Corn growers all over the country are preparing for the 2010 Commodity Classic next week in Anaheim where important policy issues facing farmers and ranchers will be discussed.
Members of the Missouri Corn Growers Association got in the mood this week by holding their annual meeting in Jefferson City and going to talk with state lawmakers about the importance of keeping agriculture in the hands of farmers. National Corn Growers Association president Darrin Ihnen (right) was guest speaker at the Missouri luncheon. With him pictured is Mike Geske, former president of the Missouri Corn Growers now serving on the 15-member National Corn Board.
I interviewed both Darrin and Mike about some of the issues important to growers right now and topping the list is the threat posed by the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), which is in the process of working up a petition drive in Missouri directed at dog breeders – lumping them all in the unsavory category of “puppy mills” – kind of like they lump all of agriculture under “factory farming.” Mike says that is why all agriculture groups in the state are working to keep legislators informed about how food is produced and the importance of the industry to Missouri. “We feel that once they get past the dog breeders they are going to be headed for commercial agriculture,” he told me.
Darrin says the threat posed to animal agriculture in individual states by groups like HSUS ultimately impacts all of agriculture across the country. “It’s very important that we help defend them,” Darrin says. “We can’t be separated when it comes to agriculture. We need to work together.”
This is just one of many important policy issues that corn growers will discuss at Classic next week, the annual meeting that also includes soybean, wheat and sorghum producers. Others include the indirect land use issue, climate legislation, increasing the ethanol blend rate and extending the blender’s tax credit for ethanol.
Listen to back to back interviews with Darrin and Mike here:
Apparently, last week’s International Energy Agency (IEA) numbers regarding future oil supplies were fudged to protect the innocent or at least our frail economic recovery. According to a whistleblower who whispered in the ear of The Guardian, the world is much closer to running out of oil that we think.
So, what is to be gained or lost by such skullduggery? Stockbrokers, bankers and oil investors jumping out of windows…sure, but what is the downside? (Insert sarcasm here).
The comments in the UK’s respected Guardian stated that the IEA has inflated its 2009 report of oil reserves for fear that the truth would shock world markets into a reactionary panic. IEA is alleged to have put its role as an industry watchdog in the kennel for the time being to fend off a potential buying panic…even at the risk of being exposed for overplaying supplies and chances for finding increased reserves.
On face value this might seem to be based on at least a modicum of twisted logic, but what are the ramifications for world governments who govern, plan and even invest based on IEA’s data? Consider that they also develop their own energy policies based on such essential information.
According to the Guardian’s high-level IEA source, estimates of global oil production growing from its current level of 83 million barrels per day to 105 million barrels per day are as bogus as the Tooth Fairy. The source said many IEA officials believe even 90 million barrels per day is unreachable, but the agency will not lower its forecast because it fears panic could spread through financial markets.
If we have indeed entered the “Peak Oil Zone” (that strange and unfamiliar place where we actually feel the pressure to get real about “energy policy” not oil policy) then it is time to fess up like an alcoholic at an AA meeting. “Hi my name is Joe Consumer and I have a petroleum problem.” (more…)
If you need a break from reading all the negative headlines, or hearing about all the things that are wrong with our society, our economy and even our very lifestyle…you came to the right place. This blog will provide nothing but positive and uplifting information for you today if you are a corn farmer.
At a time when membership in all kinds of organizations is declining, the National Corn Growers Association (NCGA) and affiliated states are proud to offer some good, in fact very good news. We will enter October with a new all-time high membership total of 36,378.
The real significance of this accomplishment for growers is what this trend reflects. It most likely reflects some of the concerns growers have about the serious issues facing agriculture today, but it also is sign of optimism that NCGA is in the fight, getting their hands dirty, and making a difference.
For many organizations Oct. 1, marks the beginning of a new fiscal year so it seems like a good time to take stock of the proactive approach being employed by NCGA. Here is a peek at what NCGA’s farmers leaders are tackling just this week: (more…)
Eight Republican Senators sent a letter to U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack today “urging him to refrain from using rhetoric that unfairly attacks the farmers and ranchers who form the foundation of America’s rural economy.” Earlier this month, Reuters reported comments from the Secretary indicating that the Obama administration’s plan to redirect subsidy payments for large farmers into nutrition programs is a choice between 30 million children or 90,000 farmers.
