USDA: 150 Years of Progress and Innovation
Posted on | May 15, 2012 | No Comments
By Roger Johnson, National Farmers Union president
This week marks a milestone in the history of our country and a legacy of President Abraham Lincoln. While he is known for many accomplishments, a little-known fact is that he established the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) 150 years ago.
On May 15, 1862, Lincoln signed into law a bill establishing a new department of agriculture, which was specifically directed to acquire information through “practical and scientific experiments” and to collect and propagate “new and valuable seeds and plants” and distribute these to the nation‘s agriculturists. This was the first in a series of acts of Congress that set American agriculture on a progressive course.
Five days later, Lincoln signed the Homestead Act, granting land to people who would settle on frontier land and improve it. On July 2, 1862, the president signed the Morrill Act, which granted huge tracts of land to the states to endow colleges dedicated to teaching “such branches of learning as are related to agriculture and the mechanic arts … to promote the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes … ” This was the beginning of today’s vast and flourishing land grant university system. In later years, agricultural experiment stations were created to “conduct original and other research, investigations and experiments” in support of “a permanent and effective agricultural industry. ” Extension services were set up to share knowledge with farmers.
Agriculture has been a major part of our economy the last 150 years and is poised to continue that role in the future. As we look at current conditions, there is no denying that there has been a shift in the global climate.
President Lincoln would have recognized the science about climate change, and likely would have asked two important questions: How do we mitigate the effects and how do we adapt to them at the same time? The answers lie in good stewardship of our natural resources. In creating USDA, President Lincoln knew that agriculture provided for a stable and secure society—hence the moniker “The People’s Department.”
In addition to producing an abundance of goods, agriculture also provides services that are environmentally beneficial. Agricultural practices that conserve soil, protect water quality and quantity, and provide wildlife habitat can both address the causes and consequences of problems like climate change. Conservation tillage, buffer strips, grazing management and sustainable forestry all help to reduce and sequester greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change. Those same practices help agriculture mitigate effects of climate change such as extreme flooding and drought by building healthy soil structure, cleansing and conserving water and reducing economic risk.
The benefits of natural resource conservation are fundamental to both agricultural production and to environmental improvement. In helping farmers and ranchers be good stewards of the land, USDA sustains President Lincoln’s vision today by “commending itself to the great and vital interest it was created to advance.”
Agriculture will also continue to play a valuable role in mitigating the effects of climate change by expanding the development of renewable energy. America’s farms and ranches are rich in natural resources that can produce renewable fuel for the transportation sector, and heat and power for America’s industrial, commercial and residential sectors. Renewable energy sources such as solar, wind, biomass and biofuels have the potential to offset a significant amount of greenhouse gas emissions by reducing the need for traditional fossil fuels.
America’s farmers, ranchers and research scientists can again lead the way to a 21st century Green Revolution if we follow the vision of Abraham Lincoln as laid out in 1862 by establishing the USDA. So as we celebrate this week, we should reflect on all that the Department of Agriculture has helped us achieve and all that in can help us achieve going forward. Happy 150th birthday to USDA!
New NFU Curriculum Emphasizes Cooperatives
Posted on | May 4, 2012 | No Comments
By Tony Jarboe, NFU communications coordinator
NFU has released a new curriculum that highlights 2012 as the International Year of Cooperatives. The curriculum is available here. It provides six separate lessons for college and adult students and introduce how cooperation works to help individuals work together to accomplish goals they could not achieve on their own.
Cooperatives have played a critical role in the history of NFU and are one of the three sides of the triangle on which NFU was founded. The University of Wisconsin Center for Cooperatives found that approximately 30,000 cooperatives in the United States generate $654 billion in revenue, two million jobs, and $75 billion in wages and benefits paid.
The curriculum was developed with support from CHS foundation in cooperation with the NFU Foundation.
25x’25 Gets a Seat at the Table with President Obama
Posted on | May 1, 2012 | No Comments
By Michael Bowman, Rocky Mountain Farmers Union member
Last Thursday, the White House hosted a “Champions of Change” event, inviting 12 from more than 500 program alumni to meet with President Obama and share the stories of their work. I was honored to be one of those chosen to attend and was part of a group representing a vast cross-section of activities and issues, from immigration to empowerment of women, from a mentor helping start-up entrepreneurs to a veteran working within his community to create jobs.
