08/24/06 USDA is listening

USDA is listening. I'm Greg Martin with today's Line On Agriculture. With the WTO talks all but dead in the water, the agriculture industry is turning its gaze to the upcoming farm bill. The USDA has been holding listening sessions. These town hall like sessions are designed to let everyone have their say and be heard. Ag Secretary Mike Johanns has been listening. JOHANNS: As mentioned, I conducted more than 20 sessions myself which means over 60 hours of listening. And I loved every minute of it. I had a chance to hear about the state of American agriculture directly from people I admire greatly, our farmers and our ranchers and I must say it was a great experience. There really is no better way to understand agriculture than to get out of Washington D.C. and listen to those thoughts of those farmers and ranchers. The Secretary quoted President Eisenhower on farming. JOHANNS: President Dwight Eisenhower really said it well, he said farming looks might easy when your plow is a pencil and you're a thousand miles from a corn field. USDA's conservation programs, according to Johanns have been well received. JOHANNS: As we held these forums and we listened closely, we heard consensus on some issues and pretty varied opinions on other issues. I can tell you today that in general our conservation programs are very popular and our rural development program got nearly unanimous support. Not all the feedback has been positive. Johanns said that while some producers have been pleased with support, others feel that this is an area that needs attention. JOHANNS: You see in the United States 5 crops receive 90%, actually 93% of our subsidy payments; corn, wheat, rice, cotton & soybeans. Meanwhile our specialty crop farmers and their crop is not equal in value to the program crops receive virtually nothing from the subsidy program. In fact, let me offer another statistic. 60% of all farmers here receive little support because they don't raise program crops. That mean the majority of our farmers aren't getting equal benefits in current farm policy. Johanns was in Idaho attending the World Potato Congress. That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.