Here we go again.  This is the week both the House and Senate Agriculture Committees have promised rural America that they will get together in their respective chambers in Washington and work out another farm bill.  In fairness to the committees and their leaders, they did get the job done last year on a new farm bill but the House leadership under Speaker John Boehner never brought a bill to the floor so a new farm bill could be put in place.  So what’s the difference this year?  There are no looming elections this fall.

     The overall price of a new farm bill is going to be north of $900 billion over the next 10 years even though the final bill will only deal with actual farm and food policy for the next five years.  The challenge for the Congressmen and Senators is where to spend and where to save.  Food and nutrition programs will be one of the major areas of disagreement between the two bodies.  The two bodies are about $15 billion apart on the amount of cuts they are calling for to feed the needy.  The Senate wants to cut only about $4.1 billion over the next 10 years while the House bill calls for cuts of $20.5 billion.  That would just about account for the spending cuts called for in each of the bills as the Senate is looking to cut about $23 billion over 10 years while the House proposal would cut almost $40 billion over the same period for the entire bill.  Observers of the process say cuts to food and nutrition programs have to be that high in the House proposal to get the support of the right wing of the Republican party in the House.

      The debate and differences over food and nutrition programs may make the dairy title a little less acrimonious this time around.  From early reports, both the House and Senate mark ups have included most, if not all, of the Dairy Security Act being promoted by the National Milk Producers Federation(NMPF)..  That program would feature the margin insurance provision that NMPF officials tout as the future for dairy policy by providing dairy farmers with effective risk management tools and cut program costs to taxpayers.  The chairs and ranking members of both ag committees have signed off on the program and have concluded it would be the best for the dairy industry moving forward,

     Not all in the industry agree, however.  The Dairy Business Association (DBA), headquartered in Green Bay, is adamantly opposed to the Dairy Security Act because of the supply management provision included in the plan, a program known as the Dairy Market Stabilization Program  DBA officials have been lobbying Congress to oppose that plan because “it would require farmers to either discard a portion of their milk production in excess of their base or not get paid for any milk produced over and above that base.”  Other concerns include the potential to reduce farmers’ milk checks periodically and unpredictably as well as make the U.S. an inconsistent supplier of dairy products to the world market.

      So far, support for the DBA position has come from at least five members of the Wisconsin Congressional delegation, which has written a letter to the chair and ranking member of the House ag committee, asking them to reconsider their support for the supply management portion of the Dairy Security Act.  Those bipartisan letter writers are Congressmen Sean Duffy, Ron Kind, Thomas Petri, Mark Pocan and F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr.   Some DBA members who were in Washington a week ago even had an audience with House Speaker John Boehner to explain to him the problems created by a supply management program and how they are ready to support a major move away from “the outdated, anti-free market dairy policies that have been in e Read More

          The challenge that developed nations must deal with is well known.  By 2050 the population of the world will be between 9and 10 billion people.  To feed that many people, farmers around the world must produce more food between now and then than they have produced since the beginning of time.  A big part of that equation will be how Mother Nature deals with the world’s climate in the intervening years.

         Recently at one of the Wisconsin Farmers’ Union’s Spring Tour meetings, Craig Edwards, chief meteorologist with the U.S. Weather Service, told the mostly farmer audience that the trend is for rising temperatures with increasing greenhouse gasses.  That, he said, will provide one of the challenges to increased food production over the next three to four decades.

          At that Eau Claire session, Edwards also declared, “The drought is over in Wisconsin.”  The facts and the continuing wet, snowy conditions across the state seem to justify that statement.  Edwards said the spring outlook calls for above normal precipitation across the state and upper Midwest for April, May and June.  That follows a winter of snowfall that isn’t over yet and has been above normal.  In west central Wisconsin, over 73 inches of snow fell this past winter and spring.  That is about 27 inches above normal and one of the 10 snowiest winters ever.  The record snowfall for western Wisconsin was the 89.3 inches that fell in the winter of 1996-97.  Looking at the latest U.S. Drought Monitor, it now has removed southern and south central parts of Wisconsin from the abnormally dry category while the rest of the state is now in some stage of moderate drought, but that is expected to change when the updated drought monitor comers out this week.

