Successful Farming / By Dan Looker, Business Editor
With many of its members worried about low commodity prices and rapid consolidation in the agricultural industry, regional differences led to some close votes and long debates at the American Farm Bureau's delegate voting session in Houston, Texas Wednesday.
The policy session of the group's annual meeting gave tentative approval to significant changes, supporting counter-cyclical farm program payments that would help offset low commodity prices. And it called for "a high level position ... within the Department of Justice to enforce antitrust laws in agriculture."
But some delegates wanted to do more.
Farm Bureau members from southern states seemed to favor higher marketing loan rates and even some form of voluntary supply management program.
An amendment offered from the floor by David Winkles, president of the South Carolina Farm Bureau, called for "voluntary, short-term programs to reduce over burdensome supplies," if the programs don't hurt long-term goals of moving to a less regulated farm economy.
The average loss for South Carolina producers in tha farm management record keeping program will be about $93,000 for 1999, Winkles said adding, "These aren't marginal producers who made bad decisions." Prices for just about all crops grown in his state are depressed and action needs to be taken now, he said. "We don't want to send signals to the rest of the world to plant more, but we do need to reduce these burdensome supplies."
But with votes from midwesterners who called that a step back to programs that haven't worked in the past, the amendment to Farm Bureau's national farm policy resolution was defeated, by a vote of 197 to 163.
The Iowa delegation met resistance from delegates from the South and other regions when it tried to amend the group's farm policy to "support the payment limitations of the 1996 FAIR Act." Under current farm law, producers are limited to $40,000 in annual market transition payments and $75,000 in loan deficiency payments.
As Iowa Farm Bureau president Ed Wiederstein explained, "In Iowa, there is a concern among our farmers -- whether it's real or perceived -- that the farm program right now is creating rapid expansion of farms." The motion failed by a large margin.
Bob Stallman, the Texas Farm Bureau president who is challenging Iowan, Dean Kleckner for the presidency of the nation's largest farm group, told @griculture Online Wednesday that the regional splits seem a little stronger than normal this year. But he pointed out that his state had promoted the concept of counter-cyclical farm payments and Iowa endorsed that idea at its annual meeting.
He said he has also talked to midwestern Farm Bureau members who aren't happy with low commodity prices, even though farmers in the Southeast seem hard-hit by low prices and bad weather.:
