06/19/07 Wheat growers working to maintain direct payment

Farm and Ranch Jun 19, 2007 Both the National Association of Wheat Growers and state grower groups continue to work to preserve the direct de-coupled payment for wheat in the new Farm Bill. Mike Noonan, president of the Oregon Wheat Growers League was in Washington D.C. earlier this month. He said the message farmers delivered was that the direct payment, is one farmers and their bankers can count on. Noonan: "And that was our message. You can talk about LDPs, and counter cyclical payments, but they kick in in bad years and you really can't budget for those. I think the biggest thing for keeping farm income at acceptable levels is to keep the direct payments up where they are. And we are actually pushing for them higher. But if we could maintain that 52 cents, that would be very beneficial I think." Wheat growers, like Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns, also believe the direct payment is the most WTO compliant component of current farm programs. A new WTO trade agreement may be a ways off but wheat growers say cutting direct payments to increase loan rates puts them in a more vulnerable position when it comes to possible litigation from foreign competitors. That's exactly what a draft of the commodity title for the new Farm Bill in the House proposes. Although the direct payment would be maintained at current levels it would be paid on production from fewer base acres to provide the funding necessary for a higher wheat loan rate and target price. I'm Bob Hoff and that's the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.