Focus; Agricultural Issues in Illinois

Agricultural issues in Illinois and in the nation and our guest is Ron Warfield he is president of the Illinois farm bureau a once or twice a year we'd like to check in with him and talk about what's going on in agriculture. Give you the opportunity to talk with him and ask whatever questions you like or make whatever comments you like. Well number of things that we'll be talking about including the process of drafting a new farm bill. And we could have some other things as well but whatever questions are on the mind of you folks who are listening you should take the opportunity to call in and ask them if you're here in Champaign Urbana or we are 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 is the number. We also have a toll free line. That means no matter where you're listening if it would be a long distance call use the toll free line and we'll pay for the call that's 800 to 2 2 9. 4 5 5 here again here in Champagne Urbana if you match the numbers on the phone with the letters you get w i l l 3 3 3 W I L L and toll free 800 to 2 to WY allowed Mr. Warfield Hello.

Good morning David thanks for talking with us once again. Oh good to be with your shit. Just within the last couple of days the USDA has put out some estimates what they think of the crop this year is going to be corn and soybeans. And at this point what they're saying is that it could be as far as corn is concerned could be the lowest since 97 but soybeans they're talking about record highs. Now I know that people say well you don't really know what it's going to be until it's in the bin. But they're already talking about what this might mean for prices and in fact that it might on the corn side it might help bump the prices up a little bit which has got to be a good thing. I know you've been spending some time recently traveling around the state. What do you think about these estimates and whether in fact that will translate into some. A little bit higher price particularly for corn. As I drive around the state David the the one word that I think would typify what I see and I've been all the way from one end to the other in the last week is one that we always talk about like whether in Illinois in the summertime it's

spotty boys talk about. But this year you can go to a farm and see green grass in the plush growing corn and you drive five or ten miles down the road and you see some corn and just absolutely burning up. And so that always makes it tough to make come to a general reaction but I think the consensus is that those reports came out the first of August and you know very well what the weather's been like the last 10 or 12 days since those reports came out and certainly the hot dry weather has not increased the crop during that time. And so I guess if I had to offer a guess at this point I think crops have deteriorated from where we were on August 1st. So you think the corn might be even. When you're talking about you know I have to say based upon the conditions we've had since the crop report was done the first of August there's no question that stress has been detrimental across the state and even to where they had good rains and certainly

the degree of the heat was not great so I would expect that we would see the crop shrink a little bit unless we see a dramatic turnaround in the weather pattern. But spotty across the state I was in southern Illinois last week and the crop down there actually looks very good and probably less spotty than it does appear in the central part of the state. Well when if we're talking both about lower yields but also the possibility of a little bit bump up in the price. What does that mean for people who are growing corn. Well we're finally getting to levels were starting to look at above lawn level prices and obviously that's our objective as to say that that we won't get maybe the only piece on foreign as Europe prices move I end up with that as I talk to farmers across the state overwhelmingly say I want to get my income from the marketplace and not from government programs and so that's a that's a real positive and wanted. David I might add on that I mean the things that we probably haven't

talked about a lot in terms of in the last year is what is happening in terms of the demand side of commodities that we raise. We've seen we're going to see record usage this year of both corn and soybeans probably So we have increased the demand base considerably over the last few years and that's encouraging part of the story that we haven't talked about and may not we haven't talked about it because prices of have remained depressed. But we do not have huge burdensome supplies on hand at the present time so a little down tick in the size of the crop does have impact on prices and our objective is to increase the demand further for those products so that we can have more positive impact on prices and farm income. May I ask you one other thing and we have one caller here and I hope we'll get some other folks to talk with. The Senate has approved an emergency. Package for farmers five

