11/04/08 An old Congress; a new administration

Farm and Ranch November 4, 2008 The implementation process of the 2008 Farm Bill continues and there are some questions surrounding some of the new programs. Daren Coppock, CEO of the National Association of Wheat Growers says given that there will be a new administration in office come January, that could mean delays. Coppock: "ACRE and the SURE program probably won't be done by the time this administration leaves office and if they fall into the transition period, and it takes six months or longer to get everyone at USDA under a new administration, you could see the implementation of some of these programs get pushed back quite a ways. And in particular the baseline year for the price guarantee under ACRE is critical. Especially with commodity prices coming down but input prices staying up, growers are going to be put in a tight squeeze and the decision of which year to use as the baseline is going to be critically important for everybody." If Congress meets in a lame duck session after the election Coppock says wheat growers hope lawmakers can act on at least one of the several pending free trade agreements. Coppock: "We are not sure how much is going to be on their lame duck agenda when they meet again in December. Especially Columbia is one that has a pretty good benefit for the wheat industry and shouldn't be that difficult hill to climb with all the politics in it. But, we will see if that happens." I'm Bob Hoff and that's the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag information Network.