01/24/07 Unmet Farm Needs

Unmet farm needs. I'm Greg Martin with today's Line On Agriculture. Even before U.S. Ag Secretary Mike Johanns traveled the country to get producer opinions on the 2007 farm bill - American Farmland Trust was criss-crossing the nation to hear from America's farmers and ranchers. According to American Farmland Trust President Ralph Grossi - the group learned that farmers believe there are too many unmet needs in agriculture. GROSSI: Farmers and ranchers all across the country have identified places where we should be investing public dollars to help them become more competitive through better research, for complying with increasing environmental standards, to develop new market opportunities for their products, to expand trade overseas and it's very unfortunate that just at the time that there is a clear picture of where we could be investing public dollars in agriculture to lead us into the 21st Century, there is apparently going to be a declining budget baseline for the next Farm Bill. But the baseline is just part of the budget problem. Grossi says it's the bleakest budget picture in memory and Congress will be forced to take a hard look at the budget during a time when agriculture is looking for a better safety net that helps farmers and ranchers expand conservation on working lands and also provides for new market opportunities. GROSSI: When Congress wrote the 2002 Farm Bill it was the third year of budget surpluses so it's a very different fiscal environment which means we are all obligated to do a better job of explaining why public dollars should be spent in agriculture. The other part of the budget situation is that because of higher grain prices and largely driven by the renewable fuels initiatives, there's going to be a lower baseline for agriculture and it could be seven or eight billion dollars a year less when we see the baseline in March. And if Congress has that much less money to work with when it starts to write the next farm bill - Grossi says agriculture needs to be prepared for a big budget battle as part of the upcoming farm bill debate. GROSSI: AFT is saying that really there are going to be two Farm Bill debates this year, the first will be in the budget committee this spring that will determine how much money is available for the next 5-year farm bill and then the farm bill debate this summer which will determine how that money is spent  whatever that amount is. That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.