I was chosen to represent the renewable energy sector. As many who subscribe to this blog will attest, the incredible work and time commitments of the National Steering Committee and its endorsing partners continues to bear fruit. The 25x’25 Vision established in 2004 is now a critical component of our nation’s energy future.
When it was my turn to share, I told the president: Biomass and biofuels are a “big deal.” I walked him through the math of our existing resources and put it into a context we could all appreciate: If we simply converted 17 percent of the known, annual agricultural and forest waste into biofuels, we would create a supply of domestic fuel three times the amount that would flow down the proposed Keystone XL pipeline. This is a domestic resource that can create thousands of new jobs, keeping the dollars our nation spends on energy within our own economy (and not to foreign oil producers) and creating a vibrant tax base across the entire country.
I further shared that supporting the federal Renewable Fuels Standard – the biofuels industry’s market driver – is the key to guaranteeing the flow of private capital into the marketplace.
I was able to conclude my remarks with the health nexus of our opportunity: displacing BTX (aromatics) in the current fuel supply with biofuels is an idea whose time has come. It is widely documented that aromatics are responsible for health costs exceeding $200 billion annually. By supporting a strong, domestic biofuels industry we not only set the stage for a rural renaissance across the agricultural and forestry sectors, but we also provide a practical roadmap to reducing the associated human costs of our current paradigm.
It was indeed an honor to spend this hour with President Obama along with the 11 other Champions of Change. He was kind to say that we are “ordinary citizens doing extraordinary things.”
But my seat wasn’t represented by a single ordinary citizen. It was representing each and every one of you: the National Steering Committee, the great people who comprise our sub-committees, the thousands of you who endorse and support our vision and work, and our staff.
It is the leadership of each and every renewable energy advocate that was present in that meeting. And it is the continuing commitment by all of you that will turn this much-needed vision into a reality.
Michael Bowman is a member of Rocky Mountain Farmers Union and the 25x’25 National Steering Committee. Bowman, a founding member of the Alliance since 2004, is a fifth-generation Wray, Colo., farmer, who produces wheat, corn and alfalfa producer. Bowman was a key leader in the passage of Colorado’s “Amendment 37,” the nation’s first citizen-initiated Renewable Portfolio Standard. He co-chaired Governor Bill Ritter’s Energy Transition Team in 2006, is a founding board member of the Sustainable Biodiesel Alliance, and works domestically and internationally with the Savory Institute on grasslands improvement.
Recap: Senate Agriculture Committee Farm Bill Markup
Posted on | April 26, 2012 | No Comments
By Brittany Jablonsky, NFU government relations representative
Today the Senate Committee on Agriculture marked up its draft of the 2012 Farm Bill (entitled the Agriculture Reform, Food and Jobs Act of 2012) and passed the final version out of committee on a bipartisan 16-5 vote.
The manager’s amendment offered today incorporated a number of changes to the initial mark, many of which NFU supported. Some highlights included:
- A temporary extension of the Milk Income Loss Contract (MILC) program until July 1, 2013
- A directive to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to study the impacts of the new dairy program created by the legislation
- Raised Agricultural Risk Coverage (ARC) program payment factor for both the individual and county option
- A temporary extension of the Supplemental Revenue Assistance (SURE) program to cover losses experienced in the 2012 crop year
- A decrease in the Adjusted Gross Income limit for farm program payments from $900,000 to $750,000 and a strengthened definition of “actively engaged”
- The inclusion of veterans in the socially disadvantaged set-aside for the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) and other conservation programs and in USDA’s outreach to socially disadvantaged farmers, as well as the establishment of a military veterans agricultural liaison position at USDA
- Additional Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) funding
- A directive to the USDA to review and streamline application forms for conservation and rural development programs
- Funding for health care grants in the Delta region in the rural development title
- Value-Added Producer Grant priority given to beginning farmers and ranchers and small/medium-sized producers
- Increased funding for the Forest Stewardship Program to $50 million/year
- Investigative powers given to the USDA to enforce the National Organic Program and the establishment of penalties for noncompliance
