This Urban Wheat Field, to be held at 3rd Street and Maryland Avenue SW in the shadow of the U.S. Capitol building, will be the second such event put on by the Wheat Foods Council, a grower-funded and grower-governed organization dedicated to nutrition education.

As at the first event, held in New York City in 2008, experts in the areas of wheat production, milling, baking and nutrition will guide visitors to the Field through each phase of the grain’s life cycle, engaging them in hands-on activities and demonstrations along the way.

Exhibits will include:

• A maze of wheat, grown in pallets by personnel at the University of Maryland, Central Maryland Research and Education Center and narrated by growers from around the country on hand speaks to the growth, harvest and economic impact of wheat in the U.S.
• A full-size combine from Case IH.
• Demonstration mills and hand grinders visitors can try themselves.
• Bread and cookie samples made with Ultra-Grain flour in the Nebraska Wheat Board’s self-contained mobile baking lab.

Additions to the experience since the 2008 event will include live baking demonstrations; a recreated grocery store aisle showing the diversity of wheat foods; and presentations from registered dietitians on nutrition facts labels, proper serving sizes and the differences between whole and enriched grains.

NAWG will host an opening reception and ribbon cutting the morning of Sept. 23 for Members of Congress, their staffers and agency officials. Guided field tours for Congressional staff will also be available throughout the event.

More information about the event will be available in coming weeks in this Report and online at www.wheatfoods.org.

In addition to tours of local growers’ fields and the California Wheat Commission wheat quality lab, Peterson attended meetings of the California Association of Wheat Growers, a NAWG state affiliate, and the California Wheat Commission.

She also met with the California Secretary of Agriculture, A.G. Kawamura, as well as leaders at the California Farm Bureau.

The visit allowed time to discuss the unique issues California growers are facing regarding water allocation, environmental regulation and wheat research projects and to build relationships with grower-leaders in one of our nation’s most populous, urban and politically-influential states.

The California trip is one of many Peterson has undertaken in her first year as NAWG CEO.

She recently went on the Wheat Quality Council’s Spring Wheat Tour in North Dakota, presented earlier in the year at the Profit Maximizer Wheat Summit in Kansas, and represented the industry at the Wheat Foods Council, U.S. Wheat Associates and U.S. Wheat and Barley Scab Initiative’s annual meetings.

Later in the year, Peterson plans to travel to Washington and other state association meetings and individual farm operations as her schedule allows.

The Conference, which encompasses the annual fall business meetings of NAWG and U.S. Wheat Associates, is scheduled for Oct. 22 to 25 at the Hilton Minneapolis in Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minn.

Both organizations will hold a full slate of committee meetings and Board meetings. Grower-leaders serving on the two NAWG/U.S. Wheat committees, focusing on trade and biotechnology, will also meet, along with members of the two groups’ planning committees in a special joint session. The NAWG Foundation Board of Directors will also meet.

For the convenience of all attendees, NAWG and U.S. Wheat have established a registration website at www.regonline.com/fall_wheat_conference to facilitate all registrations and hotel reservations for the event.

The website allows individuals to register themselves or a group by clicking the “Register Now” button on the right hand side of the site. Housing reservations should also be made directly through the site, via the “Lodging” tab at the top of the page.

The Hilton Minneapolis is an AAA Four Diamond hotel located in the heart of downtown Minneapolis. Wheat meeting attendees can reserve rooms during the meeting and up to three days before and after for a group rate of $129 per night plus taxes and fees.

It is imperative that all attendees make lodging reservations as soon as possible since the hotel is hosting other meetings at the same time as the Fall Wheat Conference.

While registering, attendees can also purchase tickets for a welcome lunch scheduled for Saturday, Oct. 23 at noon, and a breakfast scheduled for Monday, Oct. 25 from 7 until 8:30 a.m. The cost of the lunch, sponsored in part by John Deere, is $20 per person and the cost of the breakfast, sponsored in part by Monsanto, is $16 per person.

Much more information including the latest agenda and information about the Wheat Lounge hospitality room can also be found on the RegOnline site or through NAWG’s website at www.wheatworld.org/meetings-events/fallconference/.

A team of researchers in the United Kingdom, funded by the UK government’s Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), announced Friday that they have publicly released sequence coverage of the wheat genome.

All genetic material in the world is made up of proteins known by the first letters of their names, A, C, G and T. With the information announced this week, scientists now know the order of the vast majority of the letters in the wheat genome, though they have yet to translate the code to know what the letter sequences mean.

The genome data released are in a “raw” format, meaning a complete copy of the genome requires significant work on annotation and the assembly of the data into chromosomes.

This draft release is a step toward a version of the genome that will help breeders around the world gain deeper understanding of the crop and the genetic differences between varieties.

The wheat genome is five times larger than the human genome, a product of its evolution over thousands of years from wild varieties to domesticated ones worked on extensively by wheat breeders around the globe.

The UK project has been developed as a collaborative effort of the International Wheat Genome Sequencing Consortium (IWGSC) that was launched by U.S. growers in 2005 to obtain a high quality reference genome sequence for bread wheat.

“This is a first step toward developing a significant pool of publicly available single nucleotide polymorphism resources that breeders can use to understand the genetic underpinnings of different wheat varieties,” said Kellye Eversole, executive director of the IWGSC. “In turn, this will help breeders develop better wheat varieties.”

Another major announcement came earlier in the week when Australian research organization InterGrain announced Monsanto would acquire a 19.9 percent minority interest in its operations, allowing the two to exchange wheat germplasm and technology tools.

The alliance will focus on work in areas like yield performance, disease resistance, drought tolerance and end-use quality. Over time, InterGrain said the collaboration will allow it access to biotechnology-derived traits Monsanto produces for wheat, which are expected in a seven- to ten-year timeframe.

The announcement indicated that work in Australia may also provide new technologies for U.S. growers and wheat growers around the world.

Also this week, Heartland Plant Innovations (HPI) in Manhattan, Kan., announced the launching of a wheat doubled haploid laboratory through the company’s advanced plant breeding business.

Doubled haploid technology allows plant breeders to cut the time required to develop a new wheat variety almost in half. When coupled with the use of additional modern breeding technologies such as molecular markers, a high-resolution physical map and a sequenced genome, the time required for identifying and cloning important genes could be cut dramatically.

Heartland Plant Innovations is a joint venture between the Kansas Association of Wheat Growers, Kansas Wheat Commission, several private companies, Kansas State University, the University of Kansas and the Kansas Bioscience Authority.

Forrest Chumley, president and chief executive officer of HPI, said the new lab would give “a major boost to U.S. wheat breeding programs.”

More about the genome announcement is here.

More about the Monsanto-InterGrain announcement is at the InterGrain website, here.

More on the HPI announcement is here.

The sessions gave NAWG staff and grower-leaders, who carry out activities on behalf of the Foundation, the opportunity to update all attendees on the work the Foundation is doing, including ongoing management of the Wheat Growers Building that houses NAWG and other tenants, and the sponsorship of multiple learning center sessions at the 2010 Commodity Classic.

The group also discussed policy areas that are emerging in NAWG’s work that could eventually meld with the Foundation’s educational and outreach mission, as well as an upcoming Foundation planning meeting that should set direction for the organization in the coming years.

The group benefited immensely from the perspective of the 10 NAWG past presidents in attendance, who served as long ago as 1978. This was the first meeting of past presidents to occur in many years, and NAWG plans to build on the experience by setting up a formal Past Presidents Council to advise Foundation activity.

The Foundation Development Committee is made up of agribusinesses interested in the development of the Foundation’s educational and outreach work. The Committee holds a stand-alone meeting with NAWG staff and grower-leaders each summer.

Despite the benefits delivered by GM crops, a few continue to oppose the technology at every opportunity. Greenpeace Australia recently issued a statement entitled “No GM in our daily bread”. The article, cleverly composed by their spin team, stated that: “The threat of GE wheat is looming in Australia. If chemical companies succeed in progressing these trials to market-release stage, we could soon be eating polluted GE food in our breakfast, lunch and dinner.”

Australia has a strong history in wheat breeding so it is unclear as to why a continuation of this, utilizing newer plant science techniques, poses any “threat”. Also, if something is “looming” it is usually imminent, yet best estimates suggest that GM wheat is at least seven years away from commercialization.

Lastly, Greenpeace suggests that “chemical companies” are responsible for Australia’s GM wheat trials. While plant science companies are actively partnering with publicly funded Australian R&D providers across a range of commodity sectors, a quick click on Australian Office of the Gene Technology Regulator’s (OGTR) website shows that it is actually Australian scientists driving GM wheat research.

GM crops have been successfully grown, traded and consumed around the world for 14 years, so can hardly be considered “new”. Despite this fact, opponents seem unwilling to contemplate that the introduction of GM wheat is unlikely to have a much greater impact on our meals than current ingredients from widely used GM crops.

In Australia, the OGTR has issued GM wheat (and barley) field trial licenses for a range of traits including enhanced nutrient utilization/efficiency and abiotic stress, enhanced carbon assimilation in drought and heat prone environments, growth and yield characteristics and altered starch. Some of these build on R&D conducted over the last decade, while others represent more recent work including research to address some of our current societal health challenges.

The GM canola experience has taught Australia a valuable lesson – for every GM crop there are two parts – the science (incorporating crop performance, human health and safety, and environmental safety) and secondly, the market and trade considerations.

Australia has demonstrated its ability to address both parts of this equation. In relation to the science, plant breeders, technology developers and seed companies have ensured the delivery of new crop varieties with good agronomic performance, tailored to both specific conditions and regions. Australian regulators have ensured that all approved GM crops pose no risk to human health and safety and the environment, and that all foods and ingredients derived from GM crops are safe. Lastly, one that is often overlooked, the Australian grain supply chain worked together over a number of years to ensure market and trade considerations were addressed prior to the commercialization of GM canola. This has resulted in the successful commercialization of the crop.

Last year, Australian entities joined key organizations in the USA and Canada to launch a GM Wheat Trilateral Statement. This statement demonstrated strong support for GM wheat R&D and noted the importance of working together to address market and trade considerations.

So, while this narrative doesn’t rely on colorful language, it is based on fact. GM wheat is some way from commercialization and as those seven years draw closer, we can be confident of robust plant science, new varieties offering benefits to our farmers and consumers, and a global grains industry with considerable experience to ensure a smooth path-to-market and the provision of choice in the marketplace.

Let’s hope data and evidence win on the day and misguided diatribe comes a distant last. In other words, let the facts tell the story!

Editor’s note: This is a summary of a larger article on GM wheat and is used with permission. The full article can be found at: http://www.afaa.com.au/letters_editor/GM_wheat_prose_or_science.pdf. More about Agrifood Awareness, which is an industry initiative to increase public awareness of gene technology, is available at http://www.afaa.com.au.

In his new role, Steiner will lead the organization’s efforts on farm policy, crop insurance, transportation and trade issues. He will be the primary NAWG staff member working on the Association’s proposals for Title I programs and crop insurance in the next farm bill, and he will administer WheatPAC, the wheat industry’s political action committee.

“We are excited to have someone with deep Hill, USDA and law experience on our team,” said NAWG Chief Executive Officer Dana Peterson. “Eric brings many skills and experiences to our table, and I know our growers and officers are looking forward to working with him on major legislative priorities in the coming years.”

Steiner is a seasoned public official who has worked in both the legislative and executive branches since coming to Washington in 2002.

From 2003 until 2007, Steiner was a professional staff member at the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, where he worked on nutrition, food aid, trade, agricultural research and rural development policy.

He later moved to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service (FNS), where he served as associate administrator and later as chief of staff, supervising 1,300 employees and managing a $60 billion budget.

While at the Senate and FNS, he also attended George Mason University School of Law. Since 2009, he has put his legal education into practice in the office of the general counsel at the U.S. Election Assistance Commission.

“I am excited to represent wheat growers’ concerns for the present and ideas for the future, and I look forward to working with the wider agricultural community and other partners to build upon NAWG’s effectiveness with Congress and the Administration,” Steiner said.

Steiner grew up on a small family farm near Berne, Ind., and served as a state officer for the Indiana FFA between high school and college. He earned a bachelor’s degree in agricultural education from Purdue University before coming to Washington.

Steiner resides with his wife in Alexandria, Va., and is active in his church and community. He is also a marathon runner and an aspiring triathlete.

###

Contact: Melissa Kessler, NAWG, mkessler@wheatworld.org, 202-547-7800

The two officials were in Younggren’s hometown, Hallock, to talk with farmers and see how wheat and early sugar beet harvesting was progressing.

Younggren stopped harvest work to host a shop meeting, with about 40 area farmers and people from town in attendance.

Discussion topics were wide-ranging, including the farm bill process, crop insurance, Clean Water Act permitting and other environmental regulation issues.

Peterson repeated comments that he would like to mark-up the 2012 Farm Bill next May or June and have it to President Barack Obama by the winter.

He said he is exploring concepts that would take money out of the direct payment program and use it to increase the amount of crop insurance coverage producers can reasonably carry. He also reiterated plans to streamline ACRE and SURE to reduce redundancy in farm programs.

Murphy talked about coverage for falling number-related quality problems in wheat, saying protection would be written into crop insurance policies in the coming year. He also discussed ways the Agency is considering to use technology to streamline its data-collection processes.

“We recognize the importance of Washington politics to our on-farm experiences,” Younggren said about the meeting. “Stopping what you’re doing is worth your time, though it’s not easy to do.”

An ongoing Congressional recess presents a perfect opportunity for producers around the country to talk policy priorities with their Members in town hall meetings or on-farm visits.

This was Congress’ first full week in their home districts after being recalled last week to vote on a state aid funding measure.

Members typically flee D.C. in the hottest part of the year to campaign and visit with constituents back home. The Senate is expected to be out until Sept. 13, and the House scheduled to be out until Sept. 14.

For more about the meeting on his farm, visit Younggren’s blog at www.mywheatfarm.com.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently proposed extending the compliance date by which farms must prepare and implement SPCC plans until November of 2011, which prompted the comments, and for which the coalition expressed appreciation.

Still, the groups took the opportunity to outline their extensive concerns about how the SPCC rule will affect farming operations and EPA’s ability to communicate effectively enough with farmers that they can legitimately be in compliance by next year.

Initially promulgated nearly 37 years ago, a final SPCC rule wasn’t enacted until Aug. 16, 2002. The rule made SPCC regulations applicable to any facility, including farms, with an aggregate above-ground oil storage capacity of 1,320 gallons in tanks of 55 gallons or greater.

In order to fully comply with SPCC rules, a facility must have, among other things, identified contractors who can help operators clean up an oil spill; provided overfill prevention devices such as a high-level alarm; and provided effective secondary containment measure such as a dike or double-walled tank.

Comments submitted by the coalition stressed a lack of understanding of the agricultural industry as the primary reason the SPCC compliance deadline should be extended.

While the coalition recognized the EPA has made efforts to adapt helpful changes, such as allowing facilities with storage between 1,320 and 10,000 gallons to self-certify, they reiterated that these thresholds are still too low for farm operations based on the very few spills that actually occur.

For instance, under the new rules any facility with more than 10,000 gallons in aggregate petroleum storage would be required to hire a professional engineer to inspect and certify SPCC plans, potentially a very costly procedure with little to no historical justification.

“[U]ntil evidence of agriculture-related spills can be produced, several facets of the final SPCC rule stand merely as baseless generalizations,” the groups said.

“To limit the size of fuel storage an agriculture producer may hold to 10,000 aggregate gallons, with the cost of a professional engineer as a deterrent, could be the death knell for many small or mid-sized operations already on the margin.”

The comments were submitted by the Agriculture Coalition on the Oil Spill Prevention, Control and Countermeasure (SPCC), a group of organizations that represent farmers, ranchers, farmer cooperatives and related agribusinesses. This coalition has been active on SPCC issues for a number of years.

To read the full comments sent this week as well as previously-submitted comments, please visit www.wheatworld.org/environmentalissues.

A fact sheet with information for farmers about SPCC compliance is available at http://www.epa.gov/ceppo/web/docs/oil/spcc/spccfarms.pdf.

The Hallock, Minn., producer is sharing his farming season not just with his business partners and family, but also with readers online at www.mywheatfarm.com.

Younggren was spurred to start the blog by his work with wheat association boards, which has allowed him to meet many in the public and Congress who know almost nothing about real-life, day-to-day farming.

“As I’ve been coming to Washington the past few years, I’ve really realized that a lot of people have no idea what’s going on in the country,” he said. “Hopefully this blog will shed some light on what actually happens in reality.”

He sees his posts as a resource for those who may not know much about farming but want to learn and for others in the wheat industry who want to check in on crop progress in his region.

Younggren, who farms with two cousins near the Canadian border, started the blog in April and has kept up a consistent posting schedule, discussing rain storms, relationships he has with essential vendors, equipment breakdowns, public policy developments and everything in between.

To hear more from Younggren about why he stared the blog and what he hopes to achieve, visit the NAWG audio page at www.wheatworld.org/audio.

To read the blog, visit www.mywheatfarm.com.

The question of permitting has become a serious concern for agricultural producers and a major area of work for agriculture advocacy organizations like NAWG since a Sixth Circuit Court ruling in early 2009.

Ruling the case of National Cotton Council of America v. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Court concluded pesticide discharge is a point source of pollution subject to additional regulation under the Clean Water Act (CWA), meaning producers would need additional permitting for every crop protection application. In February, the Supreme Court declined to take the case on appeal, so the Sixth Circuit’s ruling stands as law despite being duplicative of existing regulation and fraught with unintended complications.

Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) and Ranking Member Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) announced last Friday they had introduced S. 3735 to amend the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (known as FIFRA) such that any “plant pest, noxious weed or pest control activity” done in accordance with it would not require a permit under the Clean Water Act. In a press release, Lincoln explained the bill saying it is “very simple: as long as a producer is complying with FIFRA, then no Clean Water Act permit will be required.”

House Agriculture Committee Ranking Member Frank Lucas (R-Okla.) introduced companion legislation in his body this week.

NAWG is highly supportive of these measures and this week coordinated a letter of 18 major agriculture groups urging quick passage and offering any assistance in the legislative process.

“Adding a layer of additional requirements in the form of a CWA NPDES permit will create new costs and increase confusion regarding the use of these already heavily regulated products,” the groups told Lincoln and Chambliss. “Requiring CWA permits creates the potential for inadvertent, technical violations of federal law by pesticide users – with fines of up to $37,500 per day with no tangible benefits related to protecting water quality.”

NAWG and other agricultural groups have also been working coalition partners and officials at EPA and USDA to evaluate a proposed general permit formulated by EPA that is meant to streamline the regulatory process. That permit unfortunately left more questions than answers for producers, and NAWG will continue to work on both administrative and legislative tracks to find a solution to this problem.

To read the letter sent this week, please visit www.wheatworld.org/environmentalissues.

The ban apparently spawned intense interest around the world about wheat supplies and concern about wheat shortages, and many outlets rarely interested in wheat stories are now looking to learn about U.S. growers’ intentions for the coming growing season.

Most reporters who contacted wheat groups this week do not follow regularly agricultural issues and are generally not aware of the abundance of U.S. wheat available to buyers worldwide. Having heard rumors of shortages, many have required reassurance that a world food crisis and the specter of political havoc are not imminent.

