2012 Ag Year In Review

2012 Ag Year In Review. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Line On Agriculture.

It’s time to take our annual look back at the agricultural year in review. Taking a look at some of the stories that made the news in 2012 and we started the year off in much the same way as we are ending it. Wondering about a Farm Bill and those pesky tax issues. Only in January it was a discussion on the death tax. NCBA Manager of Legislative Affairs Kent Bacus said it’s really important that there be a permanent repeal of this tax.

BACUS: Obviously we’re going to work hard to repeal that estate tax and if that’s not possible then we would definitely look a reduction in the overall estate tax burden. So we definitely have a lot to work on this year, we definitely need our grass roots motivated and engaged because this affects everybody involved in the industry.

Of course this was an election year and the year began with a little mud slinging which only got worse as the year went along. So it was time for a good diversion and that came in the form of the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering. Charlie Seeman is the Executive Director of the Western Folklife Center in Elko, Nevada.

SEEMAN: Cowboy poetry was something that sort of developed in the late 1800’s during those days of the trail drives. It had sort of antecedents in things like sailor poetry. Any time you had all-male occupations where guys were off by themselves for long extended periods of time they tended to entertain themselves and poetry and making up songs and telling stories were just natural.

You’d think developing a new form of clean energy would be met with open arms. Matt Carr, Managing Director of the Industrial & Environmental Section of the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO), says that just isn’t the case.

CARR: We’re seeing some pretty serious attacks on really fundamental policy foundation for developing advanced biofuels here in the U.S., the Renewable Fuels Standard. We’re seeing attacks from the petroleum refiners and some of the large multi-national food companies taking aim at the renewable fuels standard and we see this really as a direct threat to the economic security of rural America and that’s why we’re sounding the alarm on this.

Tomorrow we’ll continue our look back at the stories that made 2012 in the ag industry.

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