Ag Year in Review Part 4
Ag Year in Review Part 4. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Line On Agriculture.
As 2011 comes to a close we bid farewell to a year that was full of ups and downs in the ag industry. Politics again played a major role in the ag industry as it always has. From immigration to jobs to regulations, the “other Washington” has sure been stirring the pot. The President made a trip to the midwest to talk agriculture back at the beginning of August which fulfilled a campaign pledge he made back in 2007 to hold a rural summit if he won the election. Farmers definitely have had their hands full keeping up with proposed changes including the EPA who took a hard look at farm dust. Farm Bureau Regulatory Specialist Rick Krause was just a surprised as the rest of the ag industry.
KRAUSE: It happens when farmers are out plowing in their fields. It happens when people drive down unpaved roads. It happens when livestock moves. So it’s naturally occurring.
Food safety was a big topic in 2011 and the Food Safety Modernization Act was dubbed the most significant change in the nation's food safety laws since 1938. Vance Bybee of the Oregon Department of Agriculture's Food Safety Division said the changes were long overdue.
BYBEE: The laws that have been governing food safety and the laws upon which state food safety laws have been based were promulgated in 1938. So imagine the differences in technology and advance in science over that 73 year period.
And of course the biggest question on everyone's mind is the 2012 Farm Bill. Senate Ag Committee Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow says the Senate Agriculture committee was coalescing around a safety net structure.
STABENOW: It’s very clear as we look at what’s happening with the commodity groups, the proposals coming forward, the proposals within the committee from respected members of the committee that we are moving in a similar direction as it relates to a risk management program.
There were a lot of other topics covered in 2011, far too many to mention although there are a few I will mention like the child labor issue, agrotourism, immigration and labor, energy, horse slaughter and so many more. But we’ll wrap up with some wise thoughts from our buddy Baxter Black.
BLACK: Things have come along in my life, I can only be thankful that they did and they always seem to come at the right time. And I literally got let go and somehow this cowboy poetry deal, this entertainment deal took off. I don’t have an explanation for it, there wasn’t any reason, and I was a cowboy poet of all things.
In other words, there’s always tomorrow.
That’s today’s Line On Agriculture. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.