        Besides rainfall, temperatures are another major factor in farmers’ success in the future.  2012 was the 10th warmest year since the 1880s, according to Edwards, and March 2012 was the warmest March on record with temperatures that month 15 ½ degrees warmer than normal.  But as farmers said at that recent Farmers” Union meeting, “that was last year.”  This spring farmers all over the state are worried about planting dates as snow remains in many areas and residual frost is still a problem preventing the melting snow from soaking in to the fields recovering from the hot, dry growing season of 2012.  

         Edwards said many weather watchers blame our recent weather on climate change or global warming.  He pointed out that there is a difference between the two.  He referred to climate change as being what happens over time while those changes cause a phenomenon like global warming.  The thing, he pointed out to the audience, is that every 10 years we are dealing with a new normal.  He explained that, “We have now replaced the ‘70s weather facts and figures with the same information from the first 10 years of the new century and that has meant our overall temperature at our latitude in the upper Midwest has increased by three degrees, especially during winter months.”

           He also showed how global warming advocates make their point, citing the increase in greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere as everyone leaves a carbon footprint on our environment.  In Wisconsin we are seeing higher temperatures and more intense weather events than ever before.  As an example of that he alluded to the Lake Delton 12 inch rainfall deluge of a few years ago that washed the lake away.  And he cited other such Mi Read More

     Hawaiian agriculture leaders like Arnellas are currently working on a program to help get and keep more of their arable land in food production with a program called Important Agricultural Land.  That would put most of the state’s most productive land into a special category of land use where, according to Arnellas, “they cannot be developed or sold off for those gentlemanly estates.”  The program would give tax breaks for keeping land in production and tax incentives to bring the idled land back into production.  Officials hope that will break up some of the large land holdings that are owned by the rich and some large corporations so that the small farmers may eventually be able to own the land they operate. Read More

     The current size of the U.S. cattle herd, including last year’s calf crop, hasn’t been this small since the late ‘40s, early ‘50s.  That is a major concern for cattlemen around the country, but maybe not as big a concern as other issues groups like the National Cattlemens’ Beef Association (NCBA) try to get resolved on a continuing basis.
       At last weekend’s winter meeting of the Wisconsin Cattlemens’ and Cattlewomens’ groups, new NCBA president Scott George of Cody, Wyoming, laid out a litany of issues his group works on every day, mainly in Washington D.C.  While some of the current events like the Russian ban on U.S. beef and pork products, the effects of sequestration and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack’s threat to furlough meat inspectors and the challenge to satisfy Canada and Mexico over our Country of Origin labeling law are all important issues, there are others that are keeping he and his staff just as busy.
        One of the most immediate issues that needs resolution George told us is the immigration and border control issue which is making it dangerous for cattle producers who operate along the U.S.-Mexican border.  The problem is that a lot of that land is under the control of the federal government and they don’t allow border patrol agents to use mechanized vehicles to patrol that territory.  That means agents have to use horses which allow illegal immigrants and drug dealers to come across the border and as George said, “use it as a superhighway to come in, sell their drugs and raid farms and ranches and even kill one rancher along the border.”  The cattlemen want the policy changed to allow mechanized vehicles so the border patrol has a better chance of enforcing border integrity.  On immigration, George says there needs to be a change in the H2A program which allows for seasonal workers in agriculture.  Cattlemen and dairy producers, like George who milks 550 cows and runs a cow-calf herd with his brothers and nephews outside Cody, need and deserve a guest worker program that allows for migrant workers to come into this country on a more long term basis than the seasonal worker program we now have. He said, “That is a real strong priority.  We need to get that worker program fixed.” George said he is hopeful Congress will make the necessary changes in the H2A program and is encouraged “because at least they’re talking about it now.”
    Another major initiative of NCBA is ADUFA, or the Animal Drug User Fee Act.  That act would allow Pharmaceutical companies to pay a fee to the federal government, which George says they are willing to do, in order to speed up the approval process for new products to come on the market. It comes up for consideration on a regular basis but as George ex Read More

