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Wisconsin Farm Bureau Federation® Ag News Wire

Madison, WI (WFBF release) -FARM BUREAU SEEKS PROPANE-RELATED DECLARATION OF EMERGENCY
On Friday, Farm Bureau joined the Wisconsin Propane Gas Association and five other ag-related organizations in requesting Gov. Jim Doyle to make a Declaration of Emergency to provide temporary relief from the U.S. Dept. of Transportation’s hours-of-service requirements for a period of 30 days. The declaration is needed to ensure that sufficient supplies of propane are available to meet the state’s grain-drying needs. The letter to the governor outlines the propane supply constrains found around the Midwest. Unusual weather conditions, harvest delays and a high moisture crop are also cited in the letter. A UW-Madison Extension bulletin states “do not hold high moisture grain in wagons or trucks longer than six hours.” The Wisconsin Agri-Service Association has learned that grain elevators around the state are cutting off truck lines of harvested corn due to limited dryer capacity. “This makes it even more important to keep the on-farm dryers supplied with propane. The inability of grain-drying operations to keep pace with the harvest will jeopardize the quality of Wisconsin’s corn crop and could result in significant losses for the state’s producers.”

PROPANE SUPPLY A CONCERN ACROSS THE MIDWEST
Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley is concerned about apparent shortages of propane gas just as the weather is turning cold and farmers are in high gear working to get crops out of the fields. In a letter to the chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, Jon Leibowitz, Senator Grassley asked that the commission remain vigilant in overseeing the propane market to prevent anti-competitive behavior. Farmers are using a considerable amount of propane right now because they are harvesting a higher amount of high-moisture corn due to the unseasonably wet weather. Most corn must be sold below a certain moisture content for farmers to receive an optimal price. Grassley says propane inventories nationally remain at or above the five-year average for this time of year. Meanwhile, the Cooperative Network has issued a statement on how this issue has been handled in Minnesota.

DOYLE VETOES ‘DNR SECRETARY’ BILL
On Friday, Governor Jim Doyle vetoed bill that would have restored the ability for the Natural Resources Board to appoint the Secretary of the Department of Natural Resources. Currently the DNR Secretary is a governor-appointed position. Members of the Natural Resources Board are appointed by the Governor as well. In his veto message, Gov. Doyle wrote: "Wisconsin’s people and natural resources are best served with a Secretary appointed by the Governor. The major environmental measures we’ve taken in the past seven years, from working to remove mercury from our air, expanding the Stewardship program, passing the Great Lakes Compact, moving toward energy independence and reforming our regulatory process, could not have [been] achieved by a board appointed Secretary alone." The Farm Bureau agreed with Doyle’s position that the DNR Secretary should remain a governor-appointed position. The authors of the vetoed bill are talking about attempting an override of the governor’s veto. The Legislature has not overridden a sitting governor’s veto since 1981, and it doesn’t appear they will do so in this case either. An override requires two-thirds of the 99-member State Assembly to vote to overturn the governor’s decision. When the Assembly approved this bill in September, it did so by a 61-32 vote, just shy of the two-thirds that would be needed. 

USDA, JUSTICE DEPT. WILL BE IN MADISON IN JUNE TO EXPLORE AG COMPETITION AND REGULATORY ISSUES
The Department of Justice and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) have announced the dates and locations of joint public workshops that will explore competition and regulatory issues in the agriculture industry. The workshops, which were first announced by Attorney General Eric Holder and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack on Aug. 5, 2009, are the first joint Department of Justice/USