Witnesses focused on the need for meaningful price protection, payments that would kick in only when needed and policy that is fair to all commodities and producers.

When addressing crop insurance, University of Illinois’s Gary Schnitkey says that there are gaps in the program, but the Senate plan accounts for them.

Schnitkey

But, Dee Vaughan, President of the Southwest Council of Agribusiness in Texas disagrees.

Vaughan 1

And Vaughan says that protecting against multi-year deep prices declines is not just a rice or peanuts issue.

Vaughan 2

The witnesses did agree that the farm bill needs to get done this year to ensure producers will have certainty this fall when planning for the 2013 growing season.

American Farm Bureau Federation President Stallman…

Stallman

The company says it is an advantage to its customers because buying by seed count provides a simple, convenient and more accurate means of planning their soybean crop.

“Our customers will benefit because they can more easily calculate the number of units they need based on their desired planting rates because the seed quantity per unit will always be consistent,” says Don Schafer, senior marketing manager, soybeans. “This change is in response to customer demand for consistent seed count packaging for more efficient field-by-field planning.”

Prior to this change, Pioneer sold soybean seeds by weight (50 pounds of seed equals one unit). Soybean seeds can potentially vary in size, based on genetics and growing conditions, affecting the number of seeds per unit. With this change to selling by count, the number of seeds per unit will be consistent for Pioneer customers.

Pioneer brand soybeans will continue to be sold by count in traditional paper bags, PROBOX units and jumbo bags, as well as through PROBulk systems.

Source: Pioneer

“This is the second of two new Council reports concerning the quality of the 2011 crop,” said Dr. Wendell Shauman, USGC chairman and farmer from Illinois. “Earlier this year the Council’s Corn Harvest Quality Report surveyed corn quality at the farm gate. Together, these two reports are intended to provide reliable information on U.S. corn quality for the current marketing year, based on a transparent and consistent methodology.”

In addition to providing an early look at grades and standards factors and moisture (that are reported each year by the U.S. Federal Grain Inspection Service), these reports provide information on additional quality characteristics that have not been reported previously.

“Quality is a vital concern for every stakeholder in the corn value chain: seed companies, corn growers, traders, corn handlers, shippers, processors and end-users. The Council anticipates that the value of these reports to all stakeholders will increase over time as stakeholders become familiar with the information presented and with the year-to-year variations to be anticipated in the U.S. corn marketing system,” he said.

Source: USGC

Ranking Member Collin Peterson of Minnesota warned members about repeating mistakes of the past.

Hearing 1

Southerner growers and Congressmen have raised objections to the Senate Ag Committee’s farm bill proposal, saying it doesn’t provide them with an adequate safety net. Peterson says he recognizes the needs of rice, peanut and cotton producers.

Hearing 2

House Ag Chairman Frank Lucas has repeatedly said he’s setting his sights on a farm bill that treats all regions and all producers equally.

Hearing 3

But Peterson doesn’t share his optimism.

Hearing 4

House Ag subcommittee’s are holding hearings Thursday and Friday as well to discuss Farm Bill topics including commodity programs, crop insurance and energy and forestry programs.

The Department of Energy and the Renewable Fuels Association say the report is fundamentally flawed. Specifically, the U.S. Department of Transportation says – we believe the choice of test engines, test cycle, limited fuel selection, and failure criteria of the CRC program resulted in unreliable and incomplete data, which severely limits the utility of the study.

Speaking to the New York Times, a Department of Energy spokesman “said that his agency had tested 86 vehicles on test tracks and dynamometers for a total of more than six million miles. ‘A subset of those engines tested in the D.O.E. study were torn down and inspected with no discernible difference in engine wear between test fuels,’ he said.”

Bob Dinneen President and CEO of the Renewable Fuels Association, says – accepting the status quo in a fuel market monopolized by petroleum as the best this nation can do is unacceptable. Dinneen adds, funding research using questionable testing protocols and illegal fuels make the test – meaningless and only serve to further muddy the waters and shun the overwhelming desire of 75 percent of Americans for greater choice at the pump.

Source: Renewable Fuels Association

Dermot Hayes of Iowa State says the study also found gasoline prices have been reduced by an average of $0.29 per gallon nationally, or about 17 percent, from 2000 to 2011 thanks to the use of ethanol.

Savings 1

According to the research, the gasoline price reduction in the Midwest was even greater, $0.45 per gallon. Bob Dinneen, President and CEO of the Renewable Fuels Association, says the study clearly underscores that the current pain at the pump would be far worse without ethanol. And he says corn producers have stepped up to the plate to meet growing demand.

