06/30/08 Implementing the Farm Bill Part 2

Implementing the Farm Bill Part 2. I'm Greg Martin with today's Line On Agriculture. Last week Ag Secretary Ed Schafer, Deputy Secretary, Chuck Conner and Floyd Gaibler, deputy undersecretary of Agriculture for Farm and Foreign Agricultural Services held a press conference to discuss the implementation of the new farm bill which included the announcement that the Direct and Counter-Cyclical Payment Program was open for registrations. During the conference, the leaders fielded a number of questions pertaining to the new legislation. One of those areas was regarding whether changes were in store for the Conservation Reserve Program. Schafer said some changes were being made due to the Midwest flooding. SCHAFER: We are reevaluating all options here as we look at the impact of the floods in the Midwest, the cropping patterns across the country. I was hoping to make the decision on the '09 crop year as it relates to early release of CRP sometime in August, early September. We've accelerated that decision process. We're visiting about these things as we speak, and I hope to be making some announcements on which way we're going to go there over the next couple of weeks. Regarding the implementation of the ACRE program, Deputy Secretary Chuck Conner said there is a technical issue to overcome. CONNER: We're working closely with Congress to obtain some additional implementation resources here for Farm Service Agency. Those additional resources, both for personnel as well as for IT equipment will be necessary in order for us to have any kind of timely implementation of the ACRE program. Our advisors tell us that the data that is necessary to implement ACRE simply cannot be put upon the current computer system that is housed in the Farm Service Agency, and there will need to be changes in that system before we can implement ACRE fully. Another issue discussed was the bee colony collapse disorder or CCD and what impacts the farm bill might have on that research. SCHAFER: I think the changes that we'll see here is, it looks like as we've gone on that we've been able to identify a potential source which is a virus, a certain virus that is affecting the bees. The vector on that seems to be a mite of some kind, and so now the new word I learned was mitocydes. We're looking at the mitocydes to see if there's a way that we can deal with that mite that transfers the virus from bee to bee. That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.