44 Groups Cobble Together New Crop Insurance Agreement- Linking Crop Insurance to Conservation Compliance 

The American Farm Bureau Federation has joined with a diverse group of 44 conservation, environmental, crop insurance and agricultural organizations in distributing a position paper that outlines a common-sense compromise to link conservation compliance and crop insurance premium assistance and to oppose means testing, payment limitations or premium subsidy reductions for the crop insurance program.

These recommendations have been submitted to leadership of the Senate and House Agriculture committees for their consideration for debate on the new farm bill. In a letter to Senate Agriculture Committee leaders, the organizations said the position provides "an effective farm and natural resource safety net."

"Farm Bureau is convinced this agreement will move the farm bill forward," said AFBF President Bob Stallman. "This is a balanced agreement that provides fairness and a measure of certainty to farmers regarding the availability of risk management tools while at the same time helping to conserve natural resources. It's a win-win situation that was reached by a group of organizations that came together under a banner of common-sense and collaboration."

In the spirit of compromise and in the interest of completing a farm bill this year, each of the groups has committed to not support amendments beyond this compromise that might weaken the crop insurance program or amendments that might not link conservation compliance with crop insurance premium assistance, according to the letter.

Click here to read more of this story.  

Senate Ag Committee Jumps Ahead of House Ag Committee in Farm Bill Markup Plan- Sets Next Tuesday as Mark Up Day

Senate Ag Committee Chairlady Debbie Stabenow of Michigan really wanted to mark up her version of the 2013 Five Year Farm Bill this week- but has had a really tough time in lining up the right amount of budget savings that will suit her Democratic inclinations and yet will deal with the harsh reality of needing to save billions of dollars in the ten year time frame that everything is measured against. She has worked things out to a point that she has announced that the Senate Ag Committee will mark up the

Agriculture Reform, Food, and Jobs Act of 2013 on Tuesday morning, May 14, 2013- a day ahead of the planned mark up day talked about by Congressman Frank Lucas and his ranking member, Collin Peterson in the House.

Stabenow will likely end up with a bill that has about $23 billion dollars of "savings" over a ten year period. That will be achieved with a modest reduction in nutrition and about the same level of savings in the Commodity and Conservation Titles as will likely be proposed by Chairman Lucas in his House Ag Committee mark next week- assuming his committee moves with markup next Wednesday.

It is still not certain what the Stabenow Commodity Title will look like- except that it will be closer to the House proposal of last year- and that the revenue based safety net plan advocated by the corn and soybean folks won't the one and only safety net plan coming out of the Senate Committee.

In the House, Lucas has discused with us and other media folks about the need to have a bill that will save $38 billion over a ten year period- and he gets most of the money above and beyond what Debbie Stabenow is willing to cut from Nutrition programs.  If both bills emerge from Committee and survive the House and Senate floor debates- that huge difference in "cuts" to Nutrition will mean for a hotly contested Conference Committee.

First step will be mark up- and we will be in Washington next week to report to you all of the action- it should be interesting. 

Oklahoma Researchers Receive USDA Funds to Study Weather and Climatic Variability on Beef Cattle

The U.S. Department of Agriculture awarded $19.5 million to support research, education and Extension activities associated with climate solutions in agriculture aimed at the impacts of climate variability and change on dairy and beef cattle. 

"We have seen the impact that variable climate patterns have had on production agriculture for the past several years. These projects will deliver the best tools available to accurately measure and respond to the effects of climate on beef and dairy production," said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. 

Oklahoma State University received $9.6 million over five years to better understand vulnerability and resilience of Southern Great Plains beef in an environment of increased climate variability, dynamic land-use and fluctuating markets. The team's goal is to safeguard regional beef production while mitigating the environmental footprint of agriculture. The project also includes education and Extension components to train the next generation of producers and researchers in addressing the impact of climate on beef cattle. Using a community- and citizen-science approach, the project will train young students and citizens to use GPS-enabled digital cameras and smartphones and web data portals to participate in field data collection. 

The team is comprised of 32 scientists from OSU, Kansas State University, University of Oklahoma, Tarleton State University, the Samuel R. Noble Foundation, and two ARS laboratories.

You can read more by clicking here.

  

NCFC Urges Inclusion of Pryor-Inhofe Senate Amendment to Clarify Confusion Over Oil Spill Rule for Agriculture

The National Council of Farmer Cooperatives (NCFC) today signaled its support for the inclusion of S. 496, the Farmers Undertake Environmental Land Stewardship Act, as an amendment to the Water Resources Development Act currently being debated on the Senate floor. The amendment seeks to ensure that the Environmental Protection Agency's pending Spill Prevention, Control and Countermeasure (SPCC) regulations adequately recognizes the low risk of spills on America's farms and ranches.

"Inclusion of an amendment identical to S. 496 in WRDA will bring much needed clarity to agriculture on the confusing requirements of the SPCC rules," said Chuck Conner, president and CEO of NCFC. "Throughout this long regulatory process, the EPA has failed to provide solid data, or even anecdotal evidence, of on-farm oil spills to justify such as resource-intensive rulemaking for America's farmers and ranchers."