Savings 2

Based on government data, U.S. households consumed an average of 1,124 gallons of gasoline in 2001. The study says that means ethanol reduced the average American household’s spending on gasoline by more than $1,200.

The proposal from LightSquared to build a wireless network has drawn opposition from a wide variety of groups. Recently, the Federal Communications Commission revoked a waiver for the company to build a terrestrial telecommunications network because tests confirmed that LightSquared’s network would interfere with GPS systems, including precision-ag applications.

LightSquared said it plans to continue to pursue the project.

The Export-Import Bank supports American jobs and is a critical tool for small business to get the financing they need to export their products. The Ex-Im Bank last year helped to produce more than $41 billion in U.S. exports, supporting approximately 290,000 export-related American jobs. More than 85 percent of Ex-Im Bank’s transactions last year directly supported small businesses.

“North Dakota is a leader in export growth, with more than 300 percent growth over the last decade and 33 percent in 2011 alone,” Hoeven said. “This bill strengthens the bank, and at the same time, provides more accountability to taxpayers.”

The Export-Import Bank’s authorization was set to expire on May 31, 2012, and the bank also faced a lending cap of $100 billion. The measure passed by both chambers of Congress reauthorizes the bank for three years and raises its lending cap to $140 billion by 2014.

The measure was supported by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the North Dakota Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufactures and other prominent business groups.

Source: Office of Senator Hoeven

“Decades of mismanagement and convoluted environmental regulation have left our nation’s vast forest lands one spark away from a catastrophic wildfire. In many parts of the nation, these forests, which have historically provided grazing land for livestock and habitat to wildlife, are nothing more than kindling for the next big fire,” Falen said. “Forest lands must be responsibly managed but that is not happening today because environmental extremists have abused regulations currently on the books to tie the hands of land management agencies. The Catastrophic Wildfire Prevention Act will restore some common sense to forest management, improve public safety and restore the environment.”

H.R. 5744 will allow the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture and the U.S. Secretary of the Interior to streamline projects to reduce hazardous fuel loads, thus reducing the risk of catastrophic wildfire and protecting endangered species on lands managed by the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management. Authorized projects include timber thinning and livestock grazing.

Joe Guild, chairman of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association’s Federal Lands Committee, urged Congress to consider H.R. 5744 and commended Congressman Gosar for stepping up and working to restore the ability of the federal government to work with farmers and ranchers to prevent catastrophic wildfires.

“Catastrophic wildfires cost taxpayers millions of dollars in immediate response and subsequent restoration projects. Managing the land and reducing hazardous fuel loads to prevent wildfires is the right thing to do,” Guild said. “Environmental extremists should not be allowed to continue obstructing our ability to responsibly manage the land and its resources. Congressman Gosar’s legislation is a crucial step in the right direction of stopping the abuse of well-intended environmental laws. We urge members of Congress to support this legislation and help prevent future devastating catastrophic wildfires.”

Source: Public Lands Council

Last week, representatives of rural lending institutions told a House Ag Subcommittee that they’re concerned that farmland prices have inflated to a point where they face increased risk if rising farmland values suddenly crash. 

In the Kansas City Fed report, the value of non-irrigated crop land is reported jumping 25 percent, while irrigated farm prices jumped more than 30 percent from the first quarter of 2011 to a new high for the bank’s quarterly bankers’ survey. Ranchland values rose 16 percent as high feed costs lifted the demand for pasture.

When the housing market bubble burst several years ago, banks and other lending institutions took a major economic hit, and taxpayers found themselves on the hook for billions of dollars that was needed to bail out lending entities – like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

At the subcommittee hearing, Nebraska Bank of Newman Grove Chairman Jeff Gerhart testified on behalf of the Independent Community Bankers of America.  He was asked by lawmakers whether he sees any similarities between rising farmland values and the housing bubble from a few years back, here’s his response.

Bubble 1

If farmland prices fall like they did in the 1980’s, taxpayer money could be needed to make lenders whole again, but not in amounts nearly as high as the housing lender bailout.

Bubble 2

Gerhart encouraged the committee to keep and eye on the situation.

Bubble 3

The KC Fed surveys 235 bankers in its district, an area that includes Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Wyoming, the northern half of New Mexico and the western third of Missouri.

Source: Kansas City Fed, Reuters