One of the most important parts of the Annual Meeting of the American Farm Bureau Federation is the annual meeting of the voting delegates. These folks got down to business early this morning and will hopefully conclude this afternoon with a new policy book. This is grassroots policy making in action! The leadership is at the head table with all …
Death Tax and the White House
It looks like the death tax is going to be really hard for Washington legislators to ignore. There are 31 ag groups making sure of it. They sent a letter to President Obama today “urging immediate, permanent and meaningful estate tax reform.” Anyone with a lick of common sense would know that if estate taxes are allowed to be reinstated …
Thanksgiving and Farmer Priorities
This week is the time to give thanks to America’s farmers and ranchers for producing the most affordable and abundant food supply in the world. If you’d like to help do that using your social media channels then please visit #foodthanks. In this week’s program I’m featuring a couple of interviews from Trade Talk at the NAFB convention. Here’s your …
Farm Policy Outlook For 2011
Straight from the NAMA Trends in Agriculture conference is a video with one of the presenters produced by Paulsen Marketing. The 2010 Trends in Agriculture conference wrapped up with a Washington update: what to expect in 2011. Jim Wiesemeyer, senior vice president of policy and trade issues for Informa Economics Inc.’s Washington office, says the next few years could be …
Book Review – The Food Wars
This week I read a book about the ongoing discussions regarding the causes of the food crisis. It should come as no surprise that several of the main reasons the globe is in the midst of a food crisis, according to a The Food Wars author Walden Bello, are commodity speculation, biofuels, increased demand for food in Asia brought on …
Urban Wheat Field
If you can’t take policy makers to the field then take the field to the policy makers. On Thursday, September 23rd and Friday, September 24th a live wheat field, approximately one quarter of an acre in size, will sprout from the streets of the nation’s capital in an effort to promote food literacy via farm-to-fork wheat education. The North Dakota …
Visiting With Senator Grassley At Farm Progress Show
Iowa’s Senator Chuck Grassley spent some time at the Farm Progress Show. I caught up to him and found out that he had been checking out all the new technology on display at the show. When it comes to Washington, DC policy and specifically energy policy he provided an update of what we might expect in coming weeks. In September …
Finding A Win-Win Between Farmers and EPA
The Conservation in Action Tour provides an opportunity for farmers to see how other farmers are implementing good conservation practices but it also allows policy makers a chance to learn more about this area. One of our tour participants who spoke to us at our lunch stop was Kelly Shenk, EPA. She works in the Chesapeake Bay Program office. Kelly …
Disagreement on Ethanol Policy
The food versus fuel debate is back in full force, creating division between the crop and livestock industries at a time when it would behoove them to work together against the very real threat of animal activism. This reached an interesting level last week when Rick Tolman, CEO, National Corn Growers Association (ZimmComm client) published an editorial taking the American …
Farmers New Cash Crop is Clean Energy
Farmers and small business have found a crop to make them more money – clean energy. This according to a recent report from the Environmental Lay & Policy Center (ELPC) which just released “Farm Energy Success Stories” that demonstrate how a farm or small rural business adopted clean energy technologies and cut energy costs. Much of the monies that made …