The amendment would exempt farmers from SPCC rules for aboveground oil storage tanks that have an aggregate storage capacity of less than 10,000 gallons. In addition to providing this exemption, it will also allow farmers who are regulated and have less than 42,000 gallons of above ground storage capacity to self-certify their own plans. 

Click here to read more.  

USDA Rush to Implement COOL Ahead of WTO Deadline Could Prove Burdensome to Beef Producers, Woodall Says

The USDA is rushing to get a Country of Origin Labeling rule in place to meet a late May deadline set by the World Trade Organization. The agency opened a comment period on the proposed rule in March and has left itself precious little time for any revisions to the text.

Colin Woodall, vice president of government affairs with the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, spoke with me recently about how he believes the process will work from here.

"I think that we will see the rule as it was published back in March become final and at that time it will be up to the WTO to determine whether or not it meets the criteria of fixing country of origin labeling. And the conversation that we've had with our trading partners in Canada and Mexico, we do not believe that is going to be the case. So, unfortunately, I think we're setting ourselves up for retaliation from two of our biggest markets for export of U.S. beef.

"We also feel that implementation immediately will just have a tremendous burden on our industry because when you look at the economic analysis that USDA did on this proposal rule, basically all they looked at was the cost of new labels. They didn't take into account that it may require new labeling machines, different sorting practices in the packing plant. So they really didn't take into account all of the impacts here."

Colin joins me on the latest Beef Buzz.  Click here to listen or to read more of this story.  

Has the U.S. Become the Fraudulent Food Stamp Nation?

The following editorial by Dan Holler originally appeared in Townhall.com:

A 30-something graduate from the University of Chicago turned part-time blogger boldly declared, "I'm sort of a foodie, and I'm not going to do the 'living off ramen' thing." He'd just finished "roasted rabbit with butter, tarragon and sweet potatoes." His friend, a 30-year old art school graduate acknowledged, "I'm eating better than I ever have before."

The accounts come from the left-leaning Salon, which published the friends' food journey under the provocative headline: Hipsters on food stamps.

That was in March 2010, when 44.5 million people were part of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Now, more than 47.7 million are receiving food stamps.

Recently, Ohio was targeted for participation in a new federal program to curb abuse in the food stamp program. Last year, according to The Courier (Findlay, Ohio), the state auditor "became aware of scams involving electronic benefit cards and people selling them, then seeking another one by claiming it was lost." In 2011, 17,000 food stamp recipients in Ohio received 10 or more reissued cards. The fear, of course, is that those cards were not lost, but rather sold. 

You can read more of this story on our website by clicking here. 

This N That- Big Iron, Andy Holt Explains Stuff to HSUS and Last Call on Ipad Mini Giveaway

It's Wednesday- and that means the next Big Iron online no reserve equipment auction begins closing out items at 10 AM this morning. A total of 376 items are listed this week- including several things from right here in Oklahoma.

Click here to see this week's listing- and we remind you that Mike Wolfe, the Big Iron District Sales Manager, lives right here in Oklahoma and can walk you through the buying or selling process on Big Iron. We talked with Mike about how Big Iron has grown and how it works at the recent Southern Plains Farm Show- and you can hear our conversation with Mike by clicking here.

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Andy Holt is a State Representative in Tennessee- and he is leading the charge in that state to encourage their Governor to stand up to HSUS and Carrie Underwood- and sign a so called "Ag Gag" bill that would mandate that anyone who has video of animals being abused or mistreated must turn that video over to law enforcement within 24 hours. What I really like about Holt is the email that he apparently sent to the hapless HSUS representative in Tennessee- that lady may have to go to therapy for a couple of years to recover from that email lashing that Holt delivered- here's what he wrote to the HSUS lady:

"I am extremely pleased that we were able to pass HB 1191 today to help protect livestock in Tennessee from suffering months of needless investigation that propagandist groups of radical animal activists, like your fraudulent and reprehensibly disgusting organization of maligned animal abuse profiteering corporatists, who are intent on using animals the same way human-traffickers use 17 year old women. You work for a pathetic excuse for an organization and a pathetic group of sensationalists who seek to profit from animal abuse. I am glad, as an aside, that we have limited your preferred fund-raising methods here in the state of Tennessee; a method that I refer to as "tape and rape." Best wishes for the failure of your organization and it's true intent." 

I must say- I would vote for Andy Holt for most anything- from dogcatcher on up.

And by the way- Governor Bill Haslam has still not signaled whether he will sign or veto the bill- and he has until May 14th to do so.

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Finally- we will accept email entries in our Ipad Mini giveaway today- before we draw a name and announce it in the News section of the App on Thursday. To get your entry accepted today- through 6 AM tomorrow morning- just email me by clicking here and tell me what the top video is in the Video section of the Oklahoma Farm Report App.  If you have not yet downloaded the app- click here and this will point you to the link for both Apple as well as Android.