and a half billion dollars that's what came over from the house now some people in the Senate wanted to add another 2 billion but that wasn't wasn't successful so it's five and a half billion the president hasn't signed but he says he will. Is that that different that difference that two billion dollar difference is that really significant. Well it's going to mean that the payment to the farmers receive this year and supplemental assistance is a little bit a lot less 75 80 percent of what it was a year ago and certainly as we look at the farm income situation it is why that's a negative but it's another realm of what we've been talking about so I don't think it comes as a as a big surprise and certainly shouldn't because it was what it was in the budget basically since the Budget Reconciliation was last spring. And what we have to keep in mind is that if there were going to be more dollars available for it it would have come out of next year's pool of money available for the farm program so it was going to either now or later and I think that the size of the

payment is in the realm of what we had been thinking about so yes we were Farm Bureau was asking for a little bit more but this fits in with the budget and then we understand that it would have been a matter of now or later and that with what's coming out of the house I Committee on the new farm bill. There's always a pretty good starting point in utilizing the dollars in that matter. This morning in this first hour focus 580 We're talking with Ron Warfield he's president of the Illinois farm bureau and questions are welcome we have somebody ready to go another certainly are invited to call 3 3 3 WRAL or 9 4 5 5 toll free 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5 years college start with an urban online one. Hello. Yes. Agriculture's we now practice in the state is clearly not sustainable. And I was wondering if there's any chance that the Farm Bureau which represents a group business would support

moves to try and make In fact the system much more sustainable and it now is. I guess you made it two statements in there that I would take exception to in n your question. First of all I do not agree that it's not sustainable and second of all the Farm Bureau is a grassroots for organization that represents farmers across the state and not agribusiness so I think that we need to correct those too. We don't look at you look at the farm bill in the direction that we advocated and you can look at the testimony that President Stollman president the American Farm Bureau made in March and has made again. And early July. And both those efforts. We've had significant increases in the conservation component of the program and so I think that you will find historically that Farm Bureau and farmers have always been I believe and I've used the term or the

first environmentalist or the first in terms of supporting conservation programs and in fact we support a significant increase in conservation programs. And a kind of I must emphasize that are voluntary incentive kinds of approaches. There are certainly a track record indicate that those kind of approaches work very very well and only have to call attention to the most recent voluntary incentive program that's been put in place. The buffer initiative or the filler strip initiative and which there has been dollars made available to put filler strips or buffer strips along stream banks to reduce elevation and as a voluntary and Sam program our farmers have signed up for it faster than dollars have been available. And so I think that shows those kind of programs were successful. And the bill that's coming out of the House in fact does have a 75 percent increase in the dollars of it for conservation. In our initial

proposal we've asked for even more than that. But I think that when you look at the global environment that what we have in the US is the most sustainable kind of agriculture in the world and in fact I would argue that high tech intensive agriculture on the best lands in the world that we have here in the U.S. is the best means of achieving a sustainable global environment and improving the environment from a global perspective and I say that having visited a number of countries around the world. The key word of course is is achieving sustainable way. And we certainly haven't done that our goal of T by 2000 was Mr. were trying to reduce to less than 5 tons free per year. And so there's a lot of examples where business has driven the system to produce ever more to keep the raw material corn and soybeans cheap. And it seems that we need to

go along go a long way towards trying to put the system in one that doesn't depend so heavily on other energy sources such as match natural gas for the nitrogen fixation in the other systems like ethanol. They're coming off the farm fields. Well we've written I would say that I think we have if you look at the percentage that have made the t By 2000 I don't have the numbers right off the top of my head but it is very very small percentage that has not made t by 2000 and I would list that as a significant accomplishment on the progress that we've made over the last 10 years and if you look at the adoption of technology that's been applied we certainly have improved soil conservation water quality and I think our track record is very admirable. But 2000 of course was the goal by the year 2000 and we're now in 2001. And I'm speaking averages not just each individual farmer but the average.

