06/18/07 Draft Farm Bill commodity title released

Farm and Ranch June 18, 2007 Work continues in Congress on writing a new Farm Bill and Pacific Northwest wheat organizations have been making the trek to Washington D.C. to keep on top of developments and provide their input. Jim White, president of the Washington Association of Wheat Growers was recently in the nation's capitol. White: "Right now both the House and Senate are kind of taking a look at the 02 Farm Bill and try to figure out how they can tweak it a little bit and make it work. And that is exactly what we have been working on along with the National Association of Wheat Growers obviously, trying to raise our target price and the direct payment. So we are working on all those issues and gosh it is coming down to crunch time right now." Indeed! The House Ag General Farm Commodities Subcommittee starts marking up the commodity title tomorrow and has released the draft proposal that will be used to begin that markup. That draft maintains the current structure for commodity program crops. It even includes an increase in the target price for wheat to $4.15 a bushel, up 23 cents from the 2002 Farm Bill. The draft document also includes a 19 cent increase in the wheat loan rate up to $2.94. Barley would have a separate loan rate for feed and malting barley. Feed barley at $1.92 a bushel. Malting barley at $2.50 Direct payments would be at the same rate as the 2002 Farm Bill but they may be paid on less than 85 percent of base acres. Remember, this is all just the starting point for discussion. I'm Bob Hoff and that's the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.