Capitol Hill Leaders Dismiss EWG

“EWG has no credibility.” Farm Policy Facts has been saying this for years about the Environmental Working Group (EWG), and it looks like quite a few Capitol Hill leaders agree. The direct quote came from House Agriculture Committee ranking member Collin Peterson (D-Minn.), who spoke last week to The Hagstrom Report. Peterson was not alone in giving EWG a congressional smack down.

Details

Farmer Cooperatives: Putting a Spotlight on a True American Success Story

By Charles F. Conner Some of America’s best loved brands—Land O’Lakes butter, Blue Diamond almonds, Welch’s grape juice, Riceland, and Sunkist oranges, to name a few—come from cooperatives that are wholly owned by the men and women who actually grow the crops. The old adage that “necessity is the mother of invention” could reasonably describe…

Details

U.S. Reforms Farm Policy while Foreign Competitors Ramp Up Trade-Distorting Subsidies

The critics of U.S. farm policy should feast their eyes on a new study that puts into perspective what America’s farmers are up against on the global market. While the U.S. made sweeping reforms and cuts to farm policy in the 2014 Farm Bill, its competitors were busy ramping up trade-distorting subsidies for their own producers. For some countries, support price levels for certain commodities have increased by more than 100 percent over the last decade, according to the report.

The nations in question include Brazil, China, India, Turkey, and Thailand – all member countries of the World Trade Organization (WTO). The report, which was sponsored by U.S. commodity organizations including the USA Rice Federation and is an update of a 2011 study, explains that “these countries are major producers, consumers, and in many cases, exporters of agricultural products, the effects of [their] policies are felt globally.”

Details

Our View: Common-Sense Lessons for Critics of American Agriculture

The critics of farm policy are so desperate to be relevant in a town bent on reform that they continue to gin up so-called news stories where none exist, using outdated numbers to point to issues long ago corrected. Poor L.A. Times for taking the bait recently and printing propaganda, instead of real news.

But, this presents a valuable opportunity to educate the critics on farm policy and the many changes that have taken place throughout the years.

Let us explain.

Details

ICYMI: Crop Insurance Takes the Spotlight in Two Diverse Regions of the Country

Last week, newspapers in two different and diverse regions of the country featured editorials on the importance of crop insurance, which highlights how it has become the risk management of choice for farmers nationwide. Steve Baccus, a family farmer from Kansas and the former president of the Kansas Farm Bureau, wrote in the Wichita Eagle that…

Details

Coalition Opposes President’s Proposed Crop Insurance Cuts, Urges Legislators to Protect Farm Safety Net

On the heels of the president’s budget release that proposed harmful cuts to crop insurance, a diverse group of farming organizations, agricultural businesses, banks, and equipment manufacturers sent a letter to Capitol Hill urging legislators to reject the president’s plan and to protect crop insurance in upcoming congressional budget proposals.

Details

Our View: American Agriculture Remains a Driving Force Behind America’s Success

“The farm – best home of the family, main source of national wealth, foundation of civilized society, the natural providence.”

One will find these wise words inscribed on the façade of Union Station in Washington, D.C. The historic site was built around the turn of the century when the nation was experiencing progress of every kind. There was industrial capacity, oil production, telecommunications, a major transportation system in the form of railroads, and most importantly, there was agriculture. The U.S. had established itself as a major agricultural producer on the world stage not only because of newly invented tools like mechanical reapers that improved crop harvests, but also because of westward expansion, which increased the diversity of American agricultural production.

Today, more than a hundred years later, that quote still captures the essence of American agriculture and its importance to the progress and success of our country. American agriculture remains diverse; it remains a source of national wealth and the pride of American families.

Details

Crop Insurance’s Future Depends on Private-Sector Delivery

Matthew King, a farmer from central Ohio, recently took to the editorial pages of the Columbus Dispatch to defend America’s current farm policy. And he gave some real-world perspective on the skin-in-the-game farmers have in today’s system.   “In 2013, our farming operation’s crop-insurance premium totaled more than my wife’s annual salary as a local…

Details