Neither NAWG nor U.S. Wheat will undertake interviews that involve wheat market speculation or prediction. However, both organizations see the continuing interest in the wheat market as an opportunity to educate the non-agricultural media and public and dispel myths about the current wheat price and supply situation.

On Tuesday, NAWG President Jerry McReynolds spoke to the million-plus listeners of The Diane Rehm Show from his fields in Kansas to give the producer perspective on wheat exports and prices in the wake of Russia’s ban. Alan Tracy, U.S. Wheat Associates president, was a member of the show’s panel in Washington, D.C., which also included a reporter from The Wall Street Journal and economists from the International Food Policy Research Institute and Purdue University.

McReynolds was in Washington, D.C., later in the week and was also able to record an interview for NPR’s Weekend Edition in the NPR studios. That interview focused on the producer perspective and how growers manage their operations on a daily basis.

This week’s edition of the World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimate (WASDE) from USDA, out Thursday, showed average U.S. yield and total production up slightly, with exports up more than 20 percent from 1 billion bushels to 1.2 billion bushels (27.2 MMT to 32.7 MMT) and ending stocks down 13 percent from 1.1 billion bushels to 952 million bushels (30 MMT to 26 MMT). But, despite the large jump in exports, the ending stock estimate is still approximately equal to the amount the U.S. exports on average each year.

Around the world, global production is estimated down 2.3 percent, and global ending stocks are estimated down 6.6 percent to 174.8 MMT (6.4 billion bushels). Interestingly, USDA indicates it does not believe that Russia will begin exporting wheat again this marketing year. It calls Russian exports at 3 MMT, down from its forecast of 15 MMT last month, which represents Russian exports so far this year and potentially some contracted exports.

For the full WASDE report, please visit http://www.usda.gov/oce/commodity/wasde/.

A replay of the full Diane Rehm episode about wheat supplies is accessible online at http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2010-08-10/world-wheat-supplies.

Building on the foundations of the former British Crop Production Council Congress, CropWorld 2010 is an internationally recognized meeting and trade show focusing on how business, trade, science and technology will work together to ensure sustainable global food production.

Representing more than 70 countries worldwide, there are more than 200 organizations already registered from numerous sectors including research, agrochemicals, packaging, precision technology, regulatory, pesticide storage, farming, food retailers, plant nutrients, water and irrigation, finance and investment, and education.

Former NAWG Chief Executive Officer Daren Coppock traveled to the conference last year to meet with other agricultural leaders from around the world and make presentations on issues facing U.S. wheat production and biotechnology. (Learn more about that trip at http://www.wheatworld.org/2009/11/coppock-travels-to-scotland-to-talk-wheat-yields-biotech/).

The 2010 conference will encompass all aspects of the crop production value chain, from soil preparation and seeds to the role that retailers play within the industry.

Presenters the first day of the meeting are scheduled to include Maive Rute from the European Commission; Dr. Namanga Ngongi, president of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa; and Sir John Beddington, the chief scientific advisor to the United Kingdom’s government. The second and third days will be split into four streams, giving delegates the opportunity to focus on specific interest areas such as agricultural land use policy, conservation agriculture, optimizing soil quality and organics and biotechnology. Several U.S. officials from USDA and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are also on the list of scheduled speakers.

The trade show will feature new products and services from 100 leading industry suppliers, spanning science, machinery, skills and careers, innovations and generics, providing scope for new business development across the sector.

More information about the conference schedule and who is attending is available online at http://www.crop-world.com or on Twitter at http://twitter.com/CropWorld.

NAWG members and newsletter readers can claim £50 off the standard conference fee by quoting WWCW when registering for the conference from the home page.

McReynolds joined a panel on the popular NPR program to give the producer perspective on wheat exports and prices in the wake of Russia’s ban of grain exports.

Alan Tracy, U.S. Wheat Associates president, was a member of the show’s panel in Washington, D.C., which also included a reporter from The Wall Street Journal and economists from the International Food Policy Research Institute and Purdue University.

A replay of the full show is available online at http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2010-08-10/world-wheat-supplies.

Kirk made up the first panel at a hearing held by the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee as its third session in the run up to the 2012 Farm Bill process.

Members of the panel sharply questioned him during nearly two hours of testimony on issues including the status of three pending free trade agreements and a bill that would allow greater trade with Cuba, all of which have been held up for multiple years.

Kirk insisted the three agreements – with Colombia, Panama and South Korea – could stand on their own merit, but he urged patient, careful consideration of every clause saying, “We would rather pass no bill than a bad bill…we always find a way to get the good agreements passed.”

The agreement with Colombia, where not a single U.S. product now benefits from a zero tariff, is the most pressing of the three. Canada’s recent approval of its own FTA with Colombia has reemphasized the importance of the U.S. agreements’ passage to preserve vital market share for products including wheat. Total 2010 agricultural exports from the United States to Columbia are expected to decrease by 45 percent from a year ago.

Kirk said at the hearing that Columbia is facing a significant transition of governance and, while relations with the new government are strong, any shift in power renews old fears of labor issues as well as the reemergence of the rebel Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia, or FARC. Kirk did add that the Department of Labor is back at the table on this issue after a long hiatus and that this development has greatly aided the process.

With regards to Panama, the USTR said his department is currently trying to respond to concerns that the country will become a tax haven if free trade is assured.

An FTA with the South Korea seems to have the best chance of passage in the near future. Kirk said the Administration is hopeful it will move before President Barack Obama meets with Korean leadership in November, though a number of Senators cautioned against hasty action as an attempt to bolster diplomatic ties.

The World Trade Organization’s Doha Round of trade talks was also discussed at the hearing. Kirk said that progress is proving difficult, but the recent addition of developing nation pressure on rapidly growing countries Brazil, China, India and Russia could have a significant effect.

A second panel at the hearing was made up of representatives of agriculture organizations, including the American Soybean Association, USA Rice Federation, National Chicken Council and National Council of Farmer Cooperatives.

When asked to name the most important steps that can be taken to increase U.S. agricultural exports, three of the four witnesses named passage of the pending FTAs, followed closely by proper funding for the Market Access Program (MAP) and the Foreign Market Development (FMD) program, both of which are used by the agricultural industry to promote trade overseas. (The fourth witness discussed the ongoing challenges with poultry trade.)

The pressing need for increased exports and the impressive impact agriculture exports have on the larger U.S. economy were major themes of the hearing.

Several participants cited a Department of Commerce study indicating that for every $1 billion of increased agricultural exports approximately 9,000 domestic jobs are created. Agricultural exports amounted to more than $97 billion last year, an increase of 100 percent from 2000 and equal to approximately 9 percent of all U.S. exports.

These gains are at risk if the pending agreements are not passed and other trade priorities continue to languish. U.S. wheat losses from a failure to ratify the U.S.-Columbia FTA alone could lead to $70 million in lost revenues per year, for instance. Committee Chairman Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) noted no U.S. rice is exported to Cuba today, though the country imports 700,000 metric tons annually.

In his opening statement, Ranking Member Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) expressed in plain terms the concerns and priorities of many in the ag industry, telling Kirk, “These FTAs are ready and represent real and tangible gains for the agriculture sector in the United States. If we are serious about promoting exports, the President should submit all three and press Congress for their immediate approval.”

NAWG and U.S. Wheat Associates are strongly supportive of immediate passage of the three pending free trade agreements and a bill to open trade and travel with Cuba. The industry is also highly supportive of the MAP and FMD programs. For more about the wheat industry’s trade priorities, please visit www.wheatworld.org/trade.

The country has been facing a severe drought and wildfires that have destroyed at least 20 percent of the Russian wheat crop. Still, the country has stocks and was until recently planning to draw on them to complete export orders.

The ban includes wheat and other grains as well as flour and goes into effect on Aug. 15, regardless of existing sales contracts, though the situation is very fluid and some contracts could be fulfilled.

Wheat buyers from around the world planning to source from Russia are expected to look elsewhere following the announcement on Thursday by Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. This could affect U.S. wheat exports, which have been inching higher anyway; in July, the International Grain Council raised its forecast for U.S. wheat exports from 24.3 MMT to 29.2 MMT, which would be slightly above average.

In the U.S., futures prices for wheat reacted to the tightening supply by going up near the daily limit on Thursday, then falling by the limit on Friday.

At least temporarily, new export demand could mean Russia’s move on the global wheat market helps farmers in hard red winter wheat areas who have been facing cash prices well below the cost of production.

U.S. Wheat Associates, a sister association of NAWG’s and the industry’s export development organization working in 90 countries, assured its contacts that the U.S. is open for business and will always have wheat available for buyers regardless of nationality.

“In the genuinely open market we have in the U.S. today there is always wheat available at some price, both to domestic and international buyers,” USW President Alan Tracy said in the organization’s biweekly newsletter. “Supplies can be plentiful or tight, but the system finds a price that rationalizes the supply and demand balance. As we have said many times before, the U.S. wheat store is always open.”

The price spike has created some concerns about increasing food prices, though it is widely acknowledged that the world has sufficient existing wheat stocks to fulfill demand. Wheat commodity prices have nearly doubled since harvest lows in June, but it is believed many large buyers in the U.S. have already arranged to have supplies on hand, and wheat as a base ingredient makes up a very small percentage of the cost of any food product.

Russia is significant wheat exporter, typically the third or fourth largest in the world after the U.S., the European Union and Canada. The U.S. is the world’s largest wheat exporter, sending about half of each annual crop overseas.

For more information about buying or selling U.S. wheat, please visit http://www.wheatworld.org/buying-and-selling-wheat/.

Cotton industry leaders and those at the CFTC are looking at changes to cotton market delivery locations and that industry’s problems with wide basis. CFTC is attempting to weigh potential contract changes to balance the needs of producers and users, making sure that both parties are “reasonably inconvenienced” and, importantly, that storage is actually available in delivery locations.

That discussion fed into one about wheat, with a report on the variable storage rate system and additional delivery points recently added to the Chicago contract. Many wheat market participants now believe there have been structural changes to the wheat market that are affecting convergence, in addition to logistical challenges, like tight storage at Kansas City Board of Trade delivery points.

Members of the Committee expressed concern that credit limits are affecting storage facilities’ ability to issue delivery receipts and encouraged further consideration of changes to delivery procedures. Another speaker, a trader, said changes to the variable storage rate in Chicago are making it impossible to trade the spreads in anything but nearby contracts, which is damaging to the market.

Concerns were also expressed about index funds entering the market with massive amounts of money but largely passive trading activity, affecting the overall system.

The meeting ended with a discussion of the implications of the Frank-Dodd financial reform bill that was recently signed into law, which could affect agricultural swaps and convergence issues.

That bill excludes exchange-traded activity from further regulation but includes over-the-counter activity and options. These provisions are intended to exempt participants using the market as a hedging mechanism. The CFTC is in the process of writing rules to implement the new legislation, a process in which Advisory Committee members will be involved.

NAWG Chief Executive Officer Dana Peterson, an agricultural economist by training, is a member of the Advisory Committee and participated in Thursday’s meeting.

NAWG will remain actively engaged with CFTC and other coalition partners to gauge how regulation of the commodity markets may or may not have influence on convergence and basis issues producers are seeing on the ground. The NAWG Board will also likely consider policy priorities related to these issues at its next meeting in October.

 The legislation will allow the Chesapeake Bay region to maintain a robust farm economy while putting farmers and ranchers on a glide path to achieve water quality goals.  To achieve these goals, the legislation includes the introduction of an interstate nutrient trading program, a revamped environmental assurance program and an extended timeline for Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDL’s) for nitrogen, phosphorous and sediment from a daily standard to one that will account for seasonal variations.  The legislation further provides that if farmers and ranchers meet certain voluntary standards, they will be provided a safe harbor from any further regulatory action.

 As Congressman Goodlatte pointed out during the Committee’s consideration of the legislation, the reason so many national agricultural organizations were supporting the Holden-Goodlatte bill was that more stringent water quality and nutrient management standards and guidelines will be “coming to a watershed near you.”

 HR 5509 now awaits action by the full House of Representatives. NAWG and other agricultural organizations are also working with members of the U.S. Senate where similar initiatives are being considered.

More information on HR 5509 can be found at http://www.wheatworld.org/issues/environmentalissues/.

AFRI is the flagship competitive grants program of the USDA National Institute for Food and Agriculture. A coalition of groups, including NAWG, was seeking to increase the AFRI budget from $262 million to $500 million as part of a goal to bring about a significant overall increase in the USDA agriculture research budget.

A copy of the 2009 letter sent to the Administration can be found at http://www.wheatworld.org/issues/research/.

 A number of priorities that are important for wheat are included in the Senate appropriations bill and were included in the Obama Administration’s proposed budget. Wheat priorities include $2.4 million for improved breeding strategies and germplasm to enhance food production and security and $793,000 for “high priority grain disease research at St. Paul, MN” to reduce world hunger.

 On June 30, the House Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee approved a USDA budget which included overall agriculture research funding of approximately $10 million below FY2010 with AFRI funded at $312 million. A vote by the full House Appropriations Committee was delayed this week and has not been rescheduled.

Full details on the specific funded priorities in the House Agriculture appropriations bill have not been published. With time running short before the end of the Congressional session, it is unclear what budget will be in place when the new fiscal year begins October 1, but it is clear that in FY2011 the agriculture research budget will be lower than it was in FY2010.

For more information on the Senate bill, go to http://appropriations.senate.gov/news.cfm?method=news.view&id=da94ce97-8783-4c81-84a4-dc2f8fcf0452.

More information on the House bill can be found at http://appropriations.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=85&Itemid=16.

Tour participants traveled the state learning about wheat production and rural communities, scouting fields for diseases or pests and taking a snapshot of yields given the current field conditions. Eight routes began in Fargo and took various routes throughout wheat production areas to Bismarck on Tuesday. On Wednesday the cars met in Devil’s Lake with the day’s final tour including the North Dakota Mill in Grand Forks before coming to an end at the Northern Crops Institute in Fargo.

At the end of each day’s touring the group convened to share notes about the crop. Several local farmers joined the group for the reporting session and pasta dinner Wednesday.

Participants included farmers, domestic and international wheat millers, grain merchandisers, news media and government agency officials. The tour offers all participants an opportunity to learn about rural North Dakota and all segments of the U.S. wheat production chain.

NAWG is strongly supportive of the measure introduced by Rep. Tim Holden (D-PA) and Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), and signed onto a letter sent June 30 expressing that support.

The Holden-Goodlatte legislation titled the Chesapeake Bay Program Reauthorization and Improvement Act, H.R. 5509, is intended to put agriculture on a path toward achievable nutrient management for the Chesapeake Bay region that is consistent with sound agronomic standards.

To achieve these goals the bill includes introduction of an interstate nutrient trading program, a revamped environmental assurance program and an extended timeline for Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDLs) for nitrogen, phosphorous, and sediment from a daily standard to one that will account for seasonal variations.

Following several weeks of discussion with coalition partners and Agriculture Committee staff on priorities for the bill, NAWG’s Director of Government Affairs for Environmental Policy, Mark Gaede, participated Wednesday in a briefing on the bill for House agriculture legislative assistants to help educate them prior to the mark-up.

For more about the bill and the June 30 letter, please visit www.wheatworld.org/environmentalissues.

Hurst, a wheat producer from Burley, Idaho, was one of a half dozen producers in attendance at the meeting, a public outreach session of the Interagency Climate Change Adaptation Task Force, which was established in 2009 and includes representatives of more than 20 federal agencies.

In his presentation, Hurst walked audience members through how he makes decisions on his farm to maximize production and price potential and minimize risk. He used the example of one wheat field and described how he rotated crops on the field, what soil testing he did, how he chose seed and insurance for the field.

He emphasized that growers are used to taking risk while mitigating that risk as much as possible, and that Congress and USDA offer several tools to help producers do just that. He noted that producers, particularly profitable producers, are willing and able to make quick changes on their operations if it makes sense for their businesses and their families.

He told attendees that NAWG sees the value of USDA taking the lead on energy and climate change policies that affect agriculture. The agency and its officials are well-known to farmers, seen as partners in much of farm country, and many farmers have experience working with USDA on a voluntary basis.

Representatives from the National Farmers Union, Western Growers Association, United Fresh and American Farmland Trust also spoke. During his presentation and in a panel discussion following, Hurst encouraged the involvement of farmers, who are typically outnumbered by conservationists and government officials at meetings like that held this week.

High-level officials attending Monday’s meeting included Shere Abbott, associate director for environment at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy; Harris Sherman, under secretary for natural resources and environment at USDA; and William Hohenstein, director of the climate change program office at USDA.

Much more information about the Task Force and a web rebroadcast can be viewed online at http://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/eop/ceq/initiatives/adaptation/publicmeetings.

The PowerPoint used in Hurst’s presentation is available at www.wheatworld.org/environmentalissues.

Under the Clean Air Act, EPA is required to set National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS) for coarse particulate matter (PM) every five years. In 2006, EPA set that standard at 150µg/m³ based on the so-called “precautionary principle” because science at the time was inconclusive about the health effects of coarse PM, which is basically dust. EPA is currently in the process of reviewing the standard again.

On July 8, EPA released a health assessment of particulate matter, acknowledging that the science on coarse PM is so uncertain that it could not conduct a quantitative risk assessment. On the same day, the EPA released its second draft of its policy assessment including EPA staff conclusions regarding the adequacy of the current standard. That paper said that, despite the ambiguity in the evidence, the Administrator would be justified in either retaining the current standard or in revising it to be as much as twice as strict.

Agricultural groups are deeply concerned about this possibility because, if the standard is made stricter, rural coarse particulate matter – which is essentially dust kicked up by cars and trucks, moving cattle or field work – would be even more highly regulated, causing significant economic threat with basically no return.

More than 85 state and national agricultural organizations wrote the National Governor’s Association late last week to apprise its members of the situation and its possible effects to their state economies. The groups urged the governors to express their concerns to EPA.

“While the Clean Air Act does not allow EPA to consider economic consequences of any reduction in the NAAQS,” they said, “we believe that a letter from you and other governors from across the United States to EPA opposing any reduction in the PM10 standard because the health evidence does not support such a reduction (especially for rural coarse PM), and any reduction would have potentially devastating impacts on state economies would help EPA in its consideration of the PM10 NAAQS.”

The EPA’s advisory committee is set to meet to discuss the policy assessment again on July 26 and comments on the policy proposal are due on Aug. 16.

To get more information about the particulate matter issue and to read the agriculture groups’ letter, please visit www.wheatworld.org/environmentalissues.

The Association announced in late June that DeMarchi would fill the new position, added to the organization to allow for a greater focus on research-related policy issues, more attention to tracking wheat research work already being done and better coordination of industry efforts related to the commercialization of biotech wheat.

Prior to coming to NAWG, DeMarchi worked as the director of government affairs at the North American Millers’ Association.

She comes to NAWG with deep experience in research policy, having served on the executive committee of the U.S. Wheat and Barley Scab Initiative and the boards of the Wheat Quality Council and the National Coalition for Food and Agricultural Research (NC-FAR) while at NAMA. During that, time, she also worked closely with the National Wheat Improvement Committee and NAWG to secure additional federal funding for wheat research, and she initiated a comprehensive research plan for oats.

While her primary focus will be on research and biotechnology issues, DeMarchi will also do some work related to food aid and food safety. She is an active member of the Agricultural Food Aid Coalition, which supports the use of U.S. commodities in USDA and USAID food aid programs.