So certainly there are some farmers that are doing better than others but on average we still haven't met that particular goal. I think if you look at it and I don't remember the number but I think something like 90 to 95 percent has met it. And you could cite that statistic as being tremendous progress that we made. And I would acknowledge that we did not go by 2000 but if you look at the track record over the period of time since our goals in place. I think it's a record we can be proud of. I expect that the caller would disagree but I'm not sure how much further we can or we can go with this. OK let's go on to another caller this is a kinky key line number four. Hello. Yes hello. I have read recently in a Chicago Tribune a story that the governor and some of our top state economic development folks have planned a trip or maybe they've already done this and gone to Mexico to give away ethanol technology so that Mexico can reduce its sugar surplus. Now in the same article

they talked about how giving away the technology for ethanol to make ethanol out of sugar was going to help boost corn usage in Mexico. First of all I find that to be rather hard to believe. And I'm concerned that what's happening here is an attempt to actually reduce the amount of corn that we sell to Mexico and thereby cause a weakening in the corn market so that certain agribusiness companies and I'm not saying that Farm Bureau's agribusiness because I think it does represent the small farmer but I think some people who are big users of corn would be the beneficiaries of lower prices. I'm very concerned as a farmer that our corn prices are not going to be held up if we keep giving away technology. We saw that happen with soybeans about 10 years ago and now there's so much of the world is planting soybeans. The market is. Saturated with them. What do you say about it. What are your comments about what's going to happen to our corn prices with regard to this

ethanol technology giveaway. I think it's a good question and terms of you know the caller I think can understand we are a very strong proponent of increasing the usage of ethanol and saying that's one of the demand factors that can improve it and improve prices for farmers. In reality what we're talking about with Mexico and I know at first blush it looks like we're helping an R-rating competition but I think when you look at this issue there's you can understand that. This is a move in the right direction. First of all there is an interaction between Mexican sugar and known like corn farmers. Besides ethanol and that is the fact. When you pick up a can of Coke or a can of Pepsi or any other soft drink you are in fact as you probably know drinking corn syrup. A competitor was sugar. And so as we look at the two they do become competitors in other arenas.

And I'm not sure of the timetable but under the MPT agreement they phased out the trade barrier for Mexican sugar coming in from the U.S. comes down over a period of time and so we would be having direct competition if Mexican sugar would come in and that would have competition with corn in the regard of looking not only at them all but in corn syrup. And so you look at this and saying OK and we also have an issue coming up in the farm bill one of the stickiest issues is sugar policy which is impacted by this action as well. What talking about here is saying is there a way that we can show Mexico to utilize the ethanol technology and say you have the same effect and that in Mexico as it does in the U.S. If you go to Mexico City I think you'll see that it has tremendous smog problems.

What can you tell me rather curious Mexico according to this article is our second largest importer of corn or metanoia that could be true. OK what is it that they're using that for now. It's primarily a feed. OK food ingredients. I also understood that. That one of the factors that caused the collapse of the Mexican sugar market was the fact that corn syrup was even cheaper than Mexican sugar. And if they were able to use our corn syrup as opposed to their own sugar. And that is one of the factors that had led to that collapse Yanna certainly as we have the interaction here again you can see where there can be a positive reaction if if they can use sugar and make ethanol for the incremental part and you're not talking about the total industry but only the incremental part where we come into this competition. For cleaning up the year in Mexico certainly does offer an opportunity here to avoid a possible collision down the road and so I think it is an avenue and what should you look at. Trade

policies and how we can interact to the benefit of. And I get a win win for both by them utilizing their sugar production on that purpose does keep the avenue open for increased current exports to Mexico as well. Hopefully we can show them that as we look at how successful they oxygenates have been in cleaning up air quality here as have them utilize that in Mexico and avoid some of the conflict or competition down the road so I think it is looking ahead a kind of a policy that can be helpful and it is still in the interest of increasing US corn prices and US utilization of renewable fuels. I certainly hope that's the way it works out but unfortunately I have to say I'm skeptical after watching what's happened with beans. No one was able to predict the huge increase in the production of beans down south to the point where it has flattened out our markets. I'm just really concerned that these kinds of schemes are so forward looking that that we are not able to compensate for the

