2011 Ag Year In Review Part 2

2011 Ag Year In Review Part 2

2011 Ag Year In Review Part 2. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Line On Agriculture.

A lot of things happened in 2011 that affected agriculture and one of the big ones was the passage of three Free Trade Agreements or FTA’s. The process began early in the year when former ag secretary’s Bob Bergland, John Block, Mike Espy, Dan Glickman, Mike Johanns, John Knebel, Ed Schafer and Clayton Yeutter sent a letter to members of Congress, urging them to approve the FTA’s. Johanns said the nation's producers would benefit from final approval of the trade deal.

JOHANNS: Our farmers and our ranchers would benefit from the elimination of tariffs on more than 77% of agricultural goods. American workers will see more of their products sold as 76% of Columbian tariffs on our industrial goods are eliminated; wiped out immediately.

USDA Deputy Ag Secretary Kathleen Merrigan traveled the country talking about the USDA's 'Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food' initiative which promotes local and regional food systems by stimulating community economic development and ensuring equitable access to affordable fresh and local food. She had a comment for the general public.

MERRIGAN: What the general public needs to understand is our investment in farms and working lands is a public benefit that they get because it means cleaner water, it means cleaner air. Environmentalists and farmers, their the same guy.

Two sure things in life are death and taxes and one of those taxes deals with death and a lot of people think it’s unfair with disastrous results. A bipartisan group of Representatives filed legislation to permanently repeal the estate tax - commonly known as the death tax. Kevin Brady of Texas said he wanted to bury the death tax once and for all.

BRADY: This is one of the worst parts of our tax code. Can you imagine working a whole life to build up a nest egg or a family business only to see Uncle Sam swoop in and take more than half of it upon your death. The death tax is still the number one reason family farms and businesses in America aren’t passed down to the next generation. It’s a wrong tax, it’s a wrong time and it hurst the wrong people.

The youngest Nebraskan to be crowned Miss America, Teresa Scanlan, is a true farm girl and she has spent a lot of time talking about agriculture.

SCANLAN: People my age don’t understand the importance of it. We’re a couple of generations removed from the farm or whatever the case may be that we’re not directly involved with that and so I’ve found a lot of times the attitudes toward it just aren’t positive so I think whatever we can do to change that is going to help change the attitude across the country as well.

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

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