2010 Ag Year in Review Part 3
2010 In Review Part 3. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Line On Agriculture.
Cuba was a topic of a great deal of discussion in 2010 as it will be in the New Year and American Farm Bureau trade specialist Chris Garza said that Congress just seemed to have trouble getting together on the idea of opening trade with Cuba.
GARZA: It’s very difficult to understand why members of congress cannot get behind this legislation. We’ve had an embargo with Cuba for almost 50 years now and have not really seen it have an effect on Cuba, on its people or on the government it’s time to try something new and we believe that engagement is the way to effect democracy within Cuba.
The dairy industry has seen a pretty bad time in the last year or so and there been a lot of frustrations. Jim Salfer is a dairy specialist, and a little bit frustrated with dairy prices not bouncing back like he thinks they should, and with the way they bounced around quite a bit! Salfer said some producers were slowly starting to return to profitability, but there was still a long way to go.
SALFER: A couple of things have happened, prices have gone up a little bit and also costs have dropped a little bit, now feed prices have come up a little bit over the last couple weeks or so. I think most dairy producers were profitable and of course that’s a generalization. There’s a wide range in profitability based on debt levels and management.
In June Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack was in Missouri for the National Rural Summit, the capstone of the rural tour that was conducted last year in some 45 states to listen to the concerns and needs of rural America.
VILSACK: The purpose of the summit yesterday – we actually had three principal purposes – the first purpose was to make sure we could educate Americans about the important role that farmers and ranchers and farm workers and rural residents play in the lives of every single American. We wanted to make sure folks understood and appreciated the role that we play in rural America in providing them a quality, safe, nutritious and affordable food
Then of course there were a lot of people scratching their heads at the USDA’s decision to exclude one of the basic food staples from the Women, Infant and Children or WIC nutrition program. John Keeling, Executive Vice President and CEO National Potato Council grabbed a bunch of experts to make their case.
KEELING: Well we’re just trying to make sure that USDA pays close attention to the expert comments that were filed in February where people again that are involved in delivering the WIC program who are involved with the registered dietitians who are involved in working with women, infant, children who are part of the WIC program understood the value of potatoes, understood that they should be included in the program and made that statement in overwhelming numbers.
More tomorrow.
That’s today’s Line On Agriculture. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.