various factors that we don't see now that may actually be detrimental in our long term future. And our objective as we look at North America is to say that we want to use renewable fuels and make a national energy policy that is very very aggressive in terms of utilization of our noble fuels so that we are all looking at it not in terms of just a current issue but just looking at it and terms of an energy issue that uses that uses agriculture and for as aggressive as we would like to be in terms of the utilization of renewable fuels that provides the benefit of not only improving air quality in the smoggy cities but it also reduces our reliance on foreign oil. I think policy that is aggressive and and using renewable fuels can help improve all commodity prices and doesn't produce farm income as well. I think your point is well taken and will continue to be engages and watch this as it evolves. I appreciate it I am skeptical and I hope that in five or 10 years I can call this program. Let me

talk to a different president who says See it worked. Oh that's true. Well thanks for the call we appreciate it. Let me just one take this one step further. Mr. Warfield. Is it your. Thought that if indeed cane based ethanol really becomes big in Mexico that that ethanol that's produced will probably be used in Mexico for domestic consumption. As you move forward that's certainly the time to decide if you. First of all the sugar isn't going to be used for that purpose they have a sugar demand there and what you hope to do is just balance out the amount of incremental amount of the sugar being used for that purpose. And certainly they have a need for it there and I was it would be our intent to say that the need is great enough and I haven't haven't seen the numbers specifically but I'm told that if you look at it today you could say that the need is great enough within Mexico that it would utilize that aspect of it. And

so that would be our first area of support and encouragement and see if we cannot make that happen there and they utilize it the same way we're utilizing oxygenate here to clean up air quality here. We are close to our midpoint in this first hour of focus We're talking with Ron Warfield he's president of the Illinois farm bureau and your questions are welcome. All you need to do to be part of the conversation. Pick up the telephone and dial the number. If you here in Champaign Urbana where we are 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. Also we have the toll free line and it would be a long distance call use that 1. 800 2 2 2 9 4 5 5. Want to make sure that we talk some about the effort. At the new farm bill the one that we have will expire next year and I think that people in Congress would actually like to see something in place before that. And we know that there are within the two bodies within the house in the Senate there seem to be different approaches going and that once they come back from

their recess we could expect some significant debate. About just what the direction of foreign policy should be. Maybe we could talk a bit first about the approach that has come out of the house and then we could talk about some of the things that they're saying in the Senate and then we can talk about how maybe this gets put together end up making something that everybody can agree on. First of all I think that most observers of foreign policy have probably been surprised. There were actually a year ahead in terms of writing foreign policy generally. We're on this show David talking a year afterwards after it's expired and talking about what we're going to do. And so. It's been very very unusual that we're actually a year add in terms of the farm bill doesn't expire until 2002 for the 2003 crop and so we're actually doing it ahead of time and part of the reason is is because over on the House committee they basically looked at the budget dollars available

for writing the next farm bill and sometime this spring concluded that we're going with a baseline that's been established for farm policy that we're better off writing at this year utilizing in round numbers 79 billion dollars over the next 10 years that's made made available by the budget. And as you've seen the pressures that have come to bear upon the surplus of the budget looks like that's an accurate assessment. And now the Senate committee is kind of looking at the same way and say well if we do it now we'll have more dollars available rather than if we wait til next year. And so the House committee has been very aggressive in quite a there's been a lot of naysayers the last six months said oh no way they can't get it done that fast but we did have a bill that came out of the House Committee right before recess. That. It really is a pretty good starting point for where we want to go on foreign policy and meets many of the objectives that we would have as we went to the table.

And I have to give him credit because to come up with it earlier and sooner and and get the House committee agreement this quick I think is quite an accomplishment as I said meets many of the objectives that we had on the table. And the first one being is that we set as a starting point that we had to have a farm bill that had a adequate farm safety net because of the tremendous decrease we've seen in commodity prices and farm incomes over the last three years and and we've had obviously supplemental programs that have come in and to give additional assistance each of the last three years we just talked about the one for this year a few minutes ago David and. What the farm committee has done is saying OK we have institutionalized the safety net and a manner that meets the criteria of having an adequate safety net there and as you talk to farmers across the state I think they would say nobody's going