Born and raised in Ohio, she received her bachelor’s degree in Asian studies from Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H. She lives with her husband and two children in Maryland. DeMarchi can be reached at the main NAWG number, 202-547-7800, or at jdemarchi@wheatworld.org.

Regulatory Reform

On Thursday, the Senate passed by a 60 to 39 vote a financial regulatory reform bill that has been pending for more than a year and caused significant partisan division.

The massive, 2,300-plus-page bill is intended to make changes that would prevent the type of economic meltdown experienced over the last two years. It expands federal regulations, lays out procedures for unwinding failing companies and creates new consumer protections. Like with most laws of its scope, the content of regulations made under the law’s authority will highly influence its ultimate impact.

In a demonstration of the partisan divide surrounding the bill, Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) and Ranking Member Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), who work together on many policy priorities, issued nearly opposite statements after the bill’s passage.

Lincoln said, “Today the Senate has approved historic legislation that will rein in the reckless Wall Street behavior that nearly destroyed our economy, hurting Arkansas small businesses and costing millions of Americans their jobs.”

By contrast, Chambliss said that while the legislation will provide “much needed” transparency, “the overreaching nature of this legislation goes far beyond evaluating the market place and policing it for abuse. I cannot support the vast regulatory intrusion and costs that our businesses and consumers will face once this becomes law.”

President Barack Obama is expected to sign the bill into law next week.

Energy Legislation

Work continued this week to compile an energy bill that will be able to achieve the 60 votes needed to be approved by the Senate.

It appears that a compromise will require an energy bill with a carbon component; while some are greatly opposed to any regulation of greenhouse gases or establishment of a carbon market, others are opposed to energy legislation that does not include those aspects.

NAWG staff has been working with other agricultural groups to engage in policy discussions, particularly with regard to language from Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) that the groups hope will form the agriculture piece of any carbon-related proposal and with regards to a potential renewable electricity standard, also known as a renewable portfolio standard.

Just this week, the ag coalition has met with staff from the offices of Stabenow; Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), who with Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) has recently offered a climate change bill; Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), who also has an energy proposal; Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.), who is a long-time agriculture supporter; and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who is expected to make the call on what ultimately is in or out of the bill.

Based on those conversations, a compromise proposal is expected as soon as next week for debate as soon as the week of July 26, though what will be in the proposal remains unclear.

Appropriations

Despite many other priorities taking center stage, Congress must complete the appropriations process by the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30.

This week, the Senate Appropriations Committee approved its version of an agriculture spending bill, along with the military construction/veterans affairs bill and the homeland security bill, in a 17 to 12 vote.

The bill approved provided a slightly lower level of overall discretionary spending, $22.839 billion, than the version passed recently by the House Appropriations Committee’s agriculture subcommittee.

The Senate Committee provided an increase of nearly $48 million for USDA’s cornerstone research grant program, the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI), slightly less than the House subcommittee, but still a healthy raise over the FY2010 level of $262.4 million.

The Senate Committee funded P.L. 480 Title II, the Food for Peace program, at $1.69 billion, the Administration’s request and the funding level of the House subcommittee, but did not provide the $57 million increase for the McGovern-Dole program as the House subcommittee did.

As with all recent agriculture appropriations bills, nutrition spending made up the majority of the measure passed, accounting for a total of $94.051 billion including mandatory funding. The bill funded the food stamp program, known as SNAP, the Women’s, Infants, Children (WIC) program and the school lunch and breakfast programs at around the same levels as the House Appropriations subcommittee.

Long-standing concerns about the tax have intensified in recent months as Congress failed to change existing law, which includes no estate tax at all in 2010, but reverts in 2011 to taxing estates over $1 million at up to 55 percent. The American Farm Bureau Federation estimates such a low exemption level would mean up to 10 percent of farms and ranches whose operators die next year could owe the steep tax.

By contrast, the Lincoln-Kyl proposal would permanently set the estate tax rate at 35 percent with a $5 million exemption phased in over 10 years and indexed for inflation. It would also provide a “stepped up basis” for inherited assets.

The Senators plan to try to attach the proposal to a pending bill focusing on lending to small businesses, though it is, as of yet, unclear if the proposal will gain support of Senate Leadership and be accepted as an amendment to the bill.

In April, NAWG and nearly 30 other farm organizations wrote Senate leaders urging permanent and meaningful estate tax relief. At that time, the groups voiced support for provisions similar to those in the Lincoln-Kyl proposal.

NAWG has long worked with other agricultural groups to press Congress to undertake estate tax reform that instills predictability into the system and takes into account the unique circumstances of family farming operations. NAWG encourages all state association representatives and growers to contact their Senators and express the importance to family agricultural operations of timely action on this issue.

The two companies – working within what they describe as the “world’s largest plant biotechnology collaboration” – are already focusing on corn, soybeans, cotton and canola.

The original project was started in 2007 with a dedicated budget of up to $1.5 billion. The companies said in a press release that “strong leads and commercial prospects in the collaboration’s early work” are leading them to invest an additional $1 billion.

For wheat, the two plan to focus on developing biotech products for the North American and Australian markets. They said the first enhanced yielding wheat product is expected to reach the market after 2020, followed by future generations of higher-yielding wheat varieties.

As part of the agreement, BASF and Monsanto both maintain independent trait discovery programs from which they nominate candidate genes for accelerated, jointly-funded development. Products emerging from joint development are commercialized by Monsanto, with Monsanto receiving 60 percent of net profits and BASF receiving 40 percent of net profits. The first product likely to come out of the collaboration will be drought-tolerant corn, which should be available around 2012, pending regulatory approvals.

There is currently no commercialized biotech wheat anywhere in the world, and NAWG believes biotechnology’s introduction into the wheat crop is necessary for the wheat industry to increase productivity, attract acres back to the crop and feed a growing global population in a sustainable way.

NAWG has worked with U.S. Wheat Associates, affiliated state associations and other wheat-chain organizations over the past four years to demonstrate the potential value of biotechnology in the wheat crop and welcomes announcements of new investments into wheat research.

For more about this work, please visit www.wheatworld.org/biotech.

NAWG President Jerry McReynolds, NAWG Secretary-Treasurer Bing Von Bergen and NAWG Directors Scott Swenson, Byron Richard, Ron Perry and Gordon Stoner attended the meetings, along with NAWG CEO Dana Peterson and former NAWG President Dale Schuler, who presided over his last meeting as chairman of the NAWG and USW Joint International Trade Policy Committee (JITPC).

Both the JITPC and the NAWG and USW Joint Biotechnology Committee met in Bozeman, along with U.S. Wheat policy committees and the U.S. Wheat Board of Directors.

Members of the JITPC discussed in depth the existing situation with pending free trade agreements and recent action on opening trade with Cuba. The group discussed the need to frequently have growers from both organizations come to Washington when opportunities arise to press for these agreements.

JITPC members also directed NAWG and USW staff members to develop a list of trade policy irritants and opportunities for further exploration and prioritization at the Committee’s October meeting.

The Joint Biotechnology Committee discussed ongoing industry work to pave the way for biotech wheat and educational efforts for growers related to biotechnology in wheat. The Committee approved four resolutions for consideration by both Boards of Directors, including ones urging NAWG to develop a grower education program on certified seed issues; commending Monsanto and Kansas State University for their use of widely-adopted principles for wheat breeding collaborations; urging biotech providers to use quality targets developed by the USW Wheat Quality Committee; and urging the National Wheat Improvement Committee to quickly elect a chairman following Oregon State University breeder Jim Peterson’s departure.

Also at the Bozeman meetings, U.S. Wheat installed its new officer corps, including Don Schieber of Ponca City, Okla., as chairman; Randy Suess of Colfax, Wash., as vice chairman; Darrell Davis, of Ipswich, S.D., as secretary-treasurer; and Janice Mattson of Chester, Mont., as past chair and chair of the USW Budget Committee.

The next meetings of the joint committees and U.S. Wheat’s Board will be at the Fall Wheat Conference, which is one of two joint meetings of NAWG and U.S. Wheat each year and is set for late October in Minneapolis.

NAWG CEO Dana Peterson and USW President Alan Tracy highlighted this threat in a joint statement released Tuesday and in media interviews prompted by it.

The Canadian parliament has ratified its free trade agreement (FTA) with Colombia that will allow Canadian wheat to enter Colombia duty free as soon as this summer.

The agreement gives a major wheat-producing competitor an immediate price advantage in a market where U.S. wheat exports had earned a dominant market share, meaning U.S. wheat producers could lose sales worth $70 million today to Canada at a time when they can least afford it. In fact, U.S. farm families now face losing a substantial portion of agricultural exports to Colombia worth nearly $1.7 billion, including $330 million in wheat exports, in 2008.

Even more disturbing is the fact that U.S. farmers should never have faced this dilemma. That is because while the United States government has failed to ratify a bilateral FTA it negotiated with Colombia in 2006 that would allow most American agricultural exports to enter Colombia duty free, Canada has moved ahead with its own trade agenda.

For four years, NAWG, USW and many other agricultural organizations have strongly advocated for U.S.-Colombia agreement. In that time, USW brought influential Colombian millers to the United States who told government officials that if they had to pay duties on U.S. wheat and not on Canadian wheat, U.S. sales and market share would fall dramatically.

USW also released a report on the impact of FTAs that showed U.S. wheat exports would be 20 million bushels greater and the farm price would be 10 cents per bushel higher under a ratified U.S.-Colombia FTA.

As an industry dependent on exports for half its sales, export opportunities and free trade are essential. The industry was encouraged to hear President Barack Obama give trade a more prominent role in his administration’s economic recovery agenda and that the President recognized U.S. inertia on trade only allows other nations to fill the void while we lose the chance to create jobs on our shores.

Obama recently pledged to send the Korea-U.S. FTA to Congress by the November G-20 meeting in Seoul. Last week, the House Agriculture Committee passed H.R. 4645, the Travel Restriction Reform and Export Enhancement Act. If signed into law, it would clarify how U.S. farmers and agricultural businesses conduct sales to Cuba and remove long-standing travel restrictions, which together have significantly constrained wheat growers’ market share there.

Such steps are encouraging, but do not carry wheat producers far enough. Today, 126 trade agreements are being negotiated that exclude the United States, yet each involves current U.S. trading partners. If the likely fallout from the Canada-Colombia FTA is any indication, such agreements represent a grave threat to the U.S. economic recovery.

NAWG and USW will continue to work together and with other organizations to urge the Administration and Congress to resolve any remaining issues with the pending agreements and move toward approval as soon as possible.

For more on the importance of trade to the U.S. wheat industry, please visit www.wheatworld.org/trade or http://www.uswheat.org/whatWeDo/tradePolicy.

Three agreements, with Colombia, Panama and South Korea, have been pending for more than three years. During the recent G-20 Summit in Toronto, President Barack Obama announced his intention to set a November deadline for removing outstanding obstacles to the implementation of the U.S.-Korea free trade agreement, or FTA.

The groups praised this move, noting that the Korean market is the fifth largest for U.S. agricultural exports, valued at $3.9 billion in 2009, and the pending FTA could expand those sales by almost half according to American Farm Bureau Federation analysis.

Still, while expressing appreciation for the President’s action with regards to Korea, the groups also voiced serious concern about the other agreements, particularly the one with Colombia.

On June 21, the Canadian Senate voted to implement a free trade agreement with Colombia, following approval by Canada’s House of Commons on June 15. The groups described to Members the severe competitive disadvantage this will create for U.S. producers.

“So, not only have we lost two or three years of benefits of duty-free or reduced tariff access to the Colombian market under a U.S. FTA, we now face the certainty that Canada’s producers will instead reap those benefits,” the coalition wrote.

“According to the American Farm Bureau Federation, the U.S.-Colombia FTA, if and when it is implemented, would result in U.S. agricultural export gains of more than $815 million per year at full implementation. But now that Canada has gained preferential access ahead of us, we are likely to be operating in catch-up mode for years to come.”

The letter touched particularly on the tough situation facing U.S. wheat producers, who will almost certainly lose their hard-won market share in Colombia when the Canadian agreement is finalized.

“An influential Colombian miller has said that without a U.S. FTA to keep tariffs in balance with tariffs on Canadian wheat, the U.S. share of the Colombian wheat import market could fall from around 70 percent to as low as 30 percent,” the letter told Members. “If that were to happen, U.S. Wheat Associates estimates that, at current export prices, failure to ratify the U.S.-Colombia FTA could lead to an annual loss of more than $70 million for the U.S. wheat industry.”

NAWG and U.S. Wheat strongly support immediate passage of all three agreements and a robust trade agenda including the negotiation of new agreements and easing of trade restrictions with Cuba.

For much more information on the current trade situation, including the letter sent this week, please visit www.wheatworld.org/trade.

Holden and Goodlatte introduced a bill last month as a counter-proposal of sorts to a measure championed by Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) and Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.). That bill would, among other things, institute statutorily-mandated TMDLs, or Total Maximum Daily Loads, on the region, which would be particularly burdensome for agricultural producers in six states surrounding the Bay. Many across the ideological spectrum are also concerned about the program’s technical feasibility and the likelihood of its authority migrating to other regions.

By contrast, the Holden-Goodlatte bill, dubbed the Chesapeake Bay Program Reauthorization and Improvement Act or H.R. 5099, would restructure on-going efforts to restore the Chesapeake and would set up an independent advisory committee to review past Chesapeake Bay initiatives.

The bill would also seek to set up a nutrient management plan that considers load allocations on a monthly, seasonal or annual basis, versus on a daily basis, and allow for a “safe harbor” provision for farmers who undertake program efforts in good faith.

The groups writing last week told Holden and Goodlatte that they appreciate the House Committee on Agriculture and its Conservation Subcommittee’s efforts to create forward-looking policies while maintaining the economic viability of the Bay’s rural communities.

The groups said, in part:

“Farmers and ranchers in the Chesapeake Bay region have a proven track record of caring for our natural resources and will continue to do more to conserve and protect these resources. This bill is a common-sense approach that will support and encourage these efforts…

“Your bill also gives assurances to farmers and ranchers that by taking such steps they will meet expectations for agriculture’s contribution to efforts to improve water quality in the Chesapeake Bay watershed over a reasonable period of time.”

Organizations signing the letter included NAWG, Agricultural Retailers Association, American Farm Bureau Federation, National Agricultural Aviation Association, National Corn Growers Association, National Farmers Union, National Milk Producers Federation and United Egg Producers.

The letter is available in full at www.wheatworld.org/environmentalissues under “Statements and Testimony”.

“The Canadian parliament has ratified a bilateral free trade agreement (FTA) with Colombia that will, when implemented, allow Canadian wheat to enter that country duty free.

“The agreement gives a major wheat-producing competitor an immediate price advantage in a market where U.S. wheat exports had earned a dominant market share. It means that U.S. wheat producers could lose sales worth $70 million today to Canada at a time when they can least afford it. In fact, U.S. farm families now face losing a substantial portion of agricultural exports to Colombia worth nearly $1.7 billion, including $330 million in wheat exports, in 2008. Even more disturbing is the fact that our farmers should never have faced this dilemma.

“That is because while the United States government has failed to ratify a bilateral FTA it negotiated with Colombia in 2006 that would allow most American agricultural exports to enter Colombia duty free, Canada has moved ahead with its own trade agenda.

“For four years, U.S. Wheat Associates (USW), the National Association of Wheat Growers (NAWG) and many other agricultural organizations have strongly advocated for this agreement. In that time, USW brought influential Colombian millers to the United States who told government officials that if they had to pay duties on U.S. wheat and not on Canadian wheat, U.S. sales and market share would fall dramatically. USW also released a report on the impact of FTAs that showed U.S. wheat exports would be 20 million bushels greater and the farm price would be 10 cents per bushel higher under a ratified U.S.-Colombia FTA. The outcome of this situation should come as no surprise.

“As an industry dependent on exports for half its sales, export opportunities and free trade are essential. We were encouraged to hear President Obama’s plans to give trade a more prominent role in his administration’s economic recovery agenda and his goal to double exports in five years. We were particularly pleased that the President recognized that U.S. inertia on trade only allows other nations to fill the void while we lose the chance to create jobs on our shores. We urged the administration to commit to this initiative by submitting the U.S.-Colombia FTA, and pending agreements with South Korea and Panama, to Congress for consideration.

“Recently, we have seen some positive steps on trade. President Obama has now pledged to send the Korea-U.S. FTA to Congress by the November G-20 meeting in Seoul. Last week, the House Agriculture Committee passed H.R. 4645, the Travel Restriction Reform and Export Enhancement Act. If signed into law, it would clarify how U.S. farmers and agricultural businesses conduct sales to Cuba and remove long-standing travel restrictions, which together have significantly constrained wheat growers’ market share there.

“Such steps are encouraging, but do not carry us far enough. Today, 126 trade agreements are being negotiated that exclude the United States, yet each involves current U.S. trading partners. If the likely fallout from the Canada-Colombia FTA is any indication, such agreements represent a grave threat to our economic recovery.

“We must change the situation and give American farm families and our rural economy a fighting chance. We urge the Administration and Congress to resolve any remaining issues with our Colombia and Panama FTAs and move the agreements forward to approval as soon as possible.”

###

Contact:
Melissa Kessler, NAWG, mkessler@wheatworld.org, 202-547-7800
Steve Mercer, USW, smercer@uswheat.org, 703-650-0251

The Committee heard from Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, leaders of the American Farm Bureau Federation and the National Farmers Union and four producers from different regions of the country.

Chairman Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) began the hearing by outlining the five principles she intends to guide her Committee’s process: that farmers’ and ranchers’ work is valuable and should be appreciated; that farm bill ideas should emanate from farm country; that the 2012 Farm Bill should build off the 2008 Farm Bill; that creativity is essential to strengthening the existing safety net; and that the need to increase food production as the world’s population rises dramatically should be top of mind during farm bill discussions.

In his opening statement, Ranking Member Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) said he believes oversight of the 2008 Farm Bill is more appropriate at this point than discussions about a new farm bill, since farmers are still very much gaining experience with new programs like ACRE and SURE.

As at similar hearings held by the House Agriculture Committee, witnesses and Members touched on the importance of the crop insurance program and concern about the 2012 Farm Bill baseline following cuts from the renegotiation of the Standard Reinsurance Agreement. A number of witnesses and Members also discussed the challenge of designing safety net programs in light of the very diverse American agriculture sector.

Questioning included a frank exchange between Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) and Vilsack about the media’s treatment of agriculture, which is often incomplete at best and intentionally misleading at worst. Vilsack recounted a recent incident in which a television program hosted a guest who decried agriculture’s achievements, but hasn’t granted a request from the Secretary’s office for equal time. Roberts pressured him to name the program, which was Morning Joe.

Roberts also questioned the Secretary on two issues of great concern to many wheat producers, increasing environmental regulation and a stalled trade agenda that has left three pending free trade agreements untouched for more than two years.

The Senate Committee has announced but not scheduled three additional 2012 Farm Bill hearings, focusing on rural development, conservation programs and energy. By contrast, the House Agriculture Committee has held more than a dozen hearings around the country to begin examining ideas for the 2012 bill.

A full rebroadcast of this week’s hearing is available by clicking on the hearing title in the June 30 box on the Committee’s calendar at http://ag.senate.gov/site/calendar.html.