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 challenge of feeding a growing global population may require some radical new thinking outside the traditional agricultural box.
That’s why the Farm Foundation has organized a competition looking for “innovative and promising public policy options to address the challenges agriculture may face in providing food, feed, fiber and fuel over the next 30 years.” The best ideas will win cash prizes totaling $20,000, thanks to the support of a number of organizations, including the National Corn Growers Association (NCGA).
NCGA President Bob Dickey said they felt it was important to be a part of this project. “Our country and the international community face a number of opportunities and challenges in the years ahead, and we believe there are ways we can help address these by producing more corn for food and energy,” said Dickey.
The competition is open to anyone with an interest in the public policy issues outlined in the Foundation’s report, “The 30-Year Challenge: Agriculture’s Strategic Role in Feeding and Fueling a Growing World.” That report identifies six major areas of challenges with a role in agriculture’s ability to provide food, feed, fiber and fuel to a growing world: global financial markets and recession; global food security; global energy security; climate change; competition for natural resources; and global economic development.
So, get your thinking cap on and come up with some creative new ideas on how to feed the world. Entry deadline is June 1, 2009. Rules and details can be found on-line here.
Corn growers set their agenda for the year at last week’s Commodity Classic, with ethanol and locks and dams at the top of the list.
Rob Elliott, president of the Illinois Corn Growers Association, says ethanol is important to keep corn demand strong. Some of the priorities in that area include higher blend levels, increasing infrastructure and getting more FFVs on the road.
Regarding the locks and dams issue, Elliott says Midwest corn growers continue to work on getting Congress to fund improving the infrastructure on the inland waterways. “The lock and dams were built in the ’30s. They are aging and decaying and we’ve seen what a lock failure can do with Hurricanes Rita and Katrina,” said Elliott. “WRDA has passed, the authorization to do the improvements has happened, the missing link is the money to do the work.”
Elliott says they were disappointed that the funding was not included in the stimulus bill, “but we’ll spend time in the next couple months prior to the next appropriations bill and maybe get some money squeezed out to get things started.”
Corn growers will be going to Washington DC in the next few weeks to talk with their lawmakers about these issues and others that will be important not just for themselves, but for future farming generations – like Rob’s little granddaughter Delaney pictured here with him.
Listen to an interview with Rob here, conducted by Domestic Fuel reporter Joanna Schroeder:
Corn farmers from ten major corn producing states have formed a new coalition to educate policymakers in Washington.
The Corn Farmers Coalition made its debut today, launching a new Web site, an advertising campaign and a statistical abstract on America’s biggest crop.
“Washington needs to know that corn farmers are using some of the most advanced technologies on the planet to do more with less — to grow more corn using fewer resources every year,” said Mark K. Lambert, Director of the Corn Farmers Coalition. “American corn farmers, the majority of them small business people, are among the most productive in the world.”
The coalition is an alliance of the National Corn Growers Association and 10 state corn associations representing tens of thousands of dues-paying farmers. The states involved in the effort are Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio, Virginia and Wisconsin.
The coalition plans to meet with reporters, think tanks and members of Congress to talk about what’s ahead: how U.S. farmers, using the latest technologies, will continue to grow enough corn in an environmentally friendly way to meet all our needs; the prospects for making the farm bill more responsive to the market; and the future of renewable fuels, a vital issue for our economy and national security and a key issue for the new administration.
The first Obama budget announced today would end direct payments for farms with large sales and incomes that receive a disproportionate amount of the payments, according to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack speaking at USDA’s Annual Ag Outlook Forum. According to Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag, the president is “proposing to phase out those payments over time for farms with revenue of more than $500,000 a year.”
With that announcement coming out as the 2009 Commodity Classic was getting underway, it was the first question that came up during a press conference with National Corn Growers Association president Bob Dickey, a grower from Nebraska, who says they are very concerned about that statement but they need to examine the proposal closer.
“I can tell you that we will take a strong stand to defend out corn producers,” Dickey said. “We do have policy on that and we will defend our policy.”
The budget would also support the implementation of a 250-thousand dollar commodity program payment limit and reduce crop insurance subsidies.
On the plus side, Obama’s 3.55 trillion dollar budget for fiscal year 2010 would provide over 20-billion dollars in loans and grants to support and expand rural development activities and make investments to double the nation’s renewable energy capacity.