     The biggest issue most people associate with growing corn is the drought of 2012 that shortened the crop across the country and many parts of the world and raised prices. Hopefully the drought was a one year event but as corn growers heard at the annual Wisconsin Corn Conferences around the state over the past week, there are other issues that are going to have a much longer term effect on production.
      One of those is the spread of glyphosate (commonly known as Roundup) resistant weeds.  Vince Davis, UW Extension Weed Scientist, spoke to the corn growers about the ongoing challenge of resistant weeds and had both good news and bad news.  He told the growers “Wisconsin is actually right now in a pretty good place since we don’t have as many glyphosate resistant weeds as many states surrounding us.”  But he also said we’re not completely free of the problem since, as he told the growers, “We do now have giant ragweed that we have confirmed resistant in the state and that is a very competitive weed in both corn and soybeans that we are very concerned about.”  
       Davis said an area of resistant giant ragweed has been confirmed only in extreme southern Wisconsin in Rock county but researchers are investigating potential resistant cases in other parts of the state.  Currently glyphosate resistant giant ragweed is much more of a problem in states like Minnesota, Michigan, Ohio and Indiana as well as in Ontario, Canada.  He added that states like Iowa, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio and Indiana are also fighting other glyphosate resistant weeds like horseweed (marestail), Waterhemp and Palmer Ameranth.  So far Wisconsin has no reports of any resistant varieties of any of those weed species.
       In Wisconsin, Davis said they are dealing with resistant weeds in a  “two pronged approach”.  The first project, funded by the Wisconsin Corn Growers Association, has been a far-reaching survey across the state looking at all weed species that escaped control during the year in both corn and soybeans.  Last year that meant visiting over 160 fields across the state to gather treatment history as well as plant samples to evaluate them for possible resistance.  The other strategy, Davis explained, has been to go directly into three fields, two of which had confirmed cases of ragweed resistance, and look at different herbicide programs to how they worked to control the giant ragweed.  Davis said those field tests indicate the best control is with a two pass program across the field, whether it’s a corn or soybean stand. He also said that one size or product won’t get the job done. He told the corn growers, “It’s going to take diversification of multiple effective herbicide modes of action.”  Reliance solely on glyphosate Read More

