Hobbie retires from U.S. Grains Council

Farm and Ranch November 17, 2009 After nearly 34 years, Ken Hobbie, put in his last day at the U.S. Grains Council last Friday. For the past 19 years Hobbie was the organization’s President and CEO. The council does export market development work for corn, sorghum and barley and growers in Idaho and Washington contribute to those efforts.

In an interview last Thursday Hobbie said the export market for U.S. barley was in a better position in years past than it is today.

Hobbie: “We certainly had a little strong export situation, but at the same time it was before the E.U. started applying a tremendous amount of export subsidies to move their own barley into the international market. Once that happened that began to erode our market share around the world and we have been fighting back ever since. Your listeners probably remember the Export Enhancement years where we used that program to counteract the export subsidies of the E.U. and then that program stopped when the Uruguay Round Agreement in the WTO was signed. At that point the E.U. had agreed to cap their export subsidies but they haven’t done away with them.”

Hobbie says one piece of unfinished business is getting the Doha Round of trade talks finished and signed as it would eliminate export subsidies.

Tomorrow Hobbie talks about the role barley check offs have played in market development. I’m Bob Hoff and that’s the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.