News Update
October 19, 2011
Engler, Wyant Named 2011 AFA Leader in Agriculture Award Winners
Paul Engler and Sara Wyant have been selected as 2011 Leader in Agriculture Award winners by Agriculture Future of America (AFA). AFA sponsors the Leader in award to honor individuals whose accomplishments in their personal lives and professional careers have distinguished them as mentors to others in the ag industry.
Engler is the founder and chairman emeritus of Cactus Feeders Inc., based in Amarillo, Texas. Wyant is the president of Agri-Pulse Communications Inc., which publishes the Agri-Pulse newsletter and website to include the latest information on farm policy, commodity and conservation programs, trade, food safety, rural development, and environmental and regulation programs.
Engler and Wyant will be honored at the Leader in Agriculture Award Dinner held during the 2011 AFA Leaders Conference, Nov. 3-6, 2011, in Kansas City, Mo.
Ten Farm Safety Net Proposals Side by Side
“Amidst the Super Committee’s work to create a deficit reduction plan, many organizations have proposed alternatives to the current Title I farm safety net programs,” says Jon Scholl, American Farmland Trust (AFT). “The result has been an alphabet soup of 10 proposals.”
To help people understand the proposals, AFT has engaged noted Ohio State University agricultural economist Carl Zulauf to analyze the features of these leading safety net proposals.
Zulauf’s assessment found positives including:
- 90% of the proposals would require the farms to experience a loss in order to receive government assistance, making the farm safety net a risk management partnership between farms and the public.
- 90% of the proposals address both an existing hole in today’s crop insurance program: multiple-year revenue declines that are not the fault of the farm, and, the current imbalance in the farm safety net, shallow revenue losses. These nine proposals would in effect make the risk management safety net more equitable across crops and regions.
- Eight of the programs would end fixed-prices or a revenue-benchmark, removing the incentive to adjust (production) to risk events.
Similarly, there were concerns raised in the assessment:
- The proper economic justification for a farm safety net is to address systemic risks that occur across many farms, not losses unique to an individual farm or a small number of farms.
- The majority of the 10 proposals would address risk at the farm level, if for no other reason than such a program delivers the most risk assistance to individual farms.
- Providing more assistance to individual farms than their share of systemic risk leads to inefficient use of public and private resources by encouraging more production in areas with the greatest risk, creating detrimental environmental consequences since risky production areas are often environmentally-sensitive areas, encouraging the use of more risky production practices, and, increasing the cost of the program to the public.
Readers can view a copy of “Assessment and Comparison of Farm Safety Net Proposals” by Zulauf at www.farmland.org.
NCBA Offering Travel Fellowships to Young Producers
The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) is offering financial assistance to young producers who wish to attend the 2012 Cattle Industry Convention and NCBA Trade Show. NCBA is offering ten $250 travel fellowships to Young Producer’s Council (YPC) members to assist with travel costs and registration.
YPC is an active player in NCBA policy development and is working to cultivate more peer members to serve as industry advocates. NCBA members between the ages of 18-35 qualify as YPC members and are encouraged to apply for one of the fellowships.
The fellowships will help young producers attend the convention in Nashville, Tenn., Feb. 1-4, 2012.
To apply for the 2012 Travel Fellowship sponsored by NCBA, applications must be submitted by Nov. 11, 2011. Applications are available on NCBA’s website at www.beefusa.org. Any questions regarding the application or application process should be directed to Ben Neale at bneale@thebeefconnection.com or to Travis Hoffman at travis.hoffman@colostate.edu.
Proposed Regulations Could Mean Big Changes for
Farm Youth Labor
An update of federal labor regulations governing youth employment could mean significant changes in the types of work young people can do on the farm, according to the leader of Ohio State University (OSU) Extension’s Agricultural Safety and Health program.
“The Hazardous Occupations Orders For Agricultural Employment hasn’t been touched or changed for the past 40 years,” said Dee Jepsen, program leader and assistant professor in the Department of Food, Agricultural and Biological Engineering. “What the hazardous occupations order for agriculture does is prohibit youth under the age of 16 from working in and around certain types of environments, outside two basic exemptions.”
For more on this issue, sign up to receive the Angus Beef Bulletin EXTRA at http://www.angusbeefbulletin.com/extra/about.html. The EXTRA will email tomorrow afternoon and features more on this topic in an article entitled “A Must Read.”
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