Agricultural News
US Wheat Faces International Office Closures If Farm Bill Remains Stalled
Fri, 09 Nov 2012 12:01:47 CST
Dan Hughes raises hard red and hard white winter wheat as well as corn, soybeans, and dry, edible beans on his farm in Venango, Nebraska. He is also vice-chairman of U.S. Wheat Associates.
He spoke recently with Radio Oklahoma Network Farm Director Ron Hays about the stalled 2012 Farm Bill and its effect on foreign market development funds.
"U.S. Wheat Associates is an organization of 19 states that produce wheat in the United States that collect checkoff. And we take those checkoff dollars and we leverage those to get additional dollars from the government through grants and awards. And those are the dollars we use to fund our overseas operations which consist of 19 offices around the world.
"To staff those offices, we put people in there to help the buyers of United States wheat. We help them acquire the wheat. We help them line up the shipping. We help them, once they get it, mill it. We help them blend the flour to bake the product that they need.
"So U.S. Wheat is a service organization and we've got study after study that will prove that for every dollar that USDA funds us, it will return $115 back to the American wheat farmer."
Some programs are out of money with the lapse of the 2008 farm bill. Other programs will lose funding authorization at the end of the year. How will that affect those U.S. Wheat offices overseas?
"We've basically got enough money to operate through the end of January. And after that, if we don't have a farm bill in place with the authorization for these FMD and MAP funds, we'll have to start shutting down our overseas offices.
"The problem with that is the other world wheat-producing countries--the exporting countries of Australia, Argentina, former Soviet Union, Ukraine--they've got government-backed programs that are overseas doing the same thing we are, trying to gain market share for their wheat producers.
"The way you sell things to your neighbor around the world is that you build that relationship with someone. You build that trust. And that's the thing we're really afraid of losing as we have spent many, many years building the relationship and the trust with our customers around the world. And if we have to close our offices even for just a few months, we're back at ground zero and our competitors have moved in and taken our market share.
"So it's in everyone's interest to make sure we get the farm bill done and we get it done very soon."
You can listen to Ron Hays' full conversation with Dan Hughes by clicking on the LISTEN BAR below.
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