A bipartisan quintet of House Ag Committee members visited Maine Monday for a listening session on the next farm bill, and many local speakers used the event to call for improved crop insurance in the region.
Colleen Kisselburgh, a crop insurance agent in the region since 1998, criticized USDA’s Risk Management Agency in her testimony. RMA, she said, is “leading to degradation of crop insurance in the Northeast. Policies are overly complex and do not fit the needs of our region, and that’s why they fail.”
“We need actual production history policies in the Northeast, but RMA has been developing revenue- and area-based policies, ignoring the importance of production policies in specialty crop regions like ours,” she said.
Another speaker, New England Farmers Union President Roger Noonan, spoke to the importance of the Whole Farm Revenue Protection coverage and a recent Senate bill to raise the current $350,000 revenue cap for micro farms in the program to $1 million.
Crop conditions worsen somewhat
Conditions for this year’s corn and soybean crop deteriorated slightly over the past week amid a persistent drought in the Midwest. According to USDA’s weekly Crop Progress report, 55% of the country’s corn crop is now in good to excellent condition, down from 57% a week ago and 61% at this point a year ago.
Some 52% of the soybean crop is rated good to excellent, down from 54% last week.
The figures are more dire for spring wheat; only 42% of the crop is rated good to excellent, compared to 49% last week and 70% at this point a year ago.
By the way: Things are also going in the wrong direction for cotton growers. Some 41% of the crop is rated good to excellent now, down from 46% last week. The good news? The crop is faring a little better than last year’s crop, which rated 38% at this time.
Two states continue to drag on Brazil’s corn harvest
Rains in two key Brazilian states – Paraná and Mato Grosso do Sul – continue to slow Brazil’s largest corn harvesting season of the year, but quick progress is being made by farmers in the Center West states of Mato Grosso and Goiás, according to the consulting firm AgRural.
Overall, AgRural says Brazil has harvested 55% of its “safrinha” – the corn crop planted on soybean acres after that harvest is complete. That’s up from 47% the previous week, but also slower than the 73% level at this time a year ago.
South American production stabilizes global supplies
Economists say the increased production of corn and soybeans in Brazil and Argentina is reducing variability in global crop supplies.
Production in the southern hemisphere is actually more variable than it is in the United States and the rest of the northern hemisphere. But “deviations from trend production for the two hemispheres are unrelated,” the authors said, so the overall effect of the expanded production is to reduce global variability, according to an analysis by Ohio State and University of Illinois economists.
“Lower world production variability from southern hemisphere production should reduce the need for world stocks, assuming all other factors remain the same,” the authors said.
Bottom line: “Lower world production variability from southern hemisphere production should reduce the need for world stocks, assuming all other factors remain the same,” the analysis concludes.
Bipartisan, bicameral bill supports wood product innovation
Called the “triple crown of economic, firefighting and environmental goals” by Sen. Ron Wyden, the bipartisan, bicameral Timber Innovation for Building Rural Communities Act requires USDA to measure, monitor, verify and report data about the carbon impacts from forest management and wood products.
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Wyden, D-Ore., introduced the bill in the Senate. In the House, a companion bill is sponsored by Reps. Andrea Salinas, D-Ore., Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, D-Wash., and John Duarte, R-Calif.
The bill is seen as a way to support the timber industry and reach environmental goals. Said Duarte: “This legislation makes it easier to track forest health, trains the next generation of engineers and architects, expands the Wood Innovation Grant program and builds rural infrastructure with American-grown wood products.”
Vilsack in Washington state today for groundbreaking of new research facility
Ground will be broken today in Pullman, Washington, on a new Plant Sciences Building at Washington State University, which will be focused on research “to help solve agricultural and environmental problems and support farmers and producers in the Pacific Northwest,” USDA said.
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack will speak at the groundbreaking, along with Washington Democratic Sen. Patty Murray and Republican Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers.
New Oregon law sets permit requirements for CAFOs
A new law signed in Oregon tightens permit rules for confined animal feeding operations in the state.
Under the law, before applying for a permit for a large CAFO, or to expand, an operator must engage in a preliminary consultation with the state’s Agriculture or Environmental Quality departments.
The state may no longer grant permits for any large CAFO located in a groundwater management area.
A previous version of the bill would have imposed a moratorium on new or expanded “industrial confined animal feeding operations.” That language was stripped from the legislation in May.
Large CAFOs are partially defined by the number of animals they have and the period of time they are kept in confinement. Examples include operations with 700 or more dairy cows and 1,000 or more head of cattle.
He said it: “If you really meant him ... the store is still there,” - House Ag member Jim McGovern, D-Mass., addressing an attendee of Monday's farm bill listening in Maine who claimed to be a big supporter of McGovern’s dad.
The congressman assumed the kind remark was meant to refer to former U.S. Sen. George McGovern, D-S.D., for whom the younger McGovern once worked but is not related to, rather than Jim McGovern’s actual father and his Massachusetts storefront.
Philip Brasher, Spencer Chase, Jacqui Fatka and Bill Tomson contributed to this report
Questions, comments, tips? Email Associate Editor Steve Davies.
