Farm Bill Impacts Described by OSU's Jody Campiche 

Jody Campiche, Assistant Professor and OSU Extension Economist, published the following analysis of the 2014 farm bill:

The U.S. House of Representatives passed the Agriculture Act of 2014 on January 29. A summary of commodity, conservation, crop insurance, and disaster assistance is provided below. All information is based on an initial interpretation of the bill language and is subject to change once more detailed information is released. Additional newsletters with more specific information about each new program will be released as well.

Commodity Revenue and Price Support Programs
The new farm bill ends direct payments, counter-cyclical payments, and ACRE payments for all covered commodities starting with the 2014 crop year. A new revenue protection program, called Average Risk Coverage (ARC) and a new price protection program, called Price Loss Coverage (PLC) is included for covered commodities (excluding upland cotton). The ARC program is similar to the ACRE program in the 2008 farm bill and the PLC program is similar to the counter-cyclical payment program in previous farm bills. For both ARC and PLC, producers have the option to choose farm level or county level coverage. Similar to the 2008 farm bill, producers will have the option to make a one-time, irrevocable decision to enroll in ARC or PLC on a commodity-by-commodity basis for each crop on the farm. However, producers who enroll in individual-level ARC must elect individual-level ARC for all crops on the farm.

Marketing Loans
Marketing assistance loans are continued under the same provisions as in the 2008 farm bill, with some changes in how the cotton loan rate is determined. The minimum loan rate for cotton is setat $0.45/lb and the maximum rate is $0.52/lb.

Supplemental Agriculture Disaster Assistance
The Livestock Indemnity Program (LIP) and the Livestock Forage Program (LFP) are continued for 2012 and each succeeding fiscal year, which means that eligible producers will receive LIP and LFP payments for losses that occurred in 2012 and 2013 (since the 2008 farm bill only authorized these programs through October 2011). The minimum risk management purchase requirement for disaster assistance that was included in the 2008 farm bill is omitted for these programs.

Click here for more of Jody Campiche's detailed analysis.  

'Right-to-Farm' Amendment Tops OFB's Agenda for 2014 Legislative Session 

The Oklahoma legislative session gets underway next week and Oklahoma Farm Bureau has its eye on a number of issues both locally and nationally. LeeAnna Covington, who works in the public policy division at the Oklahoma Farm Bureau, spoke with me about this year's agenda.

Topping Covington's list here at home will be getting a "right-to-farm" amendment added to the state constitution. Nationally, she says, Oklahoma Farm Bureau members will be keeping a sharp eye on the implementation of the 2014 Farm Bill and on action on making it possible for horse slaughter plants to be built in Oklahoma.

She said the recently-passed farm bill in Washington has drawn mixed reactions from Oklahoma farmers and ranchers. While most approve of it, some were disappointed that the repeal of COOL was not included in the legislation.

She also said that stand-alone legislation is in the works to provide funding for USDA inspectors in horse slaughter plants. Funding was stripped out of the recent budget that was passed and Senator Jim Inhofe says he will introduce a bill to restore funding so that slaughter plants can be built.

You can read more of this story or listen to our conversation by clicking here.
 

Top Six Reasons EWG Opposes the Farm Bill

The following editorial was written by Scott Faber, vice president of government affairs for the Environmental Working Group:

Thanks to the leadership of Senate Agriculture Committee Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), the farm bill that passed the House this week and will likely pass the Senate next week has some positive features, including new conservation requirements for farm businesses that collect crop insurance subsidies and more funding for local and organic farmers. But those important provisions are outweighed by new, expanded and largely unlimited subsidies that do too much to help the largest and most successful farm operations at the expense of family farmers and the environment.

In particular, the final farm bill: May Increase Farm Subsidies,  Rejects Reasonable Subsidy Limits, Increases Insurance Subsidies, Cuts Nutrition Assistance, Cuts Conservation Funding, and Rejects Transparency.

You can read the details on each of Scott's six reasons by clicking here. 

Oklahoma Association of Conservation Districts Praises House Passage of Farm Bill

The passage last Wednesday of the 2014 Farm Bill by the U.S. House of Representatives is great news for rural Oklahoma according to Kim Farber, President of the Oklahoma Association of Conservation Districts (OACD).

