11/11/08 Getting Ready for the New Administration

Getting Ready for the New Administration. I'm Greg Martin with today's Line On Agriculture. The New Year will also bring a new presidential administration and American Farm Bureau president Bob Stallman says his team is looking forward to working with president-elect Obama's. STALLMAN: I think he's very supportive of American agriculture. He's was supportive of the 2008 farm bill so that means he sees a role for domestic farm policies. He's supportive of renewable fuels which are very important for agriculture. And Stallman says he likes what Obama has said about reaching across the aisle and moving away from partisanship and hopes that will apply to his appointees. STALLMAN: If he follows through with that sentiment in the people he picks for these appointed positions, I think it's going to be very positive both from having an effective administration but also in terms of moving America forward. Obviously the top priority will be the economy, but Stallman thinks with the new congress we could see needed progress on immigration reform, but there's also work to be done on trade issues. STALLMAN: The trade issue is one that, based on campaign statements, I feel we'll have to do sort of an educational job with the Obama administration. You know there was a lot of talk about trade for manufacturing and what that meant but there wasn't a focus on how important it is to American agriculture. So I think it will behoove us to make the case about how important it is to open up markets for agricultural products. There may be differences but Stallman says they are ready to work with them. STALLMAN: We may differ on some details as we go down the line, but you know fundamentally he understands the importance of agriculture and further more he's even talked about the necessity of using sound science in terms of regulatory decisions and also looking at the economic costs verses benefits of regulatory decisions. And all that is really good news for us because we think that's the way government should work. Of course Stallman says the economy will be the big issue for everyone including agriculture. STALLMAN: The big issue for everybody, not just agriculture, will be the economy and how an Obama administration addresses the problems we face there. It's going to be very difficult to work ourselves out of the problems that we're in right now, but we can do some things to be sure that we maintain credit and liquidity and that's very important for agricultural lending because producers are going to have to go get loans at higher levels than they have in the past because of increased input costs. It will also help markets. We need to have confidence to the point where the commodity markets stabilize to help producers through their price risk management. And all of those things are going to be key to producers and all of those are spinoffs of how we address the economic situation. That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.