Holder, Vilsack hear from plenty of farmers in Ankeny
By Jean Caspers-Simmet
simmet@agrinews.com
Date Modified: 03/25/2010 9:19 AM
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ANKENY, Iowa — Farmers took U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack at their word March 12.
The national leaders said they wanted farmers to tell them if they were suffering from a lack of free and fair competition in the marketplace. Farmers from throughout the country offered their opinions at Friday's Department of Justice/USDA Workshop on Competition in Agriculture in Ankeny.
Ron Rosmann, a Harlan farmer, was the second to the last farmer to speak.
"Larger factors than violations of anti-trust laws play into the seed industry's assertion that bio-tech seeds are in the best interests of feeding the world now and into the future," Rosmann said. "It's accusations that organic and conventional crop breeding cannot do so are scientifically flawed. It ignores the scientific data from many long-term agronomic studies from both private institutions such as the Rodale Research Institute and from public land-grant institutions such as Iowa State University. These studies show that natural cropping systems can produce similar yields while reducing fertilizer and pesticide usage, decreasing energy use, decreasing CO2 emissions, with cheaper production costs and greater economic efficiencies."
The takeover of small plant breeding companies by just three or four companies has diminished seed genetic diversity and has greatly eroded public institutions' ability to create new seeds, Rosmann said.
Chuck Wirtz, an independent hog producer from Whittemore, said he is one of the few who is trying to set the market price for hogs.
"Independent hog producers are selling 5 percent of the hogs to set the price, and it gets to the point where you want to give up and join the ranks of the others who have signed shackle space agreements with packers," Wirtz said. "We try to resist doing that because we believe that market transparency and price discovery are absolutely important for a free market to flourish."
Farmers have always been price takers, not price makers, and Wirtz thinks the power has even shifted out of the packers' hands.
Wirtz would like to see all pork producers negotiate the price of some of their hogs on the open market.
"For God's sake, take one load a week," Wirtz said. "If all of us would recognize the importance of negotiating in the market and everyone would do a little, it wouldn't depend on a few of us to do it all."
"Our kids have to have great educations from land grant universities," said Pam Johnson, a Floyd farmer, when asked by Vilsack what USDA should do to create opportunity in rural areas.
One of her sons joined the farm full-time after college.
"That didn't just happen," she said. "You have to add a lot of income to your business to bring them back. We expanded in a lot of areas. We added a seed business, and he does trucking."
Her second son teaches ag education and works weekends on the farm.
"As we look to the future agriculture is not going to look like it was when you and I were kids," Johnson said to Vilsack. "That being said there are many opportunities in my community. Maybe there aren't going to be opportunities for all our young people in production agriculture, but agriculture creates a lot of jobs. It doesn't just happen. A lot of it depends on your community and the leadership. I've been lucky."
Eric Nelson, a farmer, cattle feeder, seed dealer and crop advisor from Moville, said that USDA needs to look at farm program payment caps if it hopes to create more opportunity for young people.
"There is not justification for payments to the largest operators," Nelson said. "I know of large operations who have created numerous entities to circumvent the rules."
Nelson views his livestock operation as his fertilizer manufacturing plant.
"I think we need to promote that," he said.
Ken Fawcett, a farmer from West Branch, said farm payments should be tied to conservation practices and the way that crops are produced.
"We need to look at specialty crops," Fawcett said. "There is no reason that we should only grow corn and soybeans in Iowa. We need to grow a variety of different crops. We need to look at who offers them and how they offer them and does it offer an opportunity for farmers? Farmers need to take ownership in those new crops."
Todd Wiley, a Walker pork producer, said that If there was some sort of revenue assurance product that was affordable and practical to use, it would help operations like his manage their margins better.
"I think we have to remember that people will go where the money is, and if the margins are higher, we'll have people involved in the business," Wiley said. "For margins to be higher, costs have to be lower or revenue has to improve. Revenue doesn't improve until we have an increase in domestic consumption, or we increase our exports. I see China as an enormous opportunity for livestock producers."