to say this is going to give the kind of farm income that's going to encourage expansion. But it is the one that says how we can sustain ourselves and not have asset values and land values collapse with a continuation of that safety net. And so they've come up with a bill that I think meets that criteria and sametime had some reshuffling of dollars to saying what we do with conservation programs that that increases the programs that we have in that area as well. Not everything as much as what we would like particularly as we look at the long term needs of building demand there are some other programs we'd like to address with that but a pretty good starting point that the House came out with. And one I think that the full House will pass fairly soon after they come back after the August recess. Well see what I have a caller here who's on the cell phone. We can I'm sure we can talk some more about this but rather. Make that person wait for when we go ahead get to them. Line number four right here.

Hello. Hi there. Yes yes I'm from I when I was listening to present warfare was pretty chaotic. Couple one quick comment wasn't the sugar technology transfer also to facilitate the enhanced production refining of corn and that would end up actually creating an additional use for corn down there as well was that not the case. You are right and that is the case and it was a matter of how successful we are in the end of the relative size of this but it was certainly an effort to say how we would increase the demand for corn. And the same time taking care of the sugar or sweetener situation that we have and can be a win win situation. Right I thought it was important that people know that as well the second lake matter question is as I listen to your program and listen to the folks calling in. What exactly do you think that people want out of farm policy. For example I know that many congressmen are out in their districts

now coming back and hearing that clearly many producers aren't satisfied with the efforts that have been made in foreign trade. Agriculture is a commodity business it requires a lot of intensive resource management not just land but the machinery and finance and business management. What is it that we can do in farm policy. What is it that your members a lot of farm policy can actually turn this whole income thing around to the extent that people perceive it needs to be. I appreciate that question because I think the part that we tend to focus on is only the safety net of the farm income support. What I hear farmers across the state of Illinois saying is long term what we really want is a growing industry that depends less on government payments and more on returns from the marketplace. And in order to bring that about what we need are policies that put together what we would call a business plan to build

demand. And you know. And so what I hear farmers saying is what we want is as aggressive policies that they do. They look at trade. In fact we need trade promotion authority to opportunity to bring down trade barriers overseas get rid of unilateral trade sanctions and open up markets for farmers. We need an energy policy that uses renewable fuels and expands our ability to significantly provide more of our fuels from domestic renewable sources. We can provide both from soy diesel and from ethanol as opposed to just looking at our ever increasing reliance on foreign oil and looking at mechanisms for trade market development programs overseas that we can expand and looking at food assistance programs and expanding those to what could potentially be long term customers. And so what I hear farmers across the state is saying if we stop at a farm bill that only addresses the

current farm income crisis and certainly we need a safety net today. But if that's all we do we have not responded to the need that I hear and saying let's have a part business or a public private partnership a business plan to expand the demand so that we bring up commodity prices and increase farm income and at the same time reduce government expenditures. And that's what I hear farmers objectives are and we are aggressively pursuing such a plan and saying Mr. Congressman we can help you not spend 25 billion dollars a year for farm programs. If you give us a partnership in building the demand and building the markets for agricultural products if we need and I think that makes an awful lot of sense and in that same vein then if we're expecting the government to provide the policy that will aggregate those kinds of essential a third crops build around renewable. Biomass fuel usage carbon sequestration contracts

environmentalist and green payments that sort of thing. How are producers going to and what are producers going to have to do to aggregate so to speak their management structures so that they can effectively cost effectively and collectively work together to be able to fulfil those new market opportunities in other words a 35 or 40 million gallon ethanol plant here in a 35 or 40 million gallon ethanol plant there in a 20 million gallon bio diesel plant there when the distributors in the aggregators need volumes and they need marketing strategies to make sure that they've got the quantities they want on a regular basis are there how are we producers going to be able to aggregate our management strategies in a way that allows us to protect our own business operations our own farming operations but develop dependence or at least an

