Wheat convention told direct payment likely to end

Farm and Ranch November 17, 2011 On the first morning of their Tri-State Convention wheat growers from Washington, Oregon and Idaho heard that the most prized part of their federal economic safety net, the Direct Payment, will likely be eliminated.

That message was delivered by Washington farmer and National Association of Wheat Growers Domestic Policy Committee Chairman Brett Blankenship. It was repeated by speaker Sara Wyant President of Agri-Pulse Communications, publisher of a weekly agriculture newsletter.

Wyant: “I hear almost no one thinking that Direct Payments will survive. The common wisdom is they will be gone after the next year. There will be an effort to look at some sort of shallow loss program for wheat, corn, soybeans, lentils, dry beans, that will go on top of crop insurance. There will be a separate effort to look at a target price sort of program for the rice and peanut and grain sorghum folks. Then the cotton folks have their own recommendations. So there are really three pools of policy options that are moving forward right now. Underlying those will be the continuation of a strong crop insurance program and most growers I talk to say they have to have that as a basic bottom line.”

Blankenship told the convention meeting in Spokane that NAWG’s priority in a new farm bill is protecting crop insurance.

I’m Bob Hoff and that’s the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on Northwest Aginfo Net.