- A directive to the USDA to write a report on the definition of honey
- A change to the catastrophic coverage premium formula
- Changes to the Stacked Income Protection Plan (STAX) formula for cotton
- Directive to the Risk Management Agency (RMA) to study establishing swine catastrophic disease insurance, a margin insurance product for catfish, and an index-based weather insurance pilot program
- Reduction of crop insurance subsidy or Non-Insured Crop Disaster Assistance payment on broken native sod
- One-time mandatory funding for the Sheep Production and Marketing Grant program of $1.5 million
- Authorization for removal of Canada geese from National Park lands within five miles of an airport
Additionally, a number of senators offered amendments that were passed by the committee and will be included in the legislation that moves to the Senate floor. The full text of these amendments can be found on the Senate Agriculture Committee’s website and they include:
- An amendment offered by Sens. Max Baucus (Baucus 8 and 12), Kent Conrad and John Hoeven making three changes to the individual program under ARC: 1) requiring the use of actual production history (APH) instead of a five-year Olympic average; 2) including a cost of production cap; and 3) increasing the payment factor to 65 percent
- An amendment offered by Sen. Sherrod Brown (Brown 6) granting the Farm Service Agency the authority to conduct pilot projects to test different approaches that could improve farm loan program delivery and customer service
- An amendment offered by Sens. Bob Casey (Casey 5), Kirsten Gillibrand and Brown that grants the USDA additional authority to direct emergency food to states with increased demand
- An amendment offered by Sens. Conrad (Conrad 1), Lugar and a bipartisan group of senators that included many of the committee members that restored $800 million in mandatory funding for energy title programs
- A sense of the committee offered by Sen. Gillibrand (Gillibrand 3) that states that no changes in nutrition programs made by the legislation should result in children receiving reduced benefits
- An amendment offered by Sen. Mike Johanns (Johanns 4) that requires USDA to study the creation of an Under Secretary for Trade and Foreign Agricultural Affairs to coordinate all of USDA’s international trade functions, currently overseen by several different USDA Under Secretaries
- An amendment offered by Sen. Patrick Leahy (Leahy 5, modified by Sen. Pat Roberts’s amendment 2) to allow greater flexibility in the use of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits with community-supported agriculture (CSA) programs
Members of the committee debated the following additional topics, but ultimately withdrew their amendments or stated their intentions to address them during future floor debate:
- The “cash in advance” requirement when conducting trade with Cuba
- Waiving eligible entity contribution requirements for certain agricultural land easements of special significance
- Removing the direct SNAP certification option for recipients of heating assistance
- Blocking the Department of Labor’s proposed child labor rules for agricultural workers
- Applying savings in excess of $23 billion to increased funding for the rural development title
- Adding support for local and regional food systems to the Rural Microentrepreneur Assistance Program
- Amendments to the H2A agricultural guest worker program
- The use of Rural Energy for America Program funds for installing flex pumps
- Clarification of the definition of “rural” as applied to the Rural Housing Act
- Instituting a ban on packer ownership of livestock
Additional debate featured Southern senators, mainly John Boozman, Thad Cochran and Saxby Chambliss expressing their feelings that the draft legislation did not adequately meet the needs of cotton, rice and peanut farmers.
The full text of the initial legislation, the manager’s amendment, and all amendments offered can be found on the Senate Agriculture Committee’s website, and click here to read NFU’s press release on the markup. NFU is encouraging Senate leadership to move the bill quickly to the Senate floor for passage and pushing for the inclusion of the Market-Driven Inventory System (MDIS) as a way to address long-term market collapse.
NFU Pleased with Many Provisions in Draft of 2012 Farm Bill, But More Work to Do
Posted on | April 24, 2012 | No Comments
By Brittany Jablonsky, NFU government relations representative
Last Friday the Senate Committee on Agriculture released a draft of the 2012 Farm Bill. The Committee plans to begin its markup of the bill tomorrow morning at 9:00, and markup is expected to continue through Thursday.
NFU is pleased with many of the provisions in the bill, and issued a letter to the Committee outlining some of the amendments and changes to the legislation we support.
Below are links to a detailed section-by-section summary of the bill, as well as a summary of the bill’s highlights.
Senate Committee Mark Highlights
Senate Committee Section-by-section