How will agriculture fare under an Obama presidency? In an interview during the campaign with farm broadcaster Stewart Doan of Agri-Pulse, Obama talked about his agricultural policies.
“Number one, I come from an agricultural state,” Obama said. “As you know, Illinois has a lot of corn and a lot of beans and that means that during the time I was in the state legislature as well as in the United States Senate I’ve gotten familiar with agricultural issues and I have consistently been a strong supporter of agricultural issues.”
Obama says he supported the 2008 Farm Bill, “because I think that its important for us to have a strong safety net, food security requires it.” He also supports more reliable disaster relief for farmers and has been a strong supporter of biofuels.
When it comes to trade, Obama says his administration will be different than the Bush administration. “I want to see us move forward on a new round of agricultural trade agreements,” Obama said. “But I am going to be a tougher negotiator when it comes to trade than the Bush administration has been.”
Listen to the Agri-Pulse interview with Obama here:
The National Center for Public Policy Research, a Washington, D.C., “think tank,” has released the results of a poll it commissioned surveying public attitudes about the renewable fuels standard. The press release headline states “Farm-Belt Voters Favor Eliminating or Scaling Back Corn Ethanol Mandate, New Poll Finds.”
So, haw many “Farm-Belt Voters” were surveyed for this poll? 500? 1,000?
How about … 40. Of the 802 voters surveyed, only 5 percent were what the pollsters considered farm belters.
But what is truly ridiculous here is the transparency of the bias. Question Three of the poll gives a brief version of boths sides of the issue. But notice how the bias is toward one side:
“Supporters of this corn ethanol mandate say that the law promotes America’s energy security, reduces greenhouse gas emissions, and provides financial benefits for farmers and agricultural businesses.”
“Opponents of this corn ethanol mandate say that ethanol production is increasing food prices, produces more net greenhouse gas emissions than conventional gasoline, and contributes to world hunger by converting food to fuel, while doing little to promote energy security. It has been estimated converting the entire U.S. corn crop to ethanol would reduce gasoline consumption by only a few percentage points.”
“Two new studies, one from Princeton University and the other from the University of Minnesota in cooperation with the Nature Conservancy, found that ethanol contributes more greenhouse gases than conventional gasoline to the atmosphere, while expanded ethanol production encourages habitat destruction.
“Now knowing this, do you believe the ethanol mandate should be…”
No attempt whatsover is made to offer an opposing viewpoint.
Well, it is a political season, and the pollsters are based in Washington, so maybe this survey is just one example of what we have to look forward to in the months ahead. But it’s a shame they stoop to this and cannot rely solely on arguing the facts.
Members of the Missouri Corn Growers Association got in the mood this week by holding their annual meeting in Jefferson City and going to talk with state lawmakers about the importance of keeping agriculture in the hands of farmers. National Corn Growers Association president Darrin Ihnen (right) was guest speaker at the Missouri luncheon. With him pictured is Mike Geske, former president of the Missouri Corn Growers now serving on the 15-member National Corn Board.
Apparently, last week’s International Energy Agency (IEA) numbers regarding future oil supplies were fudged to protect the innocent or at least our frail economic recovery. According to a whistleblower who whispered in the ear of The Guardian, the world is much closer to running out of oil that we think.
If you need a break from reading all the negative headlines, or hearing about all the things that are wrong with our society, our economy and even our very lifestyle…you came to the right place. This blog will provide nothing but positive and uplifting information for you today if you are a corn farmer.
Vilsack’s comments also came up last week when the board of the National Corn Growers Association 
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“Washington needs to know that corn farmers are using some of the most advanced technologies on the planet to do more with less — to grow more corn using fewer resources every year,” said Mark K. Lambert, Director of the Corn Farmers Coalition. “American corn farmers, the majority of them small business people, are among the most productive in the world.”
With that announcement coming out as the 2009 Commodity Classic was getting underway, it was the first question that came up during a press conference with National Corn Growers Association president Bob Dickey, a grower from Nebraska, who says they are very concerned about that statement but they need to examine the proposal closer.
“Number one, I come from an agricultural state,” Obama said. “As you know, Illinois has a lot of corn and a lot of beans and that means that during the time I was in the state legislature as well as in the United States Senate I’ve gotten familiar with agricultural issues and I have consistently been a strong supporter of agricultural issues.”