The Committee is also soliciting feedback from growers and others about the future of farm policy. Those with comments can provide them through a Web form accessible at http://ag.senate.gov/site/.

The agriculture appropriations measure includes just over $23 billion in total discretionary spending, $204 million below the FY2010 level and $27 million below the request from the Obama Administration.

The Subcommittee has jurisdiction over funding for USDA, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and related agencies. While many programs of interest to wheat growers, including most farm safety net and conservation programs, are funded with mandatory money that is not allocated each year, other important programs, including research and market development programs, are part of the final discretionary figure.

This year, the Subcommittee provided $312 million for USDA’s cornerstone research grant program, the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI). This represents an increase from the $262.4 million allocated in the final FY2010 appropriation and another step toward full funding at the 2008 Farm Bill-authorized level of $700 million. The AFRI money is also part of a total budget of $1.36 billion, a 1 percent increase, for the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, its parent agency.

The McGovern-Dole food aid program was funded at $266.5 million, $57 million over the Administration’s request, 27 percent over the FY2010 funding, and 167 percent over the FY2009 appropriation of $100 million.

P.L. 480 Title II, the Food for Peace program, was funded at $1.69 billion, which was the Administration’s request and is the FY2010 funding level.

Other notable funding levels include:

• $68 billion, with a $5 billion reserve, for SNAP, the food stamp program. This represents a 17 percent increase worth nearly $10 billion. Subcommittee Chairwoman Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) said one in eight adults and one in five children now receive food stamps.
• $7.1 billion for the Women’s, Infants, Children (WIC) program, 2 percent below last year.
• $19 billion for child nutrition programs, including the National School Lunch Program.
• $3.773 billion for FDA oversight work, approximately $214 million above FY2010 funding and a total of $535 million with user fees.
• $1 billion for the Food Safety Inspection Service.
• $261 million for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, equal to the Administration’s request.

Neither the House nor the Senate has passed budget resolutions this year, and it looks unlikely that either chamber will be able to garner the votes necessary to do so. Still, the current budget year ends Sept. 30, at which time new appropriations bills of some fashion will need to have been approved.

More details of the bill passed by the Subcommittee this week, including a summary chart comparing FY2010 enacted levels with the Administration request and the Subcommittee’s action, are available at http://appropriations.house.gov/.

The meeting featured several dynamic speakers focusing on the national security implications of our petroleum-based society.

Retired Vice Admiral Dennis McGinn described the Pentagon’s aggressive efforts to incorporate renewable energy, including the Navy’s goal of having 50 percent of liquid fuel needs from renewables by 2020. These efforts not only create a demand for different and more renewable fuels, but also help spur innovation.

Jim Woolsey, former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, also made a very strong push for developing biofuels based on national security interests. He reiterated a frequently-cited concern of those interested in national security matters, that many of the dollars Americans spend on petroleum-based gas are used on activities that promote the roots of terrorism.

Even Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, who delivered a passionate speech about the need to develop renewable fuels, touched on national security, describing the danger USDA workers face in Iraq and Afghanistan.

NAWG Second Vice President Erik Younggren, NAWG’s officer liaison to 25x’25 and other renewable energy and sustainability groups, attended the conference and sat on one of the panels covering the issue of carbon markets.

Bookended by discussions of the academic and policy implications of carbon markets and greenhouse gas regulation, Younggren provided the grower perspective, telling the audience that, “To me as a producer, a lot of the theory sounds good…[b]ut my checkbook is real, and that is what will guide my practices.”

Though his perspective offered more questions than answers, several subsequent speakers referenced his comments and the need to create certainty for producers.

NAWG Director of Government Affairs for Environmental Policy Mark Gaede and NAWG CEO Dana Peterson also attended parts of the conference.

NAWG is a member of the 25x’25 group, a large coalition of organizations that support the goal of getting 25 percent of America’s energy from renewable sources by the year 2025. More about the coalition’s work is available at http://www.25×25.org.

H.R. 4645, the Travel Restriction Reform and Export Enhancement Act, was introduced earlier in the year by House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson (D-Minn.) and Congressman Jerry Moran (R-Kan.). If signed into law, it would clarify how U.S. farmers and agricultural businesses conduct sales to Cuba and remove long-standing travel restrictions, which together have significantly constrained wheat growers’ market share there.

Cuba is the largest importer of wheat and wheat products in the Caribbean, with 11.4 million mouths to feed and no domestic wheat production. Still, because of U.S.-mandated payment and travel restrictions, American wheat made up less than 25 percent of Cuban wheat imports last year, versus more than 80 percent in other Caribbean nations.

For wheat growers, the House Agriculture Committee’s approval of H.R. 4645 is another successful step toward remedying the challenges that have long hindered trade in what would otherwise be a logical market.

“We are long overdue to make common-sense changes to our policy concerning Cuba, which has done nothing but hamstring agriculture’s competitiveness in this neighboring market and hurt our agricultural economy,” said NAWG President Jerry McReynolds, a Kansas wheat producer who also testified to his experiences at a House Agriculture hearing held earlier this year.

“Especially at this time of high wheat stocks and low harvest prices in states like mine, this is a major competitiveness issue that deserves a solution. We thank our elected representatives for standing by us and passing this legislation.”

NAWG and U.S. Wheat Associates, the industry’s market development organization, have long supported incremental changes to U.S. policy toward Cuba, and NAWG leaders have worked extensively to gather support for H.R. 4645, which now awaits consideration by the full House of Representatives. Companion legislation has also been introduced for consideration in the Senate.

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Contact:

Melissa George Kessler, NAWG, 202-547-7800

Filling a newly-created position on the NAWG staff, DeMarchi will focus time on research-related policy issues, including the appropriations and administrative grant-making processes; tracking and consolidating wheat research work already being done within the industry; and coordinating industry efforts related to the commercialization of biotech wheat.

“The new research and technology position is critical to NAWG’s work in encouraging investment and innovation in our industry’s future,” said NAWG Chief Executive Officer Dana Peterson. “I have every confidence that Jane has the appropriate experience and passion to lead NAWG’s efforts to coordinate existing and emerging wheat research ventures.”

DeMarchi has worked for the North American Millers’ Association since 2004, where she is currently director of government relations, responsible for advocating on a wide range of issues pertaining to food and grain quality, safety and research.

She will come to NAWG with well-established roots in the wheat research community having served on the executive committee of the U.S. Wheat and Barley Scab Initiative (USWBSI) and the boards of the Wheat Quality Council and the National Coalition for Food and Agricultural Research (NC-FAR). During her time at NAMA, DeMarchi worked closely with the National Wheat Improvement Committee and NAWG to secure federal funding for wheat research.

DeMarchi will also spend some time working on food safety and food aid issues for NAWG. She is an active member of the Agricultural Food Aid Coalition, which supports the use of U.S. commodities in USDA and U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) food aid programs.

“I am eager to fill this newly created role bringing stakeholders and researchers together to solve critical issues for wheat growers and the entire wheat value chain,” DeMarchi said.

Prior to joining NAMA, DeMarchi worked in the fields of economic development and trade promotion for the Ohio Department of Development and the U.S. Department of Commerce in Ohio, Hong Kong and Shanghai.

Born and raised in Ohio, she received her bachelor’s degree in Asian studies from Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H. She lives with her husband and two children in Maryland.

Contact:  Melissa Kessler, NAWG, mkessler@wheatworld.org, 202-547-7800

Younggren, a wheat producer from Hallock, Minn., joined growers from organizations representing other major commodities at a hearing held by the House Agriculture Committee’s Subcommittee on General Farm Commodities and Risk Management.

In his statement, he offered details about wheat growers’ experiences with crop insurance, the direct payment program, ACRE and SURE. He also pointed out areas of improvement wheat growers have identified for each of these programs and discussed concerns about the increasing complexity of the farm safety net and the budget baseline challenges Members will face when writing the 2012 bill.

Younggren also revealed some initial findings from a survey of NAWG members done this spring to solicit feedback on existing and future farm policy options.

Overall, 558 survey responses were collected in the surveying process, with 90 percent of respondents identifying themselves as growers and 65 percent identifying wheat as their primary crop. When asked to rate the effectiveness of the current farm bill in providing a safety net for their farms, survey respondents answered in a near bell curve, with a slight bias toward less effective than more effective.

Younggren described the task in front of the NAWG Board of Directors at this point as not unlike one faced by a farmer with reliable but aging equipment.

“Compare our current farm policy with a 14-year-old combine that has accumulated about 2,800 hours of use,” he told Members of the Subcommittee. “We’re familiar with and appreciate the general predictability of the overall system, despite the glitches that come with age and known limitations…

“The question facing growers now with respect to farm policy is this: should our energies be directed toward further tweaking and improving the current structure of farm policy considering the ‘age’ and known challenges associated with it? Or is there a newer model – a next generation safety net – available that could better achieve our risk management goals in a simpler, more cost-effective manner?”

Younggren’s testimony was the first formal testimony NAWG leadership has given on the 2012 Farm Bill, though wheat growers from NAWG-affiliated state wheat organizations testified earlier at field hearings in South Dakota, Texas, Wyoming and Idaho.

Younggren’s written testimony, which includes more detailed information from the NAWG survey, is available in full at http://www.wheatworld.org/wp-content/uploads/fb-younggren-testimony-to-house-subcommittee-20100624.pdf.

The bill in question, known as the Travel Restriction Reform and Export Enhancement Act, or H.R. 4645, was introduced in February by Peterson, Rep. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) and more than 30 other original cosponsors.

NAWG has worked extensively before and after introduction of the bill to gather support for it and encourages all member-states representatives and growers to contact their home-state Agriculture Committee Members to urge passage of the bill without amendment.

The bill would be a catalyst of opportunity for significant new wheat sales to Cuba by permanently easing travel restrictions and a number of payment challenges, including the so-called “payment of cash in advance” rule.

The rule was interpreted by the Treasury Department in 2005 to mean that payment for goods going to Cuba had to be made before the goods left U.S. ports – a far stricter standard than for most transactions and one that put a significant damper on Cuba sales.

NAWG and U.S. Wheat Associates, the industry’s export market development organization, have long supported on both economic and humanitarian grounds any effort to ease trade restrictions with Cuba, which cost the industry tens of millions of dollars of lost sales each year.

More information about the importance of easing trade and travel restrictions with Cuba is at www.wheatworld.org/trade.

In the case, Monsanto Co. v. Geertson Seed Farms, environmental groups and individual organic alfalfa farmers sued USDA, claiming the Department’s decision to grant deregulated status to glyphosate-tolerant, or Roundup Ready, alfalfa violated the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).

The courts in the Ninth Circuit determined that USDA should have conducted an environmental impact statement (EIS) before it decided to deregulate and ultimately enjoined almost all planting and sale of Roundup Ready alfalfa pending the issuance of the EIS. The Supreme Court’s decision this week reversed the injunction, finding that the lower court went too far in presuming that the only remedy available for a NEPA violation is a nationwide injunction rather than the USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service’s (APHIS) proposed partial deregulation.

Still, it is unclear if the decision will ultimately lead to Roundup Ready alfalfa being planted this season. The Supreme Court remanded the case back to the lower court and USDA to determine what interim measures can be implemented while the agency completes an EIS, which isn’t expected to be done until next spring.

Fifty-one Members of the House of Representatives and five Senators wrote Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack this week saying the Department’s initial finding that Roundup Ready alfalfa has no significant impact on the environment or other crops “cannot be justified” and asking him to deny a request for even partial deregulation.

There is no commercialized biotech wheat anywhere in the world, but NAWG believes biotechnology’s introduction into the wheat crop is necessary for the wheat industry to increase productivity, attract acres back to the crop and feed a growing global population in a sustainable way.

In March, NAWG joined a coalition of agricultural organizations in filing a joint friend-of-the-court brief urging the injunction be reversed, and NAWG leaders continue working with coalition partners to demonstrate the importance of biotechnology for producers.

The Supreme Court’s full opinion is online at http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/09pdf/09-475.pdf.

Younggren, a wheat producer from Hallock, Minn., joined growers from organizations representing other major commodities at a hearing held by the House Agriculture Committee’s Subcommittee on General Farm Commodities and Risk Management.

In his statement, Younggren offered details about wheat growers’ generally favorable experiences with long-standing programs like crop insurance and direct payment, plus thoughts on newer programs ACRE and SURE. He also offered initial data from a survey of NAWG members on existing and future farm policy and described the questions facing the NAWG Board of Directors as they look to the next farm bill process.

“As we look ahead to 2012, the policy development process is not unlike decisions facing farmers about what to do with aging equipment,” he told Members of the Subcommittee. “Compare our current farm policy with a 14-year-old combine that has accumulated about 2,800 hours of use. We’re familiar with and appreciate the general predictability of the overall system, despite the glitches that come with age and known limitations…”

“The question facing growers now with respect to farm policy is this: should our energies be directed toward further tweaking and improving the current structure of farm policy considering the ‘age’ and known challenges associated with it? Or is there a newer model – a next generation safety net – available that could better achieve our risk management goals in a simpler, more cost-effective manner?”

Thursday’s testimony from Younggren was the first formal testimony NAWG leadership has given on the 2012 Farm Bill, though wheat growers from NAWG-affiliated state wheat growing organizations testified earlier at field hearings in South Dakota, Texas, Wyoming and Idaho.

NAWG is a federation of 21 state wheat grower associations that works to represent the needs and interests of wheat producers before Congress and federal agencies. Based in Washington, D.C., NAWG is grower-governed and grower-funded, and works in areas as diverse as federal farm policy, trade, environmental regulation, research and climate change.

Younggren’s written testimony is available in full at www.wheatworld.org/farmbill under “Statements and Testimony”.

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Contact: Melissa Kessler, NAWG, mkessler@wheatworld.org, 202-547-7800

Under Secretary for Farm and Foreign Agricultural Services Jim Miller testified at the hearing with Farm Service Agency Administrator Jonathan Coppess and Risk Management Agency Administrator Bill Murphy on hand to handle questions within their work areas.

Members on the Subcommittee asked multiple questions about how USDA is dealing with the low protein, high basis and lack of storage dramatically affecting some wheat producers’ cash flows in hard red winter wheat states.

Coppess indicated the SURE disaster assistance program could provide some coverage for losses assumed at the local level due to quality factors. NAWG staff is working with him and other officials to gain more information about this possibility and about any crop insurance coverage that could encompass these losses.

FSA also announced this week that a distress loan program will also be available for some wheat producers in affected states. These 90-day loans will allow producers to pledge their crop as collateral and store the wheat anywhere, including on the ground, that is not accessible to animals or water flow that could seriously affect its quality or quantity. Producers interested in this option should contact their local FSA office for eligibility information and details.

Also at the hearing, Miller answered questions about the effect on the 2012 Farm Bill baseline of a new Standard Reinsurance Agreement, the contract between USDA and crop insurance providers. The final draft of that agreement was issued last week and stands to take at least $4 billion out of the farm policy baseline, though the exact impact on the baseline remains unclear.

Additionally, Miller addressed USDA information technology infrastructure and his desire to simplify the administration of some farm programs, particularly new programs ACRE and SURE.

Coppess also reported that USDA would soon issue information about the next sign-up period for the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), though that sign-up period will not go into effect for a number of months.

The Subcommittee is scheduled to hold its next hearing on Thursday, June 24, to hear from producer representatives about their experiences with the 2008 Farm Bill. NAWG Second Vice President Erik Younggren, a wheat producer from Hallock, Minn., is scheduled to testify.

For more information about the House Agriculture Committee’s schedule and written testimony from this week’s hearing, please visit http://agriculture.house.gov.

The Senate Agriculture Committee is scheduled to hold its first hearing related to the 2012 Farm Bill on June 30, though the witness list has not yet been issued.

The proposal stems in part from concerns over a bill offered by Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) that is set to be marked up by the end of the month and its House companion offered by Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.).

That proposal would, among other things, institute statutorily-mandated TMDLs, or Total Maximum Daily Loads, which could be particularly burdensome for agricultural producers in the six-state Chesapeake Bay region, and override agriculture’s current stormwater runoff and irrigation return flow exemptions from certain aspects of the Clean Water Act. Many across the ideological spectrum are concerned not only about this proposal’s economic effects, but its technical feasibility and the likelihood of its authority migrating to other regions.

By contrast, the Holden-Goodlatte bill, dubbed the Chesapeake Bay Program Reauthorization and Improvement Act or H.R. 5099, would restructure on-going efforts to restore the Chesapeake and would set up an independent advisory committee to be composed of various expert individuals from outside government agencies. The committee would be tasked with reviewing past Chesapeake Bay initiatives, many of which have not had the desired effect despite millions of dollars spent, and the Environmental Protection Agency’s Chesapeake Bay modeling tools, which many in the region don’t believe take into account good-faith conservation efforts.

Outside of that, the bill would seek to set up a nutrient management plan that considers load allocations on a monthly, seasonal or annual basis to add flexibility for naturally occurring changes in the Bay Watershed or events caused by nature that could affect nutrient levels. The bill would also allow for a new water quality trading program to be modeled after an existing program in Pennsylvania and set up a Bay-wide trading commission to establish technical guidelines for and oversee such a system.

Importantly, the Holden-Goodlatte would use existing USDA-Natural Resources Conservation Service (USDA-NRCS) structure similar to that used to implement popular conservation programs like the Environmental Quality Incentives Program and the Farmland Protection Program and would allow for a “safe harbor” provision for farmers who undertake program efforts in good faith.

NAWG has begun work with coalition partners to seek cosponsors for the Holden-Goodlatte legislation and to attract champions in the Senate who are interested in working on companion legislation. The wide-ranging agriculture coalition is also drafting a letter expressing support for Holden-Goodlatte and concern about the Cardin bill, meant to go to the Hill next week.

For more information about the Holden-Goodlatte bill, please see http://goodlatte.house.gov/2010/06/goodlatte-introduces-legislation-to-protect-the-chesapeake-bay.shtml.

Canada and Colombia began negotiations toward their agreement in 2007 and signed it in 2008. By contrast, a U.S.-Colombia free trade agreement was signed in 2006 and approved by the Colombian Congress in 2007, but has since languished in the U.S. system along with two other agreements, with Panama and South Korea.

Colombia purchased $1.67 billion in U.S. agricultural products in 2008, sustaining thousands of U.S. jobs; in 2007/2008, U.S. wheat won nearly 70 percent of Colombian purchases. While the U.S. has maintained a strong foothold in the market since that time, U.S. wheat products are facing fierce competition from Argentina, which benefits from trade preferences under the Mercosur agreement, and Canada, which will have duty-free access once its agreement is finalized.

By contrast, tariffs on U.S. wheat to Colombia fluctuate between 10 and 15 percent and can be as high a 124 percent according to World Trade Organization bound rates – meaning U.S. wheat producers stand to lose export sales to Colombia worth up to $92 million per year, roughly half of their current market share, if the U.S.-Colombia trade agreement isn’t quickly ratified.

Unlike in the U.S., the Canadian Senate is an appointed body that typically approves bills that have passed the House of Commons.

The U.S. wheat industry will continue to follow the agreement’s progress in our northern neighbor’s legislative body and push for immediate consideration of our own pending agreement.

For more on the importance of the U.S.-Colombia agreement, please visit www.wheatworld.org/trade.

