02/05/07 Wheat growers question USDA plan

Farm and Ranch February 5, 2007 Dale Schuler, President of the National Association of Wheat Growers, says the wheat industry had been optimistic ahead of the unveiling of USDA's proposal for the 2007 Farm Bill. But that optimism quickly turned to disappointment once Ag Secretary Mike Johanns announced the details last week. Schuler. "First of all he was promising that this bill would be equitable but he is carrying through basic the same support levels that were provided in t he last farm bill. Predictability. There is certainly some question about that. My view is the only thing predictable will be that wheat producers would be going out of business with the level of support they are proposing in this farm bill. So certainly we didn't see anything in there that really excited us on the commodity title." As for USDA's proposed revenue based counter cyclical payment: Schuler: "Because wheat yields haven't increased significantly, at least over the last few years, we don't see increases in revenue coverage like a commodity like corn would whose experienced some dramatic yield increases. So their revenue coverage would increase in this proposal while we would stay relatively low." Which Schuler says was the problem with the last farm bill. I'm Bob Hoff and that's the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.