"We are extremely pleased that the House of Representatives took action this week to pass a new comprehensive Farm Bill that not only provides certainty for farmers and ranchers but also continues to give us the tools we need to help protect our natural resources while we feed and clothe the world," Farber said. "We especially are grateful for all the hard work and leadership shown by Oklahoma's own Congressman Frank Lucas, Chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, in putting together this compromise bill and then shepherding it through the House. It's a good bill not just for rural Oklahoma, but for all of America."

Farber said that the next step in the journey of the Farm Bill is consideration by the full U.S. Senate which is expected early this week.
 

Click here to read more.

OSU's Jayson Lusk Opines in the New York Times on the Need for GMO Wheat 

They write "How does wheat differ from the other commodity crops, and why does it matter? Much of our domestically produced corn and soybeans are fed to animals or made into ethanol, while most wheat is consumed by humans as bread or pasta. This is why there were fears that genetically engineered wheat would suffer as an export crop. The European countries and Japan have traditionally imported about 15 percent of our wheat exports. But they have also been antagonistic to genetically engineered crops and food derived from them.

"As a result, wheat farmers missed out on perhaps the most important benefit of genetic engineering: the development of crops that can survive droughts or grow with lower-quality water. Those attributes would go a long way to improving wheat yields and making the crop more attractive to farmers.

"Much of the nation's wheat crop comes from a section of the central plains that sits atop the Ogallala Aquifer, which is rapidly being depleted. The direst warnings suggest that at current rates of use, in 50 years only 30 percent of its water will remain. Farmers who have relied on the aquifer may face tougher restrictions on use or be forced to change their farming practices."

They point out the safety of GMO crops and how farmers- not just in this country- but also globally as well- will benefit from biotech development of wheat.  AND- they make the case that this is one of the tools need to feed more and more hungry mouths in the decades to come.

As of early Monday morning- there were already 72 comments- and everyone of them that I read were filled with hate for GMOs and disdain for the article and its claims for a better wheat industry- this by people who have NO CLUE about production agriculture.  One of my favorite comments that I saw this morning says "If these GMO crops are so great, why didn''t a billion years of evolution produce them?"   

As Uncle Jed often said of Jethro- "I gotta have a long talk with that boy."

This N That- Farm Bill Senate Vote, Winter Weather All Week and Cattle Industry Convention Getting Underway

Before today is done- we could be down to NO Votes and ONE Signature for the Farm Bill Conference Report. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid  has scheduled a vote for this afternoon on the farm bill.  

Senator Reid filed cloture on the House-passed amendment to H.R. 2642 - the $956 billion conference committee farm bill - setting up a vote for Monday at 4:30 p.m Central time.  If at least 60 senators vote to end debate, the Senate will then proceed to a vote on final passage.

You can watch on CSpan2- and we will be tweeting as we can with coverage from those votes in the Tuesday email.

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Winter will continue to camp out on top of Oklahoma all of this week. It appears that three more storm systems are ready to make a run across the state starting early Tuesday morning. 

Courtesy of News9 and Jed Castles, we have a couple of graphics that show where the storm may be tracking- starting after midnight tonight- and it appears that areas from Ponca City over to Woodward could see from six to seven inches of snow.  Wheat and canola farmers are hoping for a wet snow that will stay on the fields and melt in when we finally get some warmer temps.  

We also have details from Alan Crone from the News on 6 about storm two and three for this week- both with some moisture included and both with cold temperatures as part of the package deal.  

Click here to see those graphics (maps) and read about the storms of this week as described by Alan Crone.

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If the weather cooperates- and the Company Airplane flies- we are headed for the 2014 Cattle Industry Convention and Trade Show in Nashville for the balance of this week.  We jump right into before dawn to after dusk coverage from this meeting first thing on Tuesday morning as the Cattlemen's College at the 2014 event gets underway later today and hits road gear on Tuesday- several outstanding speakers are on their agenda and there will be a lot of policy issues to stay up with- Cattlefax offering their annual market outlook and so much more.  

One quick preview can be heard and read in an end of the week Beef Buzz that we have posted on our website- click here to listen to comments from the current President of the NCBA- Scott George about the meetings and the biggest ever trade show.

AND- we will be posting stories, tweeting and doing radio from the 2014 Cattle Industry Convention starting on Tuesday.