AUDIO: U.S. Ag Secretary Speaks on Climate Control Legislation

WASHINGTON-(AgWatch)--U.S. Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack says the offsets of the climate change legislation will outweigh the negatives and benefit ag producers.




Vilsack says he sees three basic purposes of the climate control legislation.

AUDIO: U.S. Ag Secretary Addresses Rural Issues, '08 Farm Bill

JONESBORO, Ark.-(AgWatch)--U.S. Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack was in Harrodsburg, Ky. this week addressing USDA's plans to help revitalize Kentucky's rural economy and infrastructure. AgWatch Network's Rick Crawford had a chance to discuss these rural issues with Vilsack along with some of the controversy surrounding the 2008 Farm Bill.

Political Environment Clouds Climate Legislation

JONESBORO, Ark.-(AgWatch)--This week on our homepage, we ran two separate stories on soybeans and global warming. The first of the two ran in STL Today with the headline, "Global Warming Policies Make It Harder on Soybean Farmers".

This article said many soybean growers have concerns toward the Environmental Protection Agency's efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions. One of the article's main sources, Joe Jobe of the National Biodiesel Board, said "They're (EPA) trying to hold us accountable in the United States not only for our own carbon dioxide emissions, but for hypothetical international emissions decades into the future, based on decisions by millions of people around the world. It's extraordinary."

The second article, posted on the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's homepage, had the headline, "Ozone Damage Hurts Soybean Yields". In this article, NASA claims its scientists have data that proves global warming costs U.S. soybean growers $2 billion annually.

This article's lead source, Elizabeth Ainsworth, a professor of crop biology at the University of Illinois, was quoted as saying, "Yields across the country are lower than they otherwise would be. We are losing a very significant chunk of the potential yield."

Now, I fully support maximizing crop yields and certainly do not buy into conspiracy theories, but I find it odd that scientists have released this data during the debate over climate legislation.

It seems as if the study's supporters want to say, "You might as well back our regulations because you'll end up losing your crop if you don't."

Still, I find it ironic and almost funny this study comes out when soybean yields are near record highs. In 2008, the average soybean producer harvested 39.6 bu./acre. That figure certainly falls below 2005's 43.0 bu./acre, but it shines when compared with previous decades.

For example, between 1983-2000, only one year (1994's 41.4 bu./acre) had a yield that surpassed or even matched 2008. In fact, the average yield didn't pass 35 bu./acre until 1992.

This data suggests the climate legislation's supporting studies have a politically motivated basis. They may or may not have a scientific backbone and should be reviewed and critiqued carefully before arriving at any conclusions.

Let me know what any of you think!

Cap-and-Trade Showdown on Capitol Hill

WASHINGTON-(The Hill)--A committee chairman is threatening House leaders to either give him a role in shaping climate change legislation or risk losing every Democratic vote on his panel when the bill hits the floor.

Rep. Collin Peterson (Minn.), the outspoken Democratic chairman of the Agriculture panel, has been making it well-known that he wants his committee to have full jurisdictional authority over whatever climate change bill emerges from Chairman Henry Waxman’s (D-Calif.) Energy and Commerce Committee.

But Peterson is no longer making idle threats. Peterson earlier this week met with the 26 Democrats on his panel and emerged with a “virtually unanimous” agreement that his committee members would stand with him in opposition to a climate change bill that didn’t adequately address the concerns of the agriculture industry, according to one of those Democrats.

Click HERE for the full story.

VIDEO: Vilsack Weighs In On "Swine Flu"

VIDEO: Is the Farm Economy Taking a Toll on Farmers?

Crop Subsidies Common and Increasing Outside the U.S.

LUBBOCK, Texas-(Newswise)--U.S. agriculture subsidies may get lambasted by the international press for suppressing farm prices abroad, but a study by Texas Tech University economists finds that developing countries are equally, if not more, prone to protecting their agricultural sectors.

Researchers in Texas Tech’s Cotton Economics Research Institute studied the agricultural subsidies and protection applied by 21 countries to seven major crops: corn, cotton, rice, sorghum, soybeans, sugar and wheat.

The resulting report, Crop Subsidies in Foreign Countries: Different Paths to Common Goals, found that while policy tools employed by governments may differ, agricultural support is increasing not only in industrialized countries such as the U.S. or Australia, but in developing economies such as those of China or Brazil.

"U.S. agriculture has been openly criticized by international organizations and eminent academicians for its subsidies and protection programs," study authors wrote. "Overall, the study concludes that agriculture has a special status in both developed and developing countries with a wide variety of subsidy and protection instruments in place. Developed countries certainly subsidize and protect their agricultural sectors."

Developing countries employ higher tariff protection than their industrialized peers, researchers found, and also tend to supplement their price support program with input subsidies, which are excluded from World Trade Organization support calculations but still distort trade.

Click HERE to access the full report.

Funding for the research was provided by the Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension Service, USDA through the International Cotton Research Center and Texas Tech’s Larry Combest Chair of Agricultural Competitiveness.