involvement in a larger business structure that enables us to take advantage of those opportunities. Well I think you you lay out some good. The challenges that we in the industry producers face and that is saying that sort of all as you correctly lay out there is a significant amount of Farmer own value added efforts in looking at renewable fuels. Others as well but looking at renewable fuels as a component of increasing their return back to the producer. And I think those are significant and I think you outlined the challenges we face in terms of as we see if we are successful and building this demand for renewable fuels of the km to the degree that we want to is how do we make sure that we're large enough and big enough to go ahead and serve those markets. And I think we're taking the first step with a lot of these. Farmers own activities that are going in place for these small plants and. And if we're successful in terms of our objective is to you know double our use in five

years into trouble and 10 that are going to do that that we will have to have an evolution of strategy of involvement and those farmer owned activities to make that happen. I think we're doing the first step now with producers getting involved making investment in value added activities. And I think there is an opportunity for again a public private partnership to help facilitate those activities much like took place in the 20s and 30s and kind of reinventing that entrepreneurial spirit to get involved in those and. And I agree with you that we've got a challenge but I think we're taking the first steps now to do that and would encourage some assistance to help create those kinds of relationships that come about. Well it sounds like you've got a good handle on the issues and I appreciate it's not a good discussion. Well thanks for the go. Thank you. We'll go on here to another caller. This is Bella line one. Hello all. Yeah yeah. Wondering Apparently if I read the new

bill that was proposed what the band and because President Bush didn't veto it and that the bill that came forward has had had left support for farmers. Therefore left a safety net for farmers and I was wondering what your guest felt about President Bush's plan to kill the initial bill. There's been some confusion in terms. There is one discussion about the farm bill and then there is a second track that's been moving in terms of supplemental assistance for the 2000 and one year and the five point five billion dollars you're talking about is not related to the farm bill that we're talking about the rewrite that's taking place at the present time but is simply is strictly limited to the supplemental assistance that will be received in September of this year. So I want to make sure we don't confuse the two issues. And in fact you are correct in that the budget that was adopted did allow for and the Congress did allow

for this in the in the budgeting back earlier this spring is that the limits of the five and a half billion dollars for the supplemental assistance this year. Been some discussion at that time that we could borrow some money from the two thousand and two fiscal budget and supplement the assistance of it in September. What the House chose to do is not tap into those dollars because that in fact would be taking dollars from the new farm bill. And in fact if the Senate took the action for more dollars it also would be coming from the next farm bill. And so the compromise that was finally reached was saying let's go ahead and use five and a half billion dollars for the supplemental assistance. And then as I indicated previously the there had been a lot over the next 10 years a 79 billion dollar increase in funding for the pharma supplemental systems are for the scheme. So there are there be a 79 billion dollars

of new money available for the next farm bill. As the House said that is a pretty good figure to start with and put together a farm bill and it looks like the Senate is as in agreement with Adam trying to tap into those dollars that are available and in fact those are coming from. If you remember the contingency fund that President Bush originally laid out that said that agriculture and defense could tap into it or you're glad that the president was going to be told the first bill what we're saying is a five and a half billion dollars in the supplemental assistance although a little less than what we had originally asked for. It is consistent with the dollars that have been advocated spring for that and we have said that we would rather have those dollars now in the next farm bill as opposed to utilizing those for the supplemental assistance in 2001 and that was always the choice that was made between the two lawyers that with President Bush then to be told. Now we're saying that if you look at the trade between

the two we would agree that let's take the five and a half billion dollars for the supplemental assistance now and we'll keep that extra two billion dollars as part of that 79 billion dollar pool to utilize for the next farm bill and that's been what we said is probably the best way to utilize that pool of funds to get this pool of funds that aren't you concerned at all the tax rebates will bequeath and modify and that this pool might come from. I'm sorry. I couldn't catch all your question in my next concern if you worry about money in the future to tap into. Then we get all this rhetoric about how we need this tax rebate. All this money coming back and now they're showing that there are no lining having the great surplus that we are. I would be concerned about that then. I mean certainly as you look at the overall budget issues why were always our initial proposal asked for more dollars there as we want through it. Our initial proposal asked for rather than in round numbers a billion dollars a year increase we originally asked for 12 billion dollars a year increase. We fought for that