In the letter, addressed to Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture Chairwoman Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) and Ranking Member Jack Kingston (R-Ga.), the groups laid out a compelling argument for both the Market Access Program (MAP) and the Foreign Market Development (FMD) program, cost-share programs used by commodity organizations to promote their products overseas.

The groups asked that MAP be fully funded at its authorized level of $200 million and that FMD be funded at a minimum of its authorized level, $34.5 million, and, if possible, at the higher level of $69 million proposed by the Obama Administration in its FY2011 budget.

MAP and FMD stand at the core of U.S. market development efforts, with MAP money being used to share the costs of overseas market development and promotional activities with U.S. nonprofit agricultural trade organizations and others, and FMD funds allowing USDA to partner with nonprofit industry groups to focus on reducing overseas market impediments.

The groups writing this week told appropriators that since MAP’s creation in 1985, U.S. agricultural exports have increased by nearly 300 percent, and today nearly 900,000 Americans have jobs that depend on these exports.

A recent study by IHS Global Insight, commissioned by USDA and released in March, found that the increase in market development spending through MAP and FMD since 2002 increased the annual value of U.S. agricultural exports by $6.1 billion. The study also found that over the 2002-2009 period export gains associated with the programs increased the average annual level of U.S. farm cash receipts by $4.4 billion and net cash farm income by $1.5 billion.

For every additional $1 expended by government and industry on market development during this period, U.S. food and agricultural exports increased by $35. At the same time, the study also found that U.S. domestic farm support payments were reduced by roughly $54 million annually due to higher prices from increased demand abroad, thus reducing the net cost of farm programs.

Another recent study showed that, in the case of the wheat industry’s efforts using MAP, FMD and producer dollars expended by U.S. Wheat Associates, overall average revenue benefit to the entire wheat industry is estimated to be an average of about $115 for each dollar spent.

NAWG is highly supportive of full funding, as authorized in the 2008 Farm Bill, for both MAP and FMD and will continue frequent work with U.S. Wheat and other coalition partners to demonstrate the value of these programs as the appropriations process moves forward.

A copy of the full letter sent last week is at www.wheatworld.org/trade.

Murkowski’s resolution would have negated the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) 2009 finding that greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare – a finding that obligates the Agency to regulate those gases under a 2007 Supreme Court ruling.

Versions of a disapproval resolution, a rarely-used procedure outlined in the Congressional Review Act, have been introduced on this issue in both the House and Senate. Had the Senate measure been approved, it would have faced a House vote and a threatened veto from President Barack Obama before becoming law.

In other climate and energy news, analysis was expected from EPA this week on a climate and energy proposal introduced by Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), but release of that data has been delayed until early next week. It is unclear if the EPA analysis will shed new light on the bill’s actual provisions or simply expand on past analyses of climate change-related ideas.

Democratic leaders also reportedly met this week to discuss the merits of attempting to move forward with any climate or energy legislation. Senators, at least, have a multiplicity of ideas to pick and choose from, with another energy proposal added to the mix this week by Sen. Dick Lugar (R-Ind.).

NAWG staff members and the NAWG Environment and Renewable Resources Committee continue to follow the development of energy legislation that could move through Congress this session. The NAWG Board has established net economic benefit as a requirement for support of any greenhouse gas-related legislation or regulation, and NAWG signed on to a number of letters in support of the Murkowski and other disapproval proposals.

For more on this issue from NAWG, please visit www.wheatworld.org/climatechange.

The letter described those signing onto it as “Cuban citizens…political prisoners, independent librarians, bloggers, independent journalists, magazine editors, clerics, intellectuals, artists, members of civil society and of political organizations.”

“We share the opinion that the isolation of the people of Cuba benefits the most inflexible interests of its government, while any opening serves to inform and empower the Cuban people and helps to further strengthen our civil society,” the writers said in part. “We are sure that isolation does not foster relationships of respect and support for people and groups around the world who are in favor of democratic changes in Cuba.”

Peterson, Rep. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) and 32 additional original co-sponsors introduced the bill, commonly known as the Travel Restriction Reform and Export Enhancement Act, in February after a number of months of work from Members and pro-trade groups like NAWG to gather support for the measure. Extensive work has gone into consolidating further support for the measure since introduction; the bill now has 56 co-sponsors.

In a press release about the letter, Peterson said that the statement was “a strong indication that people who oppose this bill are not speaking on behalf of the Cuban people, regardless of what they say.” He also asked a common question among those who believe trade with Cuba should be appropriately liberalized: “Who are we helping by continuing policy that has been in place for 50 years and has yet to change anything?”

Since passage of the 2000 Trade Sanctions and Reform Act, U.S. farmers have seen $4 billion in sales into the Cuban market, but market potential in Cuba is far from maximized due to the trade restrictions.

NAWG and U.S. Wheat Associates, the industry’s export market development organization, have long supported on both economic and humanitarian grounds any effort to ease trade restrictions with Cuba, which cost the U.S. wheat industry an estimated $40 million per year.

More resources on the effort to ease trade restrictions with Cuba are at www.wheatworld.org/trade.

A copy of the Cuban citizens’ letter is at http://agriculture.house.gov/inside/Legislation/111/CubaCivilSocietyletter.pdf.

The agreement is non-exclusive, with both parties free to form additional collaborative arrangements with other public or private entities. K-State said in its press release that it intends to work with other public wheat breeding programs as it has in the past.

The agreement has the blessing of Kansas Wheat, a cooperative agreement between the Kansas Wheat Commission, which invests heavily in K-State wheat breeding programs, and the Kansas Association of Wheat Growers, the NAWG-affiliated state wheat growing association.

Kansas Wheat leaders said in a press release that wheat farmers’ investment in the K-State wheat breeding program through the wheat checkoff has been vital and will be protected through guidelines outlined in a principles document adopted by their organization, NAWG, U.S. Wheat Associates and the National Wheat Improvement Committee, a coalition of public wheat breeders.

The collaboration announced Friday will provide K-State with immediate access to advanced conventional breeding technologies, and its near-term impact will be quicker development of technology. However, the partnership also hews to the principles document, which was written specifically with biotechnology applications in mind.

There is no commercialized biotech wheat anywhere in the world, but NAWG believes biotechnology’s introduction into the wheat crop is necessary for the wheat industry to increase productivity, attract acres back to the crop and feed a growing global population in a sustainable way.

NAWG has worked with U.S. Wheat Associates, affiliated state associations and other wheat-chain organizations over the past four years to demonstrate the need for and potential value of biotechnology in the wheat crop, including through a grower survey released last year showing more than three-quarters of producers asked supported the use of tools like biotechnology to improve wheat.

Much more about this work, and the full text of the principles document, is available online at www.wheatworld.org/biotech.

There were reports at the beginning of the week of basis levels – which include discounts and transportation charges taken at the elevator – being so high that cash prices received by farmers were up to $2 under the Kansas City Board of Trade futures price. For producers who don’t have storage available to them, or who are in need of cash as harvest wraps up, those levels dramatically reduce the value of an otherwise decent crop.

Industry observers largely agree that the basis challenges are being caused by large stocks of low-protein wheat from last year’s crop and concerns about protein levels in the new crop, combined with international buyers waiting to see what happens with U.S. port prices and quality; a lack of available storage space throughout the exporting industry; and preexisting convergence problems.

Weather and nitrogen availability affect the protein level of wheat grain. So far, only 21 samples of hard red winter from Texas and Oklahoma have been tested and the average protein level is 11.5 percent. With the large stocks, buyers are hoping protein levels will increase as the combines roll north. Lower protein hard red winter has many potential uses, such as for blending with wheat from other classes and making baguettes or flat breads.

In Kansas City this week for other meetings, NAWG Chief Executive Officer Dana Peterson met with Kansas City Board of Trade President Jeff Borchardt and Louis Dreyfus Vice President Steve Campbell to discuss the market situation and express grower concerns.

NAWG policy staff members have also been in contact with agriculture leadership and staff on Capitol Hill to educate them about the developing issue, though few policy options exist to immediately address this type of situation.

USW, the industry’s export market development organization, has taken a number of steps to demonstrate the value of U.S. wheat and get sales on the books, which would ease the back-up of low-protein wheat throughout the system.

In addition to continuing general educational programs about the value of U.S. hard red winter wheat, USW staff members overseas have been engaging customers to determine markets that might benefit from purchasing stocks at this time. USW is also taking advantage of several opportunities to be face-to-face with customers over the next few weeks.

Both organizations will continue to work with state associations and others to monitor and provide information about the situation as the harvest season continues.

In the meantime, extensive information about crop quality is available from USW harvest reports, accessible at http://www.uswheat.org/reports/harvest, and from Plains Grains, Inc. at http://www.plainsgrains.org/.

The concept of a general permit emerged following a ruling by the Sixth Circuit Court in 2009 in the case of National Cotton Council of America v. EPA. That case concluded pesticide discharge is a point source of pollution subject to additional regulation and permitting under the Clean Water Act, meaning producers would need additional permitting for every crop protection application.

The logistics of carrying out the order – which could affect up to 5.6 million pesticide applications annually – are harrowing for EPA, state agencies and producers alike, and the general permit concept is intended to make the process easier for all involved.

In a frequently asked questions document about this week’s proposal, EPA said explicitly, “This permit does not cover terrestrial (land based) applications for the purpose of controlling pests on agricultural crops or forest floors.” However, that is quickly followed by a caveat – that “use patterns” not covered by the draft proposal would require additional permitting if the application in question could result in point-source discharge to waters of the U.S.

Key questions now at issue include how a farmer is to know on the spot if his application could fall into the definition of a point-source discharge; what counts as a “water of the United States”; and how to obtain whatever additional permitting might be needed. The penalties for noncompliance – intentional or not – could reach up to $37,500 a day, steep enough to put a producer out of business quickly.

The new NPDES permitting will be required as of April 10, 2011, when the Court’s decision takes effect. EPA has said it intends to issue a final general permit by December 2010.

Public comments on the proposal will be accepted through July 19, and EPA has scheduled four public meetings during the comment period, including sessions in Boise, Idaho, and Washington. D.C. EPA will also hold a Webcast on June 17 at 1 p.m. Eastern time to answer questions related to the proposal.

NAWG staff spent much of Thursday reviewing the proposal and talking with coalition partners, and the NAWG Environment and Renewable Resources Committee will be engaged in formulating comments and strategy for moving forward on this issue.

For much more information on the proposed permit including full draft text and the public meeting schedule, please visit http://cfpub.epa.gov/npdes/home.cfm?program_id=410.

That’s the primary conclusion of survey data released this week by the International Food Information Council (IFIC), which has done similar surveying for a decade and a half to explore consumers’ perceptions of plant and animal biotechnology.

This year, consumers responded most positively to benefits of biotechnology for the environment and sustainability. More than three-quarters (77 percent) of consumers would be likely to purchase foods produced with biotechnology due to their ability to reduce pesticide use.

Fully 80 percent of consumers said they would be likely to purchase bread, crackers, cookies, cereal or pasta products containing wheat that was grown using plant biotechnology if they were produced using sustainable practices to feed more people using fewer resources such as land and pesticides.

While products containing wheat grown using biotechnology are still up to a decade away from being commercially available, this data is an important baseline from which to consider acceptance measures in coming years.

Other key take-aways from the survey touched on sustainability, acceptance of food biotechnology and food safety.

The data showed half of consumers have heard or read at least “a little” about the concept of sustainability in food production, an increase from 2008 when 41 percent had and 2007 when 30 percent had.

About seven in ten Americans said this year that they have heard or read at least “a little” about biotechnology, which is steady from previous years. More consumers this year said they believe there are foods produced through biotechnology in the supermarket now (28 percent) compared with 2008 (23 percent), although these consumers are still the minority.

The majority of consumers also said they are somewhat or very likely to purchase a variety of produce, such as tomatoes or potatoes, modified by biotechnology to provide more healthful fats like Omega-3s, to avoid trans fats or to make them taste better or fresher.

Nearly seven in ten consumers (69 percent) are somewhat or very confident in the safety of the U.S. food supply.

Much more about the survey’s findings is available from IFIC’s website at http://www.foodinsight.org/Resources/Detail.aspx?topic=2010_Consumer_Perceptions_of_Food_Technology_Survey.

Survey information from past years is at http://www.foodinsight.org/Resources/Detail.aspx?topic=Consumer_Insights_Regarding_Food_Biotechnology.

The hearing will be in the Committee’s meeting room in the Russell Senate Office Building in Washington, beginning at 9:30 a.m. A witness list was not available at press time, but the hearing’s topic as announced is, “Maintaining Our Domestic Food Supply through a Strong U.S. Farm Policy”.

The Committee press release announcing the first hearing indicated that three additional hearings will follow, with topics to include the rural economy, conservation and renewable energy.

The announcement was somewhat surprising to agriculture observers because Lincoln had previously said farm bill hearings would not likely start until 2011 due to other major priorities, including regulatory reform and childhood nutrition reauthorization.

By contrast, the House Agriculture Committee has already held 10 hearings to gather testimony from Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, agriculture economists and academics and farmers, including four wheat producers testifying on behalf of their NAWG-affiliated state associations. The House Committee’s subcommittee with jurisdiction over farm programs announced this week that it will hold two hearings this month, on June 17 and 24.

As part of its 2012 Farm Bill planning process, members of the NAWG Board of Directors are currently reviewing the results of an idea-mining survey conducted earlier this spring. NAWG staff in Washington, D.C., will continue to work closely with Agriculture Committee staff on both sides of the Hill, key Members and their offices and other agriculture organizations as the 2012 Farm Bill process develops.

Previous analysis by EPA and USDA has been done with a model known as FASOM, which has limits widely acknowledged by many in the agriculture community, including USDA’s Chief Economist Joe Glauber. Making matters worse, prior studies have generally looked at generic climate change policy, versus specific provisions proposed in Congress.

The groups noted particular concern that climate change policy analysis previously issued did not take into account all of the offset types included in a bill passed by the House last summer or in more recent proposals.

Offset types rejected from the analysis included such things as conservation tillage, changes in fertilizer applications and alternative manure management systems. By not taking greenhouse gas reductions from these practices into account, the model skewed both the projections of money to be made through carbon markets and the estimates of forest land needed to sequester the desired amount of carbon.

The most recent climate and energy proposal, from Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), was introduced this month and is being looked at now by EPA, USDA and other government agencies. The groups writing on Wednesday specifically urged that EPA and USDA work together and with the agriculture community to ensure a quality analysis of the Kerry-Lieberman proposal so all involved can accurately assess its likely effects if approved.

Signatories of the letter included NAWG, Agricultural Carbon Market Working Group, American Farmland Trust, International Biochar Initiative, National Corn Growers Association, National Farmers Union, National Milk Producers Federation and The Fertilizer Institute.

The full letter is available online at www.wheatworld.org/climatechange.

In a letter sent Friday to leaders of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees, the groups outlined the need for an appropriation of $580 million for P.L. 480 Title II. This request represents a dramatic increase over the Obama Administration’s request of $150 million, but is needed as hunger around the world persists following a global recession and ongoing conflict and natural disasters.

About $1.5 billion – including $1.4 billion from Title II and $100 million from the International Disaster Assistance Account – is currently available for emergency food assistance, but that figure is expected to prove insufficient to meet the need around the world or the level of commitment typically provided by the U.S.

Based on the World Food Program’s (WFP’s) assessment of global emergency food aid requirements, at least $5.2 billion is needed this year to cover the cost of commodities and related transportation, storage, handling, distribution, administration and monitoring. The U.S. typically provides at least 40 percent of global emergency food assistance, meaning $2.08 billion for 2010.

“Without additional funding, the World Food Program (WFP) and other humanitarian organizations will be forced to reduce lifesaving assistance to some of the world’s most vulnerable populations who have been devastated by humanitarian emergencies,” the groups told appropriators. They also stressed the importance of continuing WFP programs in areas like Afghanistan where the U.S. continues to combat the roots of terrorism.

The Administration has requested $150 million in the supplemental to address needs in Haiti, but WFP operations are also under threat in countries including Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sudan, Kenya, Chad, Ethiopia and others.

In 2008, Title II emergency food aid programs distributed nearly 2 million metric tons of U.S. commodities.

The grower-governed U.S. wheat industry is a strong and consistent supporter of food aid programs. For more information about the industry’s food aid principles and priorities, and to read the full letter sent this week, please visit www.wheatworld.org/foodaid.

The results of an independent study released last week confirm that USDA’s overall market development partnership with industry has added billions of dollars in returns to U.S. farmers and ranchers. This study closely follows the results of a recent study commissioned by U.S. Wheat Associates (USW) showing that wheat export promotion yields profitable returns to the U.S. economy and is a catalyst for building economic capacity overseas.

USDA conducted the study to evaluate the effects of the Market Access Program (MAP) and the Foreign Market Development Program (FMD) administered by USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS). It updates a larger study conducted in 2006 and focuses on the period from 2002 through 2009. By 2009, the report concluded, increased market development spending since 2002 increased U.S. export market share by 1.3 percent and the annual value of U.S. agricultural exports by US$6.1 billion.

Citing the President’s National Export Initiative in announcing the new study results, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said USDA is working aggressively to increase exports that benefit farmers, ranchers, and the entire U.S. economy. “Each $1 billion in exports supports 8,000 to 9,000 jobs at home,” he said.

The USDA study results are consistent with the conclusions of an economic analysis of wheat export promotion released in January 2010. That study showed U.S. wheat producers received $23 in net revenue for every $1 they invested in export promotion between 2000 and 2007. One of the econometric models used in the study also showed that the entire wheat industry received an average of $115 in gross revenue for every dollar invested by producers and FAS.

The benefits of export market development extend beyond U.S. shores, however. Nigerian flour millers recently told U.S. government officials how wheat export promotion is helping build economic capacity in their country. Kabiru Isyaku Rabiu, Group Executive Director for Nigerian milling company BUA Group, said trade promotion clearly works.

“Nigeria today has a milling capacity of 6 million [metric] tons, and we are doing 3.5 million at most,” Mr. Rabiu said. “MAP and other programs provide training for our employees and if we can do more together, the potential for significant growth is there.”

Folarinmi Odunayo, CEO of Nigeria’s Honeywell Flour Mills, said that USW gave the milling industry the technical knowledge to build new markets for wheat-based foods.

“For example, we now provide baking training to our customers,” he said. “And all that has been possible because U.S. Wheat Associates has always been ready to fund these programs.”

To learn more about the USDA study, visit the FAS Web site at http://bit.ly/daviKs. To review the export promotion cost/benefit study commissioned by USW, visit our Web site at http://bit.ly/bPZLEC.

The blog was started last year to document the experiences of two life-long custom harvesters and their families’ operations. This year, correspondents Jada Bulgin and Jenna Zeorian will be joined by a third correspondent, Sage Sammons.

The outreach – which also has a presence on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube – allows producers and members of the public to follow the crop’s progress and the ups and downs of being part of a traveling band of harvesters-for-hire.

High Plains Journal and DuPont Crop Protection sponsor the blog, which is updated daily. The correspondents also have a Twitter feed, accessible at http://twitter.com/AllAboardTour; a YouTube page at http://www.youtube.com/allaboardtour; and a Flickr photo-sharing page at http://www.flickr.com/allaboardtour.

