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Shining Light on Farm & Food Policy for 20 Years.
Sunday, August 04, 2024
This week’s guest on Open Mic is Polly Ruhland, CEO of the United Soybean Board. In this interview, Ruhland speaks to the challenges facing the soybean industry and the structural changes the farmer led group have made to refine their focus on both short and long term goals. Ruhland says collaborative efforts with commodity and industry partners as well as state organizations is helping grow demand in spite of present obstacles in global trade.
This week’s guest on Open Mic is Paul Drazek, Managing Partner of DTB Associates. The Trump administration’s trade agenda has yielded positive results recently with new agreements with Korea, Canada and Mexico. However tariffs on steel and aluminum imports remain in place and continue to bring retaliatory tariffs on U.S. agricultural commodities. Drazek questions the results of those trade deals and is skeptical of future negotiations with targeted nations by the White House. Drazek fears the ongoing trade war with China could linger.
This week’s guest on Open Mic is Dr. Margaret Zeigler, Executive Director of the Global Harvest Initiative. The 9th annual GAP Report indicates a disturbing trend for global agriculture. While U.S. agriculture drowns in a surplus of bulk commodities, the global productivity trend falls short of the long range goal of meeting the food, fiber and fuel demands of a growing population. Zeigler says low income countries are especially deficient and would benefit from better trade relations, funding for research as well as public/private partnerships in food production.
This week’s guest on Open Mic is Jim Sutter, CEO of the U.S. Soybean Export Council. Soybean farmers are feeling the brunt of the trade war between the U.S. and China. Sutter shares how the trade war with China may incentivize global competition and at the same time reduce demand for soybeans. In this interview, Sutter outlines the industry’s short and long term strategy to maintain global market share and actually grow global market opportunities for U.S. growers.
This week’s guest on Open Mic is U.S. Senator Debbie Stabenow. While the Michigan Democrat is adamant that the principal four negotiators will reach a compromise on a new farm bill, she also shares that the policy preferences between the House and Senate versions of the language are bigger than a single issue. Still, Stabenow isn’t ready to talk about extending the 2014 law.
This week’s guest on Open Mic is House Agriculture Chairman Mike Conaway. With the expiration of the 2014 Farm Bill, congressional farm policy leaders face a daunting task of finding a compromise that can be approved by both chambers in a lame duck session after the mid-term election and signed by President Trump before the end of the calendar year. The Texas Republican says the impasse over finding an amicable compromise is bigger than one person or even a single issue. While he’s not ready to concede that extension of the previous law will be required, Conaway admits October is the critical month for a new farm bill this year.