and terms of dollars available and the Congress has said will be available came back of a billion dollars and said OK that's the best we can do now we have to make choices within that. All right thank you. We have about 10 minutes left here in this part of focus 580 Our guest is Ron Warfield he's president of the Illinois farm bureau we're talking about a number of agricultural issues that touch farmers here in Illinois but also across the nation and if you have questions they're welcome. 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 toll free 800 to 2 2 1 4 5. I'm interested in your talk a little bit about what now. Again we talked a bit about what it is the House is thinking about. I'm interested in what you think about what some members of the Senate are saying in particular the the leaders on the Agriculture Committee Senator Harkin from Iowa who is the Democrat he chairs the committee Richard Lugar from over in Indiana is the ranking Republican and they say that they're opposed to this bill that's been drafted in the house because they say it's

too much like the old way that we used to do things supporting farmers particularly big ones who grow the the major crops like wheat and corn and cotton. And what they say that we need to do is instead of putting the money into payments to support them that we ought to be thinking and a lot more about conservation and rural development and putting money also into two trade efforts. And it sounds as if the the House and the Senate really are coming from two fundamentally different places on this. Well certainly. I just heard in the last week where there's been some discussion by the Senate committee keeping in mind that the debate or discussion over there is just really beginning and and so these are some initial comments reacting to what the House has already put on the table. Senator Harkin. As for our couple of years advocated increase in conservation programs and conservation dollars and so this comes as no surprise that he

will be looking at increasing the conservation program and increasing the conservation title. As a matter of emphasis what I need to point out the same time is out of the dollars that were available. New dollars that the House did increase conservation funding by 75 percent so it's not as if they left it on touched and I think that's a pretty aggressive when you look at the total number of dollars available. In fact one of the previous caller indicated what our proposal was back in March when we were advocating 12 billion dollars a year increase. We advocated even a bigger increase in conservation dollars but when they kept the dollars back for the total increase to Enron numbers a billion dollars a year. We also had to cut back the number of dollars we're asking for the conservation program. So I think within the strains that were working within the House has really done a

pretty good job. Reallocating those dollars and even though Senator Harkin has been a strong advocate of conservation programs I don't know that you're going to be able to shuffle dollars around that because I also know that he has been a strong advocate of the safety net and certainly in light of the discussion we just had about the supplemental assistance he was asking for significantly more. And I think there's going to be a difficult time for him to reconcile the numbers between the two of what he's asking for and accomplishing the safety net that he would like to put in place as well. Some of the comments that I've heard have read from some senators make it sound as if they really think that. You know in the past that probably only people who are involved in farming paid very much attention to farm legislation and they seem to be suggesting that more and more people who don't farm who

who don't live in rural areas are concerned about things like water quality and soil conservation and also about the urban sprawl because they that they would like actually to see farmland preserved and that there seems to be the suggestion that more and more of the public is going to expect for the end that they believe in supporting farmers but that they're going to wait. Expect more and more from the farmers particularly in terms of issues like environmental impact and conservation than they have in the past. In return for the support that they get from the federal government. Do you think that that is the case. I'm Grant glad you raised the issue because I think you're exactly right a lot of times and sometimes we talk about the farm bill or farm policies we think well the only people that are interested or concerned are farmers and I think that you're exactly right that there is more and more interest and public policy dealing with agriculture and and should be because if you look at farm policy there are number of benefits that come out

of farm policy besides what farmers do you write In fact if you look at the total dollars that have been passed farm bills a lot of expenditures go for things other than the payments to farmers and yet we concentrate on only that part that is the farm income support we put out a publication that we call a public. Our public investment in agriculture and we go through some of the things that we talk about that the public derives from foreign policy. In fact if you look at historically I think one of the things that the public has gained from foreign policy is food security. In fact if anything we've been this may be a creation of a problem of success because we've been so successful in providing food supply in this country that is so affordable that our consumers never worry about either availability the quality the quantity for food and so we have been very successful in providing food security you know when you look at it on a global basis I can tell you