To learn more, read the blog and sign up for e-mail updates, please visit www.allaboardharvest.com or the NAWG home page, www.wheatworld.org, where the blog is highlighted.

The Restoring American Financial Stability Act of 2010 is ostensibly designed to improve accountability and transparency in the financial system and to protect consumers from abusive financial services practices.

Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) said in a release Thursday that passage of the bill “is a significant step to bringing real reform to our nation’s financial markets, giving the American people the transparency and accountability they deserve.”

NAWG has been working along with a number of agriculture and lending organizations to ensure that those using derivatives to manage business risks, including the farm credit system and others, would be able to continue doing so without added costs.

Specifically, NAWG joined a number of other commodity groups and financial institutions Wednesday in expressing support for Senate Amendment 3903, authored by Senate Agriculture Committee Ranking Member Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.). The technical amendment would clarify provisions in the bill that were intended to exempt Farmer Mac farm and rural electric cooperative loan programs from the bill’s risk retention requirements.

The letter, which is available in full at www.wheatworld.org/othercorrespondence, said in part:

“This clarifying amendment reinforces the intent of the underlying legislation, ensuring uninterrupted delivery of fixed rate farm loans to farmers and ranchers through Farmer Mac programs…Without passage of the amendment, there will be fewer fixed rate loan options available to farmers at a higher cost.”

Though not adopted in the Senate-passed bill, NAWG will continue working to ensure that these technical changes are made as the bill moves through the conference process.

Next on the agenda for the Senate is consideration of a $59 billion supplemental spending bill, H.R. 4899. That legislation would fund ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, provide relief for Haiti following a devastating earthquake there and address a number of domestic priorities.

The House is gearing up to take advantage of the week leading up to Memorial Day recess by considering a compromise package of tax cuts and benefit extensions which reportedly will include a retroactive extension of the biodiesel tax credit that expired at the beginning of the year and monies for ad hoc agriculture disaster payments.

On Monday, the Committee heard from two panels of producers in Lubbock, Tex., including David Cleavinger, a wheat producer from Wildorado, Texas, and former NAWG president. Cleavinger touched on the importance of maintaining budget baseline for the farm bill; the critical role crop insurance plays in the farm safety net; the industry’s interest in continued focus on conservation programs; and the importance of a robust trade agenda.

He emphasized Texas farmers’ support for federal farm programs that help to mitigate risk inherent in farming and specifically called for passage of three pending free trade agreements and a bill introduced to liberalize trade restrictions with Cuba, citing a Center for North American Studies study that said passage of the Cuba bill, H.R. 4645, would nearly double Texas’ agriculture exports annually.

The Committee was in Sioux Falls, S.D., on Tuesday to hear from two panels – one consisting largely of producers, and the second made up of representatives of the biofuels sector. At that hearing, Steve Masat, president of South Dakota Wheat Inc., dove into recommendations on a number of issues including farm programs, crop insurance, conservation, biofuels, biotechnology and research.

In his written testimony, Masat stated that “producers seek a safety net within the Farm Bill that reflects the realities of today’s production system. We believe this safety net needs to be composed of reliable and meaningful programs that provide coverage for producers and keeps in mind the role that United States farmers play in the global market.”

Prior to those hearings, the Committee had heard from academics and producers in Troy, Ala., and Morrow, Ga., over the weekend.

More information on the House Agriculture Committee hearings, including links to written testimony of all witnesses, can be found at http://agriculture.house.gov/hearings/statements.html.

The NAWG Board of Directors approved the hire at its meeting at the 2010 Commodity Classic and an advertisement for the new position was distributed throughout the industry last week.

The new hire will be responsible for coordinating industry efforts related to the commercialization of biotech wheat; maintaining an inventory of public and private research; leading federal research appropriations and other policy efforts; and serving as liaison to various coalitions.

The new director will act as NAWG’s official representative in the policy arena, at industry conferences and other related events. The position will require after-hours work and travel and will likely include public speaking and other formal and informal communications activities.

The ideal candidate will hold a degree in agriculture, public policy or a related field; have excellent stakeholder coordination, project planning and implementation skills; and have demonstrated communications strengths. Candidates should also have the ability to work in a small-office environment and in a bipartisan fashion.

Preference will be given to candidates who have experience with biotechnology commercialization coordination, the federal appropriations process and/or the U.S. wheat production system.

More detailed information about the position and application procedures is available at http://www.wheatworld.org/about-us/career-opportunities/.

At a press conference that accompanied the release of the legislation, Senator Kerry said, “We can finally tell the world that America is ready to take back our role as the world’s clean energy leader. This is a bill for energy independence after a devastating oil spill, a bill to hold polluters accountable, a bill for billions of dollars to create the next generation of jobs, and a bill to end America’s addiction to foreign oil and protect the air our children breathe and the water they drink.”

Republican Senator Lindsay Graham, who had worked with Kerry and Lieberman for months on the legislation but recently backed off to focus on immigration legislation stated, “When it comes to our nation’s policy on energy independence and pollution control, I don’t believe any American finds the status quo acceptable. Many Senators from both parties have stated that Congress should set energy and carbon policy, not the EPA. I could not agree more.”

Of particular interest to agriculture, the legislation establishes an offset credit program for domestic emission reduction. This program would be administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture rather than the EPA, which most agriculture groups had fought hard to achieve. The program tracks very closely with legislation previously introduced by Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) that many agriculture groups, including NAWG, had worked on with Senator Stabenow’s staff. Letters of support for Senator Stabenow’s bill were submitted by NAWG, the National Corn Growers Association, the American Farm Bureau Federation and others.

However, many details of the complex legislation are still being analyzed and may not be fully known until analysis is completed by the Environmental Protection Agency, USDA, the Congressional Budget Office and others. This may take weeks.

It is unclear at this time when or if the Senate may take action on the legislation. Initial indications from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s office signaled that the Senate may take up some form of energy or carbon control legislation in June or July.

Much of the discussion both from the invited witnesses and Members of the Committee related to proposals of how to best prioritize and spend limited dollars in future farm policy. A list of witnesses and copies of their written testimony can be accessed at http://agriculture.house.gov/hearings/statements.html.

Additional 2012 Farm Bill field hearings continued today and will span into early next week. Committee members heard today from academics and producers in Morrow, Ga., and will travel to Troy, Ala. for more testimony on Saturday.

Hearings will continue in Lubbock, Texas on May 17, including testimony from David Cleavinger, wheat producer from Texas and former NAWG President, followed by a May 18 hearing in Sioux Falls, S.D. where Steve Masat, President of South Dakota Wheat Inc., will provide testimony.

For those unable to attend the hearings in person, live audio and video is available at the start of each hearing, and can be accessed at http://agriculture.house.gov/hearings/audio.html.

NAWG joined 15 other agricultural organizations this week in urging Senators to ensure that Farmer Mac, the Farm Credit System and the Federal Home Loan Banks are exempted from limitations on proprietary trading activity. The bill currently being considered in the Senate, S. 3217, currently exempts other government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs ) such as Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, but does not exempt agricultural GSEs.

The letter read, in part, “Access to reliable, competitively-priced credit is an important input for successful farming operations… We are concerned that legislative action would decrease availability of credit for agriculture or increase its cost from our major lenders.”

The full letter can be accessed at http://www.wheatworld.org/issues/othercorrespondence/.

Producer-members of organizations representing wheat, corn, beef and pork, along with the American Farm Bureau Federation, spoke to an estimated 40 reporters at noontime Monday at the National Press Club and via conference call.

The conference, organized by the National Pork Producers Council, was intended to show a united front and again emphasize to Administration and Hill leaders how vital it is to finalize the three pending free trade agreements, which have all been stalled since 2007.

Speaking on behalf of the U.S. wheat industry was Dale Schuler, a producer from Carter, Mont., a former NAWG president and current chairman of the NAWG/U.S. Wheat Joint International Trade Policy Committee.

“The simple fact is that the U.S. is losing market share in Colombia,” Schuler told the assembled media. “We hear from our Colombian buyers that our share of that market could fall to as low as 30 percent if Canada approves its’ free trade agreement before we finalize ours. We can’t let that happen.”

The wheat industry’s top trade priority remains the Colombia agreement, which is key to maintaining annual wheat exports worth $165 million on average, representing roughly a 70 percent market share in the country. U.S. wheat faces competition in Colombia from Argentina, which enjoys advantages from the Mercosur trade agreement allowing for duty-free access, and Canada, which is poised to soon approve its own free trade agreement.

U.S. Wheat Associates estimates that, at current export prices, failure to ratify the U.S.-Colombia FTA could lead to an annual loss of more than $92 million for the U.S. wheat industry.

On the other hand, analysis by the Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute (FAPRI) suggests that if the Colombia FTA were in effect now, U.S. wheat exports would be 20 million bushels greater and the farm price would be 10 cents per bushel higher.

Schuler also emphasized these messages in a half dozen other interviews with farm broadcasters around the country and at the National Association of Farm Broadcasting’s Washington Watch interview-fair, held Monday afternoon in Washington. NAWG and U.S. Wheat staff members were also on hand at Washington Watch and did at least an additional dozen interviews covering issues from farm bill to Clean Water Act regulations.

Much more information about the pending agreements and their effect on wheat producers is available at www.wheatworld.org/trade.

Members of the Committee began last week a two-part series of field hearings, with the first leg of the tour concluding Tuesday in Cheyenne, Wyo. Representatives are seeking to hear directly from stakeholders in the countryside about how they feel the 2008 Farm Bill has worked and what should be looked at as the 2012 process begins.

Scott Brown, a wheat and barley producer from Soda Springs, Idaho, represented the Idaho Grain Producers Association at a hearing in Nampa, Idaho, focusing his comments on farm bill baseline and budget considerations, existing farm programs, crop insurance and conservation.

Jerry Cooksey, a producer from Roggen, Colo., testified on behalf of the Colorado Association of Wheat Growers at a hearing in Cheyenne, Wyo. He spoke on a variety of topics including the goals of federal farm policy, the importance of crop insurance and the need for a robust trade agenda.

Complete copies of their testimony, along with that of other invited witnesses, can be found on the House Agriculture Committee website at http://agriculture.house.gov/hearings/statements.html.

Committee Members will hit the road again beginning Friday, May 14, stopping in Sioux Falls, S.D., on Tuesday, May 18, where South Dakota Wheat, Inc.’s president, producer Steve Masat, will testify.

For those who cannot attend the hearings in person, the House Agriculture Committee plans to provide live video coverage of each hearing on the Committee’s website, accessible at http://agriculture.house.gov/hearings/audio.html.

The latest scheduling information is at http://agriculture.house.gov/hearings/schedule.html.

The Committee is also collecting public comments to be inserted into the field hearing record via http://agriculture.house.gov/inside/feedbackform.html.  The deadline for comments is June 14.

 Darrington’s comments during the session centered on the economic decision of how to best utilize the land, water and capital resources each planting season. The competitiveness of wheat has weakened compared to other crops that offer a higher profit. The U.S. wheat grower’s approach to this competitiveness challenge has been to join with growers from Australia and Canada to encourage investment in technology; including but not limited to biotechnology, through the 2009 trilateral agreement so that this increased investment will increase profitability. The panel discussion was sponsored by Bayer CropScience.

Dana Peterson, NAWG CEO, attended the full convention which included a Food and Agriculture track as well as tracks for health and energy industry leaders. Food and Agriculture topics included a current look and outlook for next generation technologies, implications of asynchronous approval for international trade, study of world-wide public perception of technologies and legal and regulatory issues around biotechnology. Sideline meetings with industry leaders to discuss investments in wheat development provided additional insight to future opportunities for wheat growers.

The study, undertaken by Informa Economics with support from American Farmland Trust, takes a broad look at possible cap-and-trade policies, examining drivers that could increase benefits and minimize costs.

The executive summary released Thursday concludes that, if structured properly, cap-and-trade has the potential to provide some benefits to farmers. However, there are also plausible policy design outcomes that could be very harmful, and a lack of engagement could leave agriculture in a weaker position if and when a final bill comes to fruition.

The report identifies policy issues that can represent risks or opportunities to the agricultural sector. A few key policy points include:

• Carbon allowances distributed to the fertilizer industry are critical in keeping the cost impacts down. It is important that these allowances are maintained, and language is inserted into the legislation to ensure that their benefit is passed on to farmers.
• Legislation should maximize the number of carbon offsetting opportunities.
• Legislation should ensure continued enrollment in offset programs is available for as long as is justifiable.
• Agriculture’s involvement is critical in establishing methodologies used to calculate sequestration rates for various carbon offsetting activities.

“This information highlights that we need to pay careful attention to issues of cost containment and potential benefits,” said NAWG Environment and Renewable Resources (ERR) Committee Chairman Eric Hasselstrom, a wheat producer from Winchester, Idaho. “For myself and other members of our Board, I know this process has been a learning experience and the study that resulted is a tool we will be able to evaluate legislative text as it becomes available.”

“We appreciate the opportunity to work with American Farmland Trust to get this study done,” said NAWG President Jerry McReynolds, a producer from Woodston, Kan. “We look forward to continuing to formulate policy priorities as Congress and the Environmental Protection Agency take action related to greenhouse gases.”

Many of the executive summary’s conclusions were also included in a PowerPoint presentation provided to the NAWG ERR Committee at the 2010 Commodity Classic, held in March. That presentation is also available at www.wheatworld.org/climatechange.

The NAWG Board of Directors has directed staff to engage in climate change legislation negotiations to achieve an outcome that is in the best interest of our grower-members. On Sept. 4, 2009, the NAWG Board of Directors approved a resolution regarding greenhouse gas regulation requiring a net economic benefit from greenhouse legislation or regulation for a measure to gain NAWG’s support.

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Contact: Dana Peterson, NAWG, dpeterson@wheatworld.org

The National Association of Wheat Growers is encouraging producers across the country to participate in virtual Rail Day 2010 activities by calling or writing their Members of Congress.

This year’s Rail Day will happen in Washington on Wednesday, with representatives from industries as varied as agriculture to electricity converging to meet with Members and show a united front on efforts to address the needs of captive shippers.

Two NAWG officers will be in town to participate in meetings. NAWG strongly supports passage of currently pending rail legislation including S. 2889, the Surface Transportation Board Reauthorization Act of 2009, which passed out of the Senate Commerce Committee in December 2009 and can move to enactment in 2010.

Key points NAWG and other rail reform advocates will be stressing include:

• Wheat producers rely on an effective railroad system to stay in business. For many, rail shipment is the only cost-effective transportation mode available.
• Producers recognize the need for railroads to attract investment. Producers also need and deserve reasonable rail rates and service, necessitating a strong, reformed Surface Transportation Board (STB) to oversee the sector in a balanced manner.
• The Surface Transportation Board Reauthorization Act of 2009 (S. 2889) represents a balanced compromise that enhances competition and addresses both the needs of the shipping community and the need for railroads to attract needed investment.
• This legislation will bring much-needed balance back to the STB, and create a more level playing field for both railroads and shippers.

Recognizing the window of opportunity to put this issue to rest this year is narrowing, NAWG is urging Members to cosponsor S. 2889 and relay the importance of passage to Senate leadership.

More about NAWG’s rail work is available at www.wheatworld.org/transportation or www.wheatworld.org/railday2010.

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The wheat industry’s top trade priority remains the Colombia agreement, which is key to maintaining more than $90 million in wheat exports to Colombia every year. U.S. wheat faces competition in Colombia from Argentina, which enjoys advantages from the Mercosur trade agreement allowing for duty-free access, and Canada, which is poised to soon approve its own free trade agreement.

Producers-members of organizations representing wheat, corn, beef and pork, along with the American Farm Bureau Federation, spoke to reporters at the National Press Club at noon.

Speaking at the press conference on behalf of the U.S. wheat industry was Dale Schuler, a former NAWG president and current chairman of the NAWG/U.S. Wheat Joint International Trade Policy Committee.

“The simple fact is that the U.S. is losing market share in Colombia,” Schuler told the assembled media. “We hear from our Colombian buyers that our share of that market could fall as low as 30 percent if Canada approves its free trade agreement before we finalize ours. We can’t let that happen.”

U.S. Wheat Associates estimates that, at current export prices, failure to ratify the U.S.-Colombia FTA could lead to an annual loss of more than $92 million for the U.S. wheat industry.

On the other hand, analysis by the Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute (FAPRI) suggests that if the Colombia FTA were in effect now, U.S. wheat exports would be 20 million bushels greater and the farm price would be 10 cents per bushel higher.

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The coalition told Members that the bill, which would clarify payment provisions for Cuban buyers and allow U.S. citizens to travel to Cuba, “represents an opportunity to remove unjustified U.S. barriers to our own agricultural sector”.

The group said since the opportunity to sell U.S. farm goods to Cuba was opened in 2000, U.S. farmers have seen $4 billion in sales. However, the restrictions that remain in place on U.S. ag sales mean producers are failing to realize the market potential in the island nation, hurting both the Cuban people and the U.S. economy.

The coalition writing this week urged all Members of the House Agriculture Committee to cosponsor the measure, formally known as the Travel Restriction Reform and Export Enhancement Act, H.R. 4645, and report it favorably to the full House.

The group said, in part:

“The bill simply clarifies how U.S. farmers and agricultural businesses conduct sales to Cuba and allows U.S. citizens to travel to Cuba, consistent with their ability to do so to every other country, including other U.S. sanctioned countries. These modest changes will establish and protect U.S. agriculture’s reputation as a reliable supplier and provide the opportunity to maintain and grow U.S. agricultural sales to Cuba.”

The drumbeat of activity with respect to Cuba legislation has grown louder in recent months, with the introduction of the Peterson-Moran measure in February and a House Agriculture Committee hearing on the restrictions in March, at which NAWG President Jerry McReynolds testified.

The House Ways and Means Committee’s Trade Subcommittee held its own hearing on Thursday to examine U.S. policy with respect to Cuba.

Testimony presented and Member comments showed a growing sentiment that U.S. policy toward Cuba has not fulfilled U.S. foreign policy goals and is indeed doing nothing but hampering U.S. economic competitiveness, with change long overdue.

In announcing the hearing, Subcommittee Chairman John Tanner (D-Tenn.) said, “It is clear to me that the United States’ policy toward Cuba is not working. The embargo has failed to achieve its objectives and has shut U.S. workers, farmers and businesses out of the Cuban market…It is time to expand our approach to promote U.S. economic interests and support democracy and human rights in Cuba as well.”

Another interesting comment came from a Chamber of Commerce representative, who testified citing a Texas A&M study released in March showing the Peterson-Moran bill would lead to $365 million in additional sales and create 6,000 jobs.

NAWG is preparing comments for the record of this hearing to mirror McReynolds’ March testimony. That statement and more on the Cuba issue are at http://www.wheatworld.org/issues/trade/.

Video of witness statements from the Ways and Means hearing this week can be accessed http://waysandmeans.house.gov/Hearings/hearingDetails.aspx?NewsID=11147.

The event is scheduled for at noon in the Zenger Room of the National Press Club in Washington.

Reporters outside of Washington will be able to call in at 888-293-6979 (in the U.S.) or 719-325-2413 (outside the U.S.), using pass code 9435383 to access the conference line.

In his State of the Union address, President Barack Obama set a goal of doubling exports over the next five years to stimulate economic growth.