     The average Class III dairy price for 2012 was $17.99 and dairymen will tell you that is not enough to operate today’s modern dairy farms with the high costs of inputs.  This past year also provided unneeded stress as farmers fought the drought and the challenge of putting up enough feed for the winter and early spring feeding season.  But last week at the Western Wisconsin Ag Lenders Conference in Menomonie, their lenders were told to expect higher dairy prices in 2013.
      Dr. Mark Stephenson, Director of Dairy Policy Analysis at the UW-Madison Center for Dairy Profitability, forecast 2013 dairy prices to be about $1 a hundred higher than in 2012.  He also told the bankers he believes feed costs will be much more manageable in the new year.  He said his forecasts call for “Soybean meal prices to fall by about $70 a ton and corn prices at harvest  this year will be about $1 lower than last fall.”  That corn price though, may still be a little high.  Also speaking to the ag lenders was Dr. Brenda Boetel, UW Extension Grain and Livestock Marketing Specialist. She told the group that, assuming we have a more normal growing and production year with a corn harvest in the neighborhood of 14 billion bushels, “producers should expect corn prices to land between $4.25 and $4.75 a bushel.”  
         The increase in dairy prices in 2013 should be seen across the country and part of the equation according to Stephenson, is if producers respond to higher prices with a jump in milk production.  He said the higher production toward the end of 2012 did surprise him somewhat but it’s an indication of how producers react with higher prices.  He hopes the better margins for dairy producers will stabilize cow numbers and that culling will still be strong if cow prices remain high in these tight beef markets.  He added the high beef cow prices have allowed farmers to get rid of chronic problem cows and make money doing it.
       Cow slaughter numbers for 2012 show the increase in cows going to slaughter.  For the first 11 months of last year, 2.84 million head went to slaughter.  That’s up over 7% from 2011.  The numbers, from the Milk Producers’ Council, show that’s the highest 11 month slaughter total since 1986 when the Whole Herd Buyout program was in place.  During that period, just over 3 million cows went to market.  By the time the December numbers are in, the 2012 numbers should be very close to 1986 as the mid-December report shows another 66,00 head went to slaughter, the third largest total for any week in 2012.
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         Governor Scott Walker has given his cabinet their marching orders for filing their budget proposals for the 2013-2015 budget cycle.  While most of those budgets will still be tight and in most cases even smaller than the last budget cycle, the overall cuts won’t be as drastic as the governor’s first budget two years ago that ended up causing the recall election.  Earlier this month the governor told us “We are in reasonably good shape this time around and won’t need massive cuts like two years ago because we made prudent decisions in the past with long term reforms.”
         For Ben Brancel, Secretary at the Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection (DATCP), the new budget cycle does call for him to make cuts that will total over $1.73 million. The total proposed DATCP budget for fiscal years 2014 and 2015 will be just under $100 million for each year  At this point the budget numbers have been sent to the Department of Administration for crunching  but the specifics of how many dollars will go to various programs in the agency are not finalized.  Currently, Brancel and his staff are looking at six major programs that will cut across divisional lines within DATCP.  They are Food Safety and Consumer Protection, Animal Health, Agricultural Development Services, Agricultural Assistance, Agricultural Resource Management and Central Administrative Services.
       Brancel and all state agency heads are also using a tool to guide them throught the budget process and evaluation of programs within each agency.  It’s called a Six Sigma-Continuous improvement initiative that is the direct result of an Executive Order signed by the governor last May.  Secretary Brancel described it to us as “A process where you identify steps you take in creating a product or doing an activity and try to find ways to streamline or improve it to deliver the results more effectively, thereby having profitability in the end.”  DATCP officials will use the process over the next couple of years to evaluate and tear apart its six major programs and rebuild them to “Create efficiencies and opportunities for people in the agency to do more work with the time they have,” Brancel added.  Another hope is that the Lean Six Sigma program  will allow DATCP officials to source more money internally to improve their Information Technology systems so people can communicate more quickly and easily with agency staff.
    As far as actual budget items for the next two years, DATCP is seeking about $500,000 for continued support of the state’s livestock prmise identification program.  Brancel hopes to get that money from already existing dollars from General Purpose Revenue at the Revenue Department.  Current regulations call fo Read More

       Earlier this fall an 80 acre tract of land in Northwest Iowa sold for over $20,000 an acre and similar parcels in that county have also been sold for some of the highest prices for cropland ever in the Midwest.  Last week in Kansas City, a long time farm manager and investor, Murray Wise of Murray Wise Associates in Clarion, Iowa told farm broadcasters prices like that may seem high but they pencil out for the farmer buyers of those pieces of land. Read More

          With the election season about over, many are already starting look ahead to the lame duck session of Congress to get a lot of unfinished business done by the end of the year.  Funding bills and appropriation bills that aren’t dealt with by December 31 will face massive spending cuts if they are dealt with after the first of the new year.  One of those bills is the Farm, Food and Jobs Act that has already passed the full Senate and the House Agriculture Committee.  That all happened earlier this summer which almost seems like ancient history. Read More

       World Dairy Expo in Madison last week was another celebration of the dairy industry.  The best dairy cattle from the continental United States and Canada were shown on the colored shavings of the Coliseum at the Alliant Energy Center and visitors came from about 90 foreign countries to see the latest in dairy technology and genetics.  But it wasn’t all about the cows.  For some it was about dairy policy and what might be put in place for the industry in a new farm bill. Read More