07/04/07 Flour millers and the Farm Bill

Farm and Ranch July 4, 2007 The North American Millers' Association, or NAMA, has called on Congress to reform farm programs to reduce government-caused distortions of production decisions. During testimony before Congress NAMA chairman Rick Schwein pointed to policies that have reduced wheat and oat acreage in the United States. Schwein: "First, beginning in 1986 the creation of the CRP program took 36 million acres out of production, much of which today can be farmed in an environmentally sustainable way. Much of this CRP land is concentrated in traditional wheat and oat growing territory. Second, some of the inequities in the farm program have caused Uncle Sam to say loudly to the growers, "Don't plant wheat or oats." At the same time the government is encouraging them to grow other crops like corn and beans, which really don't need much encouragement today given the President's biofuels mandate." Schwein said it is ironic that the U.S. government, through the 2005 U.S. Dietary Guidelines, encourages consumers to eat more grains, all the while, government farm programs discourage growers from producing those grains. Schwein went on to say that production of dry peas and lentils has exploded in response to government subsidies even though there is almost no U.S. market for them. NAMA says wheat plantings have plummeted 18 million acres in just the last ten years and the United States now harvests fewer wheat acres than it did in 1898. I'm Bob Hoff and that's the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.