Ag groups have long argued that this is achievable with the help of the agriculture sector; agricultural sales overseas are on track to hit $100 million this fiscal year, and agricultural exports have remained strong even through the recession.

The groups taking part in Monday’s event, organized by the National Pork Producers Council, have argued for quick passage of the pending agreements for a number of years, saying the access they provide will help increase and maintain market share in an increasingly competitive global economy.

Montana producer Dale Schuler, a former NAWG president and current chairman of the NAWG/U.S. Wheat Joint International Trade Policy Committee, will be the wheat industry’s representative at the conference.

Schuler will also give a number of other media interviews before the press conference and participate in the Washington Watch interview fair held by the National Association of Farm Broadcasting on Monday afternoon.

The wheat industry’s top trade priority remains the Colombia agreement, which is key to maintaining more than $90 million in wheat exports to Colombia every year. U.S. wheat faces competition in Colombia from Argentina, which benefits from the Mercosur trade agreement allowing for duty-free access, and Canada, which is poised to soon approve its own free trade agreement.

U.S. Wheat Associates estimates that, at current export prices, failure to ratify the U.S.-Colombia FTA could lead to an annual loss of more than $92 million for the U.S. wheat industry.

On the other hand, analysis by the Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute (FAPRI) suggests that if the Colombia FTA were in effect now, U.S. wheat exports would be 20 million bushels greater and the farm price would be 10 cents per bushel higher.

For more on the importance of the pending FTAs and the wheat industry’s trade agenda please see www.wheatworld.org/trade or www.uswheat.org/whatWeDo/tradePolicy.

For information from a House Small Business Committee hearing held this week to examine how trade affects small businesses, including farms, please visit http://www.house.gov/smbiz/.

Rail Day is an annual event that allows rail shippers concerned with access and price to converge on Washington to talk to Members of Congress about their experiences.

This year, NAWG is preparing a number of virtual Rail Day activities for producers who are undertaking spring work back home or whose organizations can’t afford an extra trip to Washington.

Activities online, just like those on the ground in D.C., will focus on consolidating Congressional support for S. 2889, the Surface Transportation Board Reauthorization Act of 2009, which the Senate Commerce Committee passed in December after months of work by key Members, Committee staff and coalition partners like NAWG.

Examples of things anyone can undertake from home are calling key Members of Congress – perhaps the most important thing to help the cause – or submitting a thoughtful letter to the editor.

This year’s events come on the heels of a new report from USDA that further illustrates the need for updates to our nation’s rail transportation policy.

The Study of Rural Transportation Issues report, released Tuesday, was called for in the 2008 Farm Bill to take a comprehensive look at agriculture transportation in the U.S., including transportation by truck, rail, barge and ocean vessel.

USDA said the 600+ page report examines some of the major issues facing agricultural transportation, including “the dramatic effect of deregulation on the rail industry, a growing gap for funding the inland waterways and highway systems, availability of containers and ocean vessel capacity, and the infrastructure that may be needed to support a projected increase in biofuel transportation.” The report also looks at U.S. transportation policy, which typically treats each mode as a separate issue without consideration for how they interconnect.

NAWG works in a number of venues to seek solutions to ongoing rail problems experienced by members, including working for necessary legislative changes. While the situation has improved over the years, particularly as NAWG and other stakeholder groups have sought to create dialogue with rail companies, legislative work remains an important element to overdue, lasting reform of rail oversight.

For more on NAWG’s rail activities, please visit www.wheatworld.org/transportation.

The full USDA study and shorter bites of major components are available at http://www.ams.usda.gov/AMSv1.0/RuralTransportationStudy.

In his testimony and a press conference that followed, Vilsack focused his comments on the livelihood of rural America in general, a departure for many Members and farm constituents who think of farm safety net programs as the meat of farm bill discussions.

Vilsack said that agriculture’s immense productivity – one farmer now feeds 155 people, versus 19 in 1940 – does not hew with department statistics showing only 11 percent of family farm household income comes from operation of the farm.

He also expressed concern about the aging of farm operators, the general loss of population in a majority of rural counties and a series of disturbing statistics showing rural dwellers face lower per capita income, higher rates of job loss and more difficulty finding and maintaining good jobs than their urban counterparts.

“This suggests the need for a very strong safety net, but it also suggests that there’s another aspect to the safety net, and that is the significance and importance of jobs,” Vilsack said.

He said that the 2008 Farm Bill and the Recovery Act stimulus package, enacted to help reverse the economic downturn of the existing recession, put into place a framework to create a new rural economy by incentivizing the expansion of broadband and new energy production. He described a wealth of other possibilities including the development of local production and consumption linkages, opportunities to use conservation programs for recreation development and increased income from “ecosystems markets” like carbon sequestration.

To develop these opportunities, Vilsack encouraged a focus on coordination between parts of the federal government, federal and local governments and individual rural communities.

Asked directly at the press conference about whether he would like a farm safety net bill or a rural development bill, Vilsack noted Congress would ultimately write the legislation. However, he went on to describe focusing only on safety net programs as “not in the best interest” of farmers or the country, and urged a broad approach, saying there’s talk about farm safety net programs “all the time”.

In the near-term, Wednesday’s hearing also served to fill in a number of logistical blanks. Vilsack touched on the implementation process for the 2008 Farm Bill, which is still very much underway, saying “the volume, complexity, and public policy impact of these provisions are great,” but providing little new information.

Notably, Vilsack said he is committed to working with Congress on issues relating to the renegotiation of the Standard Reinsurance Agreement (SRA) between USDA and crop insurance providers, particularly with respect to maintaining the budget baseline for the 2012 Farm Bill. He also indicated USDA is not planning to undertake a comprehensive farm bill proposal, which was done during the 2007 debate, but will be offering input into the process informally.

The House Committee has set four field hearings in the coming weeks, for April 30 in Des Moines, Iowa; May 1 in Nampa, Idaho; May 3 in Fresno, Calif.; and May 4 in Cheyenne, Wyo.

Complete scheduling information and a full copy of Vilsack’s written testimony are accessible at http://agriculture.house.gov/.

U.S. Wheat Associates hosted the trade team, which spent two full days of a weeklong trip in Washington, meeting with officials on Capitol Hill and in the Administration as well as members of the media as part of a lunchtime media availability hosted by NAWG in its Capitol Hill offices.

The U.S. maintains 90 percent market share in Nigeria, which is largely attributed to the strong relationship U.S. Wheat has been able to establish with the country’s millers.

Since 2001, when U.S. Wheat opened a technical service office in Lagos, average annual wheat sales to Nigeria have doubled from about 1.5 million metric tons (55 million bushels) to almost three million metric tons (110 million bushels), returning billions of dollars back to the U.S. economy. Nigeria buys more U.S. hard red winter wheat every year than any other country and will likely be the largest U.S. wheat buyer in the world in the marketing year running from June 2009 to May 2010.

This growth has been supported by U.S. Wheat’s work to help millers introduce new products including pasta, instant noodles and cookies into the growing market – projects that are largely funded through the Market Access Program (MAP) and Foreign Market Development (FMD) program authorized in the 2008 Farm Bill.

These programs are administered by USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service and provide funds to U.S. nonprofit organizations to match producer dollars that go to trade and technical service projects.

The story of success in the Nigerian flour milling industry is one example of how the public-private investment in export promotion supports local capacity-building and helps stimulate economic opportunity here in the United States.

A recent economic analysis from U.S. Wheat shows producers received $23 back in increased net revenue for every $1 invested between 2000 and 2007. The study estimated that the overall average gross revenue benefit to the entire wheat industry from the combined producer and federal investment was about $115 for each dollar spent.

Another recent study, from Global Insight, showed that since 2006, increased market promotion and development spending is estimated to have increased the value of trade from $90.5 billion to $96.1 billion.

NAWG is highly supportive of full funding, as authorized in the 2008 Farm Bill, for both MAP and FMD program and works frequently with U.S. Wheat and other coalition partners to demonstrate the value of these programs.

The session will cover how well ACRE, which stands for Average Crop Revenue Election, protected crop revenue for 2009 and what the outlook is for 2010 through 2012.

Presenters will include Farm Service Agency ACRE expert Brent Orr and Ohio State University economist Carl Zulauf, who also presented on a similar webinar last year. NAWG and the National Corn Growers Association are cosponsoring the event.

The webinar will be originally broadcast Thursday, May 6, at 7 a.m. Central time. Producers can learn more and sign up at http://about.dtnpf.com/ag/news_events/events/webinars/index.cfm#reb.

The new ACRE program, established in the 2008 Farm Bill, provides payments when both the state and the farm have incurred a revenue loss according to a complex formula taking into account state yield and a two-year national average price.

 In exchange for participating in ACRE, producers agree to forgo the counter-cyclical program, take a 20 percent reduction in the direct payment and a 30 percent reduction in marketing assistance loan rates. Once enrolled in ACRE, a farm must be in the program through the 2012 crop year. The next sign-up deadline for ACRE is June 1.

The Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute (FAPRI) estimated this week that wheat growers will receive $245 million of the $294 million of ACRE payments to be made on 12 major commodities during the 2009-2010 crop year. The high payments were the result of large drops in price and yield in wheat, compared to other crops.

FAPRI offers an ACRE calculator that has been updated as of April 9, available online at http://www.fapri.missouri.edu/farmers_corner/tools/acre.asp.

For the full release from FAPRI is at http://extension.missouri.edu/news/DisplayStory.aspx?N=735.

Part One: Conservation on Your Farms

Part Two: What’s Changed Over the Years?

Part Three: What You’d Like Urban Dwellers to Know

NAWG is also celebrating Earth Day with America’s Heartland, the public television show about American agriculture that reaches a million viewers per showing. A special Heartland Earth Day webisode is available here.

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Like its House companion, which was approved in July of last year, the Senate bill, S. 510, would grant the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authority to oversee everything from food production and processing to distribution and retail, and to ensure that imported food meets U.S. safety standards.

S. 510 as approved by the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee has been preferred by NAWG and some other agricultural organizations because it is more science-based than the House bill, but language incorporating changes made since Committee passage is not yet available.

In advance of bill language being finalized, NAWG and 26 other groups wrote Chairman Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and Ranking Member Michael Enzi (R-Wyo.) to oppose the inclusion of any traceability standards that would subject farms to new recordkeeping requirements or apply to commodities that are currently comingled for transportation, storage and processing.

The groups told Harkin and Enzi that the comingled commodity system is integral to the efficiency and cost-competitiveness of U.S. food, and that current recordkeeping requirements under the Bioterrorism Act of 2002 are sufficient for comingled commodities.

They said that additional recordkeeping requiring processors to be able to link specific products to a specific warehouse or farm would be “impractical and unachievable, and would not yield demonstrable improvements to food or feed safety.”

“In essence,” the groups said, “such a requirement would require the industry, including small entities, to begin receiving, storing and shipping commodities on a segregated, identity-preserved basis, requiring construction of extensive new storage facilities and use of segregated rail, truck and barge transportation, depressing farm prices and totally undermining the ability of U.S. agriculture to provide an abundant, affordable and safe food and feed supply.”

NAWG and coalition partners have been closely watching the effort to strengthen food safety regulation, which has gained traction in part due to a number of high-profile food safety scares in recent years.

For more on the food safety legislative process and a fully copy of this week’s letter, please visit www.wheatworld.org/foodsafety.

The comments, delivered to CongressDaily on the record by a USDA spokesperson and in less official terms to Hill leaders, came days after 10 commodity groups including NAWG wrote Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, expressing “grave concern” about baseline losses from savings achieved through the process, which was called for in the 2008 Farm Bill.

The March 2010 budget baseline established by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) assumed $3.9 billion in savings over 10 years that would likely result from cuts made in government reimbursement to crop insurance companies under a new SRA contract still under negotiation. The Obama Administration budget proposal released earlier in the year assumed up to $8 billion in cuts, the same figure as in USDA’s first draft of a new agreement. A subsequent draft proposed $6.9 billion in cuts.

While agreement negotiations are ongoing, it is clear the current budget baseline does nothing to credit the eventual cut back to the budget for agricultural safety net programs. This could be devastating when Congress attempts to write the 2012 Farm Bill, particularly after deep cuts were already achieved in the 2008 Farm Bill process.

NAWG and other groups have been urging the Administration and crop insurance companies to negotiate in good faith to arrive at an agreement that achieves the goals of the crop insurance program and maintains or improves delivery and service to producers. However, groups maintain that this must be done in a manner that preserves the farm bill baseline.

The groups said, in part:

“If the situation is left unaddressed by the Agriculture Department, reasonable savings obtained in an SRA renegotiation cannot be properly credited to Congress to apply toward improving crop insurance for producers or to help meet potential reconciliation instructions. This does not bode well for any policies under the jurisdiction of the House and Senate Agriculture Committee.”

Signatories of the letter included NAWG, American Farm Bureau Federation, American Soybean Association, American Sugar Alliance, National Barley Growers Association, National Corn Growers Association, National Milk Producers Federation, Southern Peanut Farmers Federation, USA Rice Federation and Western Peanut Growers Association.

The full letter is available at www.wheatworld.org/riskmanagement.

The hearing will be in the House Agriculture hearing room, 1300 Longworth House Office Building, and Webcast via http://agriculture.house.gov/hearings/audio.html.

The session could provide some clues as to what USDA has in mind for farm bill priorities and will certainly give Members a chance to share their thoughts on current and future farm policy and the path to passing the 2012 Bill.

The hearing, which will reportedly be followed by multiple field hearings in May, makes good on House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson’s (D-Minn.) oft-voiced plan to begin the 2012 Farm Bill process early.

Peterson has said in recent months that grower groups should already be evaluating the 2008 Farm Bill and forming policy suggestions for the next rewrite of farm policy, and he plans to have policy ready if a reconciliation process is undertaken next year.

The NAWG Board approved a 2012 Farm Bill action plan at its meeting associated with the 2010 Commodity Classic, held last month in Anaheim, Calif.

A first step in that process is a survey querying wheat growers about their satisfaction with the safety net provided by the 2008 Farm Bill and new ideas for the 2012 Bill. That survey, intended to be the first in a series, was released to states early this month with a deadline for responses of April 23. Survey results are expected in mid-May.

The meeting was the first of its kind since 2007 and gave commodity groups and others representing agricultural producers a chance to hear from agency officials about their vision for the Institute and discuss specific research priorities.

Peterson’s presentation focused on wheat priorities set by NAWG and the National Wheat Improvement Committee, an organization of wheat researchers; Ug99 and its impact on food security; and the International Wheat Genome Sequencing Consortium’s efforts. Jane DeMarchi, director of government relations at the North American Millers’ Association, also spoke on behalf of several wheat priorities during her presentation.

NIFA was created in the 2008 Farm Bill to be an agriculture research body similar to the National Institutes of Health and to replace the Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service (CSREES). A cornerstone of the new agency is AFRI, a competitive grants program which was funded at $262.4 million for FY2010. NIFA released information about its request for application process for AFRI’s FY2010 allocation in March, seeking proposals that fall into five “societal challenge areas” including childhood obesity prevention, climate change, food safety, global food security and sustainable bioenergy.

Department officials at the meeting this week made it clear that they have a growing focus on competitive grants, with an emphasis on cereal crops in this fiscal year, and encouraged stakeholders in attendance to consider how their industries’ projects will fit into the broad categories defined in the request for application announcement and a competitive grant system in general.

AFRI is authorized to receive up to $700 million per year in federal funding, and NAWG continues work with coalition partners to increase the share of appropriated dollars going to the program in coming years.

Much more information about the proposal process is accessible at www.nifa.usda.gov/afri and at www.grants.gov.

United States Trade Representative (USTR) Ron Kirk and Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack announced Tuesday in a press release that the United States and Brazil have agreed upon “a clear path forward” to negotiate a settlement in a long-running World Trade Organization (WTO) case involving U.S. cotton and export credit programs.

Brazil originally brought the case in 2002 and in August 2009 was given authorization to impose retaliation measures worth almost $830 million. Last month, Brazil announced a first set of countermeasures it would impose on April 7 worth more than $500 million and hitting more than 100 exported goods, including wheat.

On April 1, Deputy USTR Miriam Sapiro and USDA Undersecretary for Farm and Foreign Agricultural Services Jim Miller met with Brazilian officials, producing the agreement announced this week.

In exchange for Brazil’s agreement not to impose countermeasures on Wednesday, the U.S. agreed to establish a fund of approximately $147.3 million per year for technical assistance and capacity building in Brazil until passage of the next farm bill or a mutually agreed solution is reached, whichever is sooner.

The U.S. also agreed to make changes to the GSM-102 program and publish a proposed rule relating to beef trade; hours after the agreement was announced, USDA said it would cancel all unutilized balances of the GSM-102 program made in FY2010, effective April 9, and would seek to issue new program announcements under a new guarantee fee schedule.

Vilsack said in the press release announcing the settlement that it “respects our Farm Bill process and the role of Congress in shaping our commodity programs.” Key Members of Congress and commodity groups have been concerned that the effort to negotiate an agreement that would forestall sanctions would commit the U.S. to open the 2008 Farm Bill before it expires in 2012, which Congress is unlikely to do.

House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson (D-Minn.) and Ranking Member Frank Lucas (R-Okla.) said in a joint statement that they, “understand that a delay in countermeasures is not a final resolution of the dispute, and we will work closely with officials in USDA and USTR as their discussions on these programs continue.”

Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) and Ranking Member Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), said in a statement that they were “encouraged that both sides have agreed upon a framework for dialogue and a process to further discussion” but that Congress is ultimately responsible for any changes to the 2008 Farm Bill programs.

NAWG and U.S. Wheat Associates released a statement Wednesday on the announcement, saying:

“The U.S. wheat industry is very pleased that the U.S. and Brazilian governments have been able to identify a process for negotiating a settlement in the World Trade Organization dispute between our two countries. Brazil recently won the right to impose countermeasures against U.S. trade and planned to increase U.S. wheat tariffs to 30 percent from 10 percent today as part of its response. Yesterday’s agreement ensures that U.S. producers will remain competitive in one of the world’s largest wheat markets.

“The demonstrated willingness of the Brazil and U.S. governments to begin in good faith to negotiate a settlement is very encouraging. In particular we commend the efforts of Under Secretary Jim Miller, Ambassador Miriam Sapiro and Ambassador Isi Siddiqui in achieving this outcome, and we look forward to working with them and Members of Congress as discussions on this issue continue.”

NAWG and U.S. Wheat will continue to monitor the discussion and negotiations moving forward, particularly with respect to any potential changes to future farm policy and export credit programs that may be under consideration. In particular, the goals of the GSM-102 export credit guarantee program remain very important for the wheat industry, with $693.5 million in GSM-102 export credit guarantees used for wheat exports around the world in the 2008-2009 fiscal year, representing 12 percent of sales.

Brazil is routinely one of the top three wheat importers in the world. Over the past 10 years, U.S. wheat market share to Brazil has ranged from nearly none to about 12 percent. Brazil’s major supplier is Argentina, and increasing duties on U.S. wheat imports would have effectively shut the U.S. out of a large and important wheat market in which the U.S. is already at a comparable disadvantage.

The five-year partnership will combine Syngenta’s financial, research and product development resources with genetic resources and knowledge of practical applications held by CIMMYT, formally known as the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center.

