Minnesota Farmers Union

(March 28, 2010) - Of all the political hot rocks farm groups are juggling now in Washington, D.C.-cap-and-trade, cuts in crop insurance, shrinking farm program budgets-I'll bet you a cup of coffee you cannot name the issue that recently united ag heavyweights as diverse as the American Farm Bureau and National Farmers Union.

That issue (cream and sugar, please) is the proposed changes in governance at the National Cattlemen's Beef Association that will give it a virtual lock on the tens of millions of dollars spent each year by the mandatory beef checkoff.

The move didn't go unnoticed by several farm groups. On March 18 they sent a toughly-worded, four-page letter to Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack that suggested NCBA's grab "will further erode the separation between the check-off side and the policy side" and "will move the checkoff towards more exclusivity rather than inclusivity."

What that means west of the Potomac, explains Nancy Robinson, vice president of government and industry affairs at the Livestock Marketing Association, is that checkoff- paying producers who are not members of NCBA-and 32 out of every 33 American cattle owners are not-need to be heard in checkoff issues.

(June 19, 2009) - Secretary of Agriculture Vilsack has indicated some skepticism about the creation of a grain reserve, although it is difficult to know just what he was referring to when, at the G-8 meeting in Italy, he told Reuters writer Jeremy Smith, "Our recent experience with that concept was that in theory, [a grain reserve] sounds like a terrific idea but in practice it was very difficult. What we saw was that it really didn't create the kind of stability in pricing that people thought it would"
(http://af.reuters.com/article/investingNews/idAFJOE53I02N20090419?sp=true).

In this column we want to take a look at the liabilities and benefits of a properly managed stock-holding program from the perspective of the US taxpayer. In the absence of any clarification by the Secretary and assuming the administration would manage such a program in good faith, let us look at some of the most common criticisms that have been made of grain storage programs and the implications for taxpayers.

(April 3, 2009) - The recent salmonella outbreak traced to a Peanut Corporation of America (PCA) plant, last year's e. coli outbreaks in fresh vegetables, and numerous meat recalls have underlined the need for an improved food inspection system in the US. To remedy the problems individuals from Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut to Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack have called for the establishment of a single food inspection agency to replace the fragmented system that presently exists.

We have seen what can happen when the system breaks down and tainted product reaches the marketplace. Demand for peanut butter fell following news of the problems at the PCA plant. This spring peanut farmers are left wondering if demand will recover sufficiently for it to be worth their while to plant peanuts this year. Before one of last year's e. coli outbreaks was finally traced to Mexican-grown raw peppers, acre upon acre of California tomatoes went unpicked as consumers reduced their purchases of fresh tomatoes.

Even worse than the economic impact on producers is the death and illness attributable to tainted food.

(March 17, 2009 )  - Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack wants to ship a portion of the money promised to farmers in the 2008 farm bill to child nutrition programs. Pitting identified farmers with gross sales over $500,000 against children participating in nutrition programs puts farmers at a definite public relations disadvantage. No one is against feeding children, least of all food producers.

The mere positing of such a "choice" suggests that agricultural policy is quickly approaching a crossroad-a crossroad that agricultural commodity policy has been moving toward for a couple of decades.

Navigation of agricultural policy's crossroad may be as significant for agriculture as the policy decisions to address the current financial crisis is for the economy as a whole.

In the case of policy for program crops, the crossroad decision is: Will agricultural policy toward commercial, program-crop agriculture continue its recent focus on transfer payments, many of which are politically tricky to defend. Or will agricultural policy be reformed to moderate extreme variations in crop prices and free farmers' from reliance on politically uncertain payments.

In some ways, the recent journey toward agriculture's crossroad parallels the happenings that led to the financial crisis.