was a productive meeting that included some frank talk and ended with a strong commitment by the secretary and the board to work together in the future,” said Dickey.

The organizations expressed “strong opposition” to the more than $16 billion in cuts to the farm safety net proposed in President Barack Obama’s 2010 budget saying that the cuts “threaten, once again, to change the rules midstream on American farm and ranch families.”

The proposed cuts come before the Farm Bill is even fully implemented and at a time when producers are struggling to understand and comply with confusing, costly and unduly burdensome payment and eligibility rule changes already being imposed that far exceed what the Farm Bill required, the Congress intended, and producers anticipated. The proposed budget cuts totally overlook the fact that producers and lenders alike have made long-term business decisions based upon the commitments made by Congress in the five-year Farm Bill and, thus, will exacerbate the current credit crisis.

Most troubling, far from targeting large agribusinesses that do not need assistance, the proposed cuts would strike at the economic heart of full-time farm families, of every sized operation, in the midst of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression and at a time when net farm income is projected to be down 20%, threatening the viability of hundreds of thousands of family-owned farms and ranches and further undermining the U.S. economy.

Pretty much every major ag organization in the country signed on to the letter, including American Farm Bureau, National Farmers Union, National Corn Growers, American Soybean Association, etc.

See the letter here.

“As I understand it, we are either right at the record or over it, so that is phenomenal,” said National Corn Growers Association CEO Rick Tolman. Unofficial numbers I heard were about 4500 total registration with 1500 of those actual corn, soybean, wheat and sorghum farmers.

The state of the ethanol industry was a major focus at the meeting, as well as the state of the livestock industry – both major concerns for corn growers since they represent two of the biggest markets for the commodity. Tolman says they are working hard to improve their relationship with the livestock industry which has been strained in the past year over biofuels.

NCGA is also working with the ethanol industry on two important issues that could adversely impact future production – indirect land use and higher blends. “The indirect land use issue is one that by statute the EPA has to look at in the Renewable Fuels Standard,” Rick says. “Personally, I think its a ridiculous concept and doesn’t make any sense at all, however it is in law, so EPA has to look at it.” Regarding both issues, Rick believes sound science will eventually win out.

Concerns about potential changes to the 2008 Farm Bill surfaced at Commodity Classic this week, as the Obama administration unveiled its budget proposal which calls for cuts in farm program spending. “The farm bill is a five year program and we just went through a whole two years of discussions to get that done and finally we get it signed and it hasn’t even been implemented yet and they’re talking about changing it,” Tolman said. “That’s a principal I think is wrong.”

Listen to an interview with Rick here:

If you’d like to see photos from this year’s Commodity Classic please feel free to visit our: 2009 Commodity Classic Photo Album

The National 25x’25 Steering Committee and other renewable energy advocacy groups outlined a three part recommendation in a letter to Congressional leaders this week. The letter recommends including at least $1.2 billion each year in mandatory supplemental appropriations for important Farm Bill Energy Title programs; restructuring and extending the federal Production Tax Credits (PTC) for renewable energy, cellulosic biofuels, and biomass for five years; and extending and expanding successful clean renewable energy and conservation bond programs which provide PTC-like incentives for electric cooperatives, public power, and municipalities to build new renewable energy facilities and invest in energy efficiency.

“Our nation’s agriculture and forestry industries can not only provide a good portion of our overall energy supply, but also a new green energy future that will stimulate and reinvigorate our economy,” said Bart Ruth, chairman of the 25x’25 policy committee. “A small investment in rural America and clean, green energy development has the potential to provide a new economic foundation for the entire country.”

The coalition is largely made up of agricultural organizations, but also includes such groups as the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) and the Environmental Law & Policy Center.