The organizations did not disclose financial terms of the agreement or when the work could result in new varieties for U.S. producers. Near-term work is expected to focus on joint development of growing systems that optimize environmentally sustainable yields, while longer-term results could produce new technologies, like hybrids and biotech and non-biotech traits aiming to tackle abiotic stress and agronomic diseases.

In a press release making the announcement, Director of CIMMYT’s Global Wheat Program Hans-Joachim Braun repeated concerns that many in the industry have about growing wheat demand regularly outpacing supply growth. He said world wheat production is increasing only 0.9 percent each year while demand is growing at a rate of 1.5 percent or more annually. Wheat is the most traded and commercially cultivated crop in the world and, according to the United Nations, is responsible for 20 percent of food calories consumed in the world.

The agreement announced this week is one of several efforts Syngenta has announced within the last couple of years related to wheat.

In October 2008, Syngenta announced it had acquired Resource Seeds, Inc., which has a strong wheat presence, as part of its acquisition of Goldsmith Seeds, Inc. In August 2009, the Syngenta Foundation launched a Ug99 stem rust resistance research partnership with Syngenta and CIMMYT to facilitate the development of durable rust resistance.

This latest announcement also adds to a steady stream of new commitments to wheat research by private companies.

In 2009, Monsanto announced it acquired WestBred and would begin wheat breeding conventionally and eventually, using biotechnology. Bayer CropScience also announced it would expand its seeds and traits business to include wheat and, to that end, formalized a long-term partnership with CSIRO, Australia’s national research organization. Later, Arcadia Biosciences, Inc. and Vilmorin said they will partner together to develop and commercialize nitrogen use efficient wheat.

“The U.S. wheat industry is very pleased that the U.S. and Brazilian governments have been able to identify a process for negotiating a settlement in the World Trade Organization (WTO) dispute between our two countries. Brazil recently won the right to impose countermeasures against U.S. trade and planned to increase U.S. wheat tariffs to 30 percent from 10 percent today as part of its response. Yesterday’s agreement ensures that U.S. producers will remain competitive in one of the world’s largest wheat markets.

“The demonstrated willingness of the Brazil and U.S. governments to begin in good faith to negotiate a settlement is very encouraging. In particular we commend the efforts of Under Secretary Jim Miller, Ambassador Miriam Sapiro and Ambassador Isi Siddiqui in achieving this outcome, and we look forward to working with them and Members of Congress as discussions on this issue continue.”

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Contact:

Melissa George Kessler, NAWG, 202-547-7800, mkessler@wheatworld.org

Steve Mercer, U.S. Wheat, 703-650-0251, smercer@uswheat.org

Over the weekend, President Barack Obama made 15 recess appointments, installing Jill Long Thompson as a member of the board of the Farm Credit Administration and two key trade nominees (see story here).

On Wednesday, Obama and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced a plan to dramatically expand oil and natural gas production on East Coast shorelines and in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska. The announcement, which comes as climate and energy legislation is being hashed out despite the recess period, was accompanied by other plans to raise car and truck fuel efficiency standards and incorporate renewable fuels into military uses.

In the area of trade policy, a number of Administration officials, including USDA Under Secretary for Farm and Foreign Agricultural Services Jim Miller, traveled to Brazil to learn more about potential retaliatory action that country could take stemming from a long-running World Trade Organization dispute. The wheat industry is watching this closely as the country has threatened to raise import tariffs on U.S. wheat exported to Brazil to 30 percent and could endanger a key export credit guarantee program.

Also this week, the office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) released the 2010 National Trade Estimate, which describes significant barriers to U.S. trade and investment faced in the last year as well as actions being taken USTR to address them.

USTR also released reports specifically on sanitary and phytosanitary barriers and technical barriers to trade that harm the ability of America’s agricultural producers and manufacturers to export around the world. All of that information is available online at http://www.ustr.gov/.

Congress is scheduled to return to D.C. the week of April 12. Members will face a heavy load of items tinted by election-year politics, not the least of which is setting and approving a budget. NAWG continues to work with coalition partners to express the importance of a range of agriculture-related budget items, including funding for farm safety net, conservation, trade promotion and research programs.

Other legislative items on tap include two pending tax incentives/safety net bills, finalizing financial regulatory reform and energy and climate change legislation.

Michael Punke and Dr. Isi Siddiqui were both given recess appointments, as deputy U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) based in Geneva and chief agricultural negotiator at USTR, respectively.

In the early 1990s, Punke served as international trade counsel on the staff of Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), the chairman of the Finance Committee, followed by four years of service dealing with international affairs in the Clinton administration, including two years as senior policy adviser at USTR.

Siddiqui was most recently the vice president for science and regulatory affairs and was previously vice president for agricultural biotechnology and trade at CropLife America. During the Clinton Administration, he was both a USDA under secretary for marketing and regulatory programs and senior trade advisor to the Secretary. He has also served on government and private boards advising on trade issues and was at the California Department of Food and Agriculture for 28 years before moving to USDA.

NAWG and other agricultural groups have repeatedly urged confirmation for both appointees, noting in numerous letters to Congress that the agricultural trade agenda would be effectively stalled until the nominations were finalized.

With recess appointments, Punke and Siddiqui will hold their positions until the end of the Congress, meaning late 2011, unless confirmed by the Senate in the meantime. The White House confirmed that all 15 individuals given recess appointments will remain as nominees before the Senate.

The Constitution gives the president the power to make appointments during a Congressional recess. This power is not widely used, but it has been employed by most recent presidents and occasionally thwarted by Senate leaders of the opposing party who held the chamber in pro forma session to avoid such appointments.

In a statement about the appointments, Obama cited the length of time appointments were pending as a key reasoning behind his move, saying there are 217 nominees current pending for an average of, then, 101 days. The 15 nominees given recess appointments had been pending an average of 214 days.

To read commodity group letters in support of Siddiqui and Punke, please visit http://www.wheatworld.org/trade/more-trade-communication/.

The NAWG Board approved the survey as part of a 2012 Farm Bill action plan at its meeting associated with the 2010 Commodity Classic, held last month in Anaheim, Calif.

While NAWG staff and policy committee leadership developed the survey questions, NAWG state associations will distribute the questionnaire to growers or others they think could constructively contribute to the discussion.

The survey asks a series of demographic questions and five policy questions including:

1. Please rate the effectiveness of the current farm bill in providing a safety net for your farm (on a one to seven scale).
2. Please explain your rating of the effectiveness of the current farm bill. Why do you believe is it effective or ineffective?
3. Define the “safety net” for your farm.
4. How would you say the safety net could be improved?
5. What idea not already included in the 2008 Farm Bill would improve the safety net?

The survey is not – and is not intended to be – a scientific review of wheat growers’ attitudes, but rather seeks to get a general feeling from NAWG members and new and outside-the-box ideas.

Survey responses are due to the NAWG office by April 23 with results expected in mid-May.

The survey released this week is expected to be the first in a series to tap into the experiences wheat growers have had with current farm policy and their preferences in the 2012 law.

This year’s session will be held in association with DigitalNow, an annual conference organized by Fusion Productions and the Disney Institute to bring together association staff and volunteer leaders from around the country.

DigitalNow sessions span three days and cover the range of critical issues facing association leaders in the digital age, focusing on integrating leadership and membership concerns with emerging technology.

The conference includes a number of leadership and technology general sessions as well as seven workshop periods.

The wheat participants’ experiences will be supplemented by two working dinners and a wheat-only session that will allow discussion of how the industry can apply the technology and ideas presented at the larger conference.

State staff members attending include:

• Coreen Berdahl, membership director, Minnesota Association of Wheat Growers;
• Tim Bartram, executive director, Oklahoma Wheat Growers Association;
• Steelee Fischbacher, director of communications, Texas Wheat;
• Aaron Harries, director of marketing, Kansas Wheat;
• Marti Hubbs, executive director, Wyoming Wheat Growers Association;
• Christina Hyre, communications and program director, Virginia Grain Producers Association;
• Sheena Johnson, communications specialist, North Dakota Grain Growers Association;
• Laura Knoth, executive director, Kentucky Small Grain Growers Association;
• Glenda Mostek, communications and marketing director, Colorado Association of Wheat Growers;
• Zoe Olson, executive director, Nebraska Wheat Growers Association;
• Dwyane Siekman, executive director, Ohio Wheat Growers Association; and
• Rick Vallery, executive director, South Dakota Wheat Incorporated.

They will be joined by NAWG CEO Dana Peterson and Director of Communications Melissa George Kessler, along with two representatives from Syngenta.

Syngenta is one of a small group of companies the NAWG Foundation works with to produce leadership training programs for wheat producers and wheat organization staffers. In alternating years, the company sponsors the state staff training and the Syngenta Women’s Leadership at Its Best program, targeted at farm women.

NAWG President Jerry McReynolds traveled to Washington for the meeting, held Thursday morning, which NAWG Director of Government Affairs for Environmental Policy Mark Gaede also attended.

The hour-long session covered a range of topics, including language of a recent spray drift proposal and concerns about the need for additional permitting due to a Sixth Circuit Court decision handed down last year.

On the spray drift issue, growers asserted that changing regulatory language from stipulating possible effects “would” occur to “could” or “may” occur was improper for crop protection products approved under the law and could make producers venerable to lawsuits. Jackson indicated to the growers that these concerns would be reflected in the Agency’s final determination.

Growers also heard details from Jackson about what process EPA is considering to meet the requirements of the Sixth Circuit decision, made in the case of National Cotton Council of America v. EPA. That case concluded pesticide discharge is a point source of pollution subject to additional regulation and permitting under the Clean Water Act, meaning producers could potentially be required to obtain additional permitting for every crop protection application. The logistics of carrying this out are harrowing for EPA, state agencies and producers alike, and the meeting this week gave the growers in attendance a chance to emphasize to the Administrator how quickly crop protection decisions must be made on a working farm.

The group also briefly discussed climate change legislation, which could be considered by the Senate this summer as part of a sector-by-sector approach that would use a proposal from Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) as its agriculture piece.

No one in attendance remembered a similar meeting between agricultural producers and EPA officials. The idea for Thursday’s session surfaced out of conversations at the 2010 Commodity Classic with Vilsack and members of his staff, who had a chance to hear first-hand from farmers about their level of concern regarding the cumulative impact of the EPA’s activities on their operations. After Classic concluded, Vilsack contacted Jackson to suggest the meeting, which EPA hosted.

Both the growers and the Administration officials committed to continuing the dialogue and holding similar meetings in the future, either informally or as part of a grower advisory group to EPA.

More about the meeting outcomes is available in an audio update from McReynolds, accessible at www.wheatworld.org/audio-gallery/.

The bill, known formally as the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010, would provide a significant amount of new money compared to the previous increase of $500 million over ten years, but less than half of the $10 billion over ten years called for in the Obama Administration budget.

Nationwide, over 30 million children participate in the National School Lunch Program each day and more than 10 million children participate in the National School Breakfast Program.

The bill approved this week would raise the reimbursement rate to schools for meals and includes a provision to create national school nutrition standards for all foods sold on school campuses during the school day.

As passed by the Committee, the new spending would be offset in part by a $2.2 billion decrease in authorization for the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP). However, at the hearing, Committee Ranking Member Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) offered an amendment to instead offset the new spending through a decrease in funding for the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP). The amendment was defeated, but Chambliss said he intends to offer it again during floor debate.

Though the timeline for floor action remains unclear, potential amendments have already been rumored and may include redirecting farm program payments, including direct payments, to nutrition spending.

NAWG is working with other agriculture groups and supporters on Capitol Hill to ensure the government’s contact with farmers through 2008 Farm Bill programs is protected until the bill is scheduled to expire in 2012.

NIFA was created in the 2008 Farm Bill to be an agriculture research body similar to the National Institutes of Health and to replace the Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service (CSREES).

A cornerstone of the new agency is AFRI, a competitive grants program authorized to receive up to $700 million per year in federal funding. The program was actually appropriated $262.4 million in the FY2010 process, a major increase over past years, and will focus work in six areas, including plant health and production; animal health and production; food safety and nutrition, renewable energy and environmental concerns; agriculture systems and technologies; and agriculture economics and rural communities.

AFRI’s request this week is seeking proposals related to five “societal challenge areas” in which NIFA leaders believe research can contribute to “significant and measurable outcomes”. These areas include childhood obesity prevention, climate change, food safety, global food security and sustainable bioenergy, but are defined broadly.

USDA said many of the awards designated as targeting societal challenge will be larger in size and longer in duration than awards in previous years, with funding available of up to $45 million over a five-year award period. Some grants will also be eligible for renewal upon achieving specific goals, particularly those projects that involve multiple institutions and include both research and application through an extension or education program.

Much more information about the proposal process is accessible at www.nifa.usda.gov/afri and at www.grants.gov. USDA said in its announcement that it will also provide Webinars on each proposal area and that applicants interested in the AFRI funding process are encouraged to contact NIFA at (202) 401-5022 or AFRI@nifa.usda.gov.

NAWG joined this week a coalition of 35 agricultural groups in writing Budget Committee leaders in the House and Senate to express opposition to the proposed cuts, saying Congress should ensure the government keeps its five-year contract with agricultural producers.

The groups said they did not believe America’s farmers and ranchers should have to bear a disproportionate burden of the cuts made to decrease the federal deficit or offset spending in other areas of USDA’s budget.

They pointed out that the USDA budget proposal actually increases outlays by $4 billion and said the proposal’s provisions seem to “disregard the fact that the 2008 farm bill…was fiscally-responsible and completely offset so as not to add to our country’s deficit.”

Farm safety net programs took a $7.4 billion hit in the 2008 Farm Bill and were the only core provisions to experience a cut. These programs now amount for just 17 percent of USDA spending and less than a quarter of one percent of total federal spending.

Crop insurance spending was included as one of the programs slated for reduction in the President’s budget, as the Administration is assuming additional savings would be achieved through the SRA renegotiation process that is currently underway. This week’s letter reiterated that Congress rejected further crop insurance during the farm bill legislative process.

A very similar message on farm program spending was in a letter nine Republican Senators sent to President Barack Obama Monday, which also voiced opposition to any farm bill cuts, saying it “sends the wrong signal to rural America”.

The letter was spearheaded by Senate Agriculture Committee Ranking Member Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) and Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) and reiterated producers groups’ view that the farm bill is a contract with America’s farmers and ranchers that should remain intact to allow producers to plan and to avoid jeopardizing jobs in rural America.

The Senators also voiced opposition to cutting farm programs in order to increase spending in nutrition programs. Though this has not been directly proposed, some believe the cuts proposed to the larger farm safety net track with proposed increases in child nutrition program spending.

Congress is scheduled to complete its budget resolution by April 15, though that timeline may slip.

The full text of the Senators’ letter is available at http://ag.senate.gov/site/chamblissnews.html.

The full text of the agriculture coalition letters is at www.wheatworld.org/farmbill.

Also this week, the Senate finalized a nearly $18 billion bill of jobs incentives and extenders. It is one of two so-called jobs bills that have been winding through the Congressional process over the past few weeks.

Another, more expensive bill including an extension of the biodiesel tax credit and agricultural disaster assistance championed by Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) did not see action this week.

The coalition told Chairwoman Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) and other Members of the House Appropriations Committee’s agriculture subcommittee that its members support sustained funding for PL-480 Title I and II and oppose any effort to divert funding away from them.

The group said, in part:

“Our in-kind food aid programs are needed now more than at any time in their history. Hunger is a powerful and destabilizing force, and America faces a convergence of terrorist and other security threats from failed and unstable states that feed on ill will toward our nation…

“U.S. food aid programs not only further our humanitarian and food security goals by allowing Americans to contribute to the needy in a tangible way, but the programs also provide stable jobs for Americans.”

The coalition specifically supported:

• full-funding of Title II at $2.5 billion, which is consistent with FY2009 and FY2009 appropriations levels;
• restoring Title I levels to achieve the efficiencies of the program; and
• increasing funding for the McGovern-Dole program.

The comments were submitted in advance of an anticipated hearing of the agriculture subcommittee to consider FY2011 funding.

That subcommittee also met March 11 to hear testimony on a recent Government Accountability Office (GAO) report examining what kind of food security programs the federal government undertakes and how it funds them, as well as progress toward developing a government-wide plan for coordinating those efforts.

The report found seven agencies directing at least $5 billion to food security efforts in FY2008, with half of that going to food aid. But, the report also found there are likely significant discrepancies in that data due to a lack of a common definition of food security among implementing agencies and standard methods of tracking and reporting food security functions.

Though the March 11 hearing focused on the GAO’s findings, DeLauro did make critical comments about the Administration’s proposal to freeze funding levels for PL-480, Title II and the McGovern-Dole program, noting that more than one billion people around the world suffer from hunger.

For the full GAO report, please visit http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d10352.pdf.

To read the coalition’s full communication, please visit www.wheatworld.org/foodaid.

Interns in the NAWG office on Capitol Hill get an up-close look at how the federal government functions and policy is made through work with government affairs staff.

Typical tasks for a NAWG intern include researching and drafting letters and testimony; attending hearings and meetings with staff or independently; writing articles for the NAWG newsletter; and doing some administrative work.

The selected intern will be at NAWG from approximately May until August 2010, depending on his or her school schedule.

Though he or she will be responsible for all living costs during the internship, the selected intern will be considered a temporary employee and paid an hourly wage.

Applicants should be juniors or seniors in college and interested in pursuing agriculturally-related careers after graduation. Preference will be given to applicants from states with NAWG-affiliated state wheat grower associations.

For more information or to download the application, please visit http://www.wheatworld.org/internship-program/.

As concerns about the federal budget deficit mount, MAP has been a frequent target in recent months with this week’s announcement just the latest example. The Obama Administration’s FY2011 budget proposal reprised a rejected FY2010 proposal to cut the program by 20 percent, or $40 million, from the $200 million authorized in the 2008 Farm Bill. In addition, a bill, H.R. 4683, was introduced last month to eliminate the program altogether.

Eliminating MAP would be a devastating blow to U.S. wheat producers who are eligible to use the funds through U.S. Wheat Associates to promote sales of wheat overseas, which accounts for about half of total sales each year.

MAP and a sister program, the Foreign Market Development (FMD) program stand at the core of U.S. market development efforts, with MAP money being used to share the costs of overseas market development and promotional activities with U.S. nonprofit agricultural trade organizations and others, and the FMD funds allowing USDA to partner with nonprofit industry groups to focus on reducing overseas market impediments.

A popular talking point touted by MAP opponents is that it provides funding for well-heeled corporations. In the case of the wheat industry, this could not be further from the truth, with the industry’s MAP allocations applied for annually by U.S. Wheat, a not-for-profit market development organization that works in more than 100 countries using producer check-off dollars and matching funds from the government.

In FY2010, allocations to U.S. Wheat included slightly less than $5.5 million in MAP funding and $3.8 million in FMD funding. Including carryover funds from FY2009, total MAP funds available to U.S. Wheat are $6.72 million and total FMD funds are $5.47 million. A recent economic analysis showed that these funds provide an extremely high return on investment, with overall average gross return to the entire wheat industry from the combined producer and government expenditures by U.S. Wheat at $115 for each dollar spent.

More about how MAP monies are used by the wheat industry is in a fact sheet at http://www.uswheat.org/whatWeDo/tradePolicy/doc/9562447139E9333F852576E400765239?OpenDocument.