most countries around the world initial objective in foreign policy is how do we guarantee to food supply for our consumers. Let alone the fact that we now have our consumers paying the least amount for food as a percent of their disposal income as any time in the history of the world and most countries are the envy of that so we do provide that. You mention conservation and certainly we have been very successful in providing environmental security. And our track record again looking at either on a global basis or historic basis would say that our track record with voluntary incentive programs for providing conservation for improving water quality improving air quality in the case of ethanol is the envy of the world and we certainly never stop improving technology continues to evolve. So as we continue to improve technology we're doing a better job today than when we were five years ago five years from today we will be doing an even better job in providing better water quality better soil conservation and

invent better environmental outcomes. And I frequently say the policymakers that give Illinois farmers $4 corn and will bury you in corn and give farmers or US farmers whatever environmentalists come objectives you want to give incentive to the farmers and you will receive it and receive it in ample quantity and I think we've been very successful in the past and continue to do that in the future. And addition to that we have certainly a provide some economic security. David you mentioned in rural areas as we have. Agriculture is an important component of rural economic growth and development. We provided energy economic security in terms of balance of trade. We've last year provided. 12 to 14 billion dollars pas the balance of trade. I don't know of another industry that can make that statement and certainly we have continued to provide that security. And the last one that is relatively new but we want to be a part of is providing energy security and

utilizing domestic renewable fuels as part of an energy program in this country that can provide more energy security and less dependence on foreign oil. So you're absolutely right that the general public does derive a lot of good from a public investment in agriculture and we certainly welcome that policy input as we go forward. But a couple minutes left one more call I won't try to get down in southern Illinois this is line number for you and I have some food in there I was thinking you know these big oil companies when they raise their prices you know I farm here and when we raise their prices they open the entire. Our cost line profit line doesn't go up because we have no influence and a major influence on the corn and standpoint I mean I know if we produce more it goes it goes down whatever but I was wondering if we could somehow or another try scout the oil companies in the same way that well I call it that but you know how when we buy cars from overseas we tax them $500 or so for a car to bring it into the United States to sell it.

So I was wondering since we're supporting those countries over there I mean those people over in Saudi Arabia none of them really have to work to get a kickback on that oil we could take a kickback to you know and charge film however many gallons they bring in per gallon. And now I help us out a little bit or at least slow them down from cutting into our our bottom line. Just listen I don't know if it affects anything or really had anything. Well I can imagine that they would simply turn right around and jack up the price of oil. Basically we're looking at a mechanism of doing the same thing by saying if we have as part of our national energy policy is a significant utilization of renewable fuels and we move in that direction and private provide incentives to do that to the magnitude that we think is doable today we can accomplish that. And I think you're touching upon the second aspect of it as a previous caller mentioned as we go through trade policy. The only way we can in bring down trade barriers and give us access and to help level out or get to that level playing field and I think the caller was talking about is to get to

the negotiating table and the Farm Bureau has long advocated trade promotion authority or fast track to give the administration the authority to sit down at the table and hammer out better trade agreements fair trade agreements that give us access and more access to those global markets that we so desperately need. Well that's something that President Clinton wanted in the Congress wouldn't get. Do you think that they're going to give it to President Bush. Well certainly the debate has just begun on that and that there is going to be an increasing debate for that. We feel very strongly that it needs to be granted I think that Clinton was the first president that was not granted trade promotion authority maybe since World War Two. And if you look at it and very simple terms the U.S. Food and Agricultural products when they're sold overseas face an average trade barrier of 50 percent. By contrast food and ag products coming into the U.S. face a trade barrier of 5 percent. So it doesn't take much to figure out that the best thing we can do is sit down and

negotiate because we can't cannot help but when and improve that disparity that we currently face. And we certainly need access to that 96 percent of the population of the world's population that lives outside the US borders that we need to sell food and fiber to. We're going to leave it at that one say thanks very much for talking with us today we appreciate it. Thank you for the opportunity to have our guest Ron Warfield he's president of the Illinois farm bureau.