Vilsack On 2011

Vilsack On 2011. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Line On Agriculture.

This is the time of year that we start looking back at how the past year unfolded and evolved. Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack has had a tough year dealing with trade agreements, export and import issues, trucking issues and more. He took a few minutes to talk with me about 2011.

VILSACK: Obviously a very wild year for agriculture but a good positive year on balance, net farm income at $100-billion dollars fro the first time ever. Even if you adjust those numbers for inflation, you still have the best year we’ve seen in ag income in over 40 years. That’s good news. Part of the reason for that is an aggressive effort on the part of everyone to promote the American brand overseas of agricultural products which led to a record export year, helping to support over a million jobs and giving us a fairly significant trade surplus. Opportunities for us to continue to invest in conservation. A record number of acres are now enrolled in conservation also, I think, helped that bottom line.

Mother Nature seemed to have her way with some farmers and ranchers this last year.

VILSACK: Frankly there were some folks who even though there were some tough circumstances with their land because of a fire or flood or tornado or drought, were able to withstand it because of the crop insurance and disaster programs.

I asked the Secretary if he could make certain parts of the year go away, what would they have been.

VILSACK: Obviously, any of the acres that were impacted by disasters, it would be better for everyone if we didn’t have a fire or flood or tornado or drought but the reality is that happens every year. Which is why it’s very, very important for us to continue to have a safety net in whatever farm legislation is ultimately passed by Congress.

There is another matter that has the Secretary on edge.

VILSACK: The other thing that I wish would sort of go away would be the unwillingness on the part of some commercial banks to make credit available. We’ve done a phenomenal job at USDA - over 100-thousand farm loans to beginning farmers, socially disadvantaged farmers and operations that need a little help over the last 3 years and so we’ve been engaged in that but it becomes more difficult as we face constrained resources and so we’d like to see the commercial banks get back in the game a little bit.

Tomorrow we will talk with Ag Secretary Vilsack about what he expects and hopes to see in the coming year.

That’s today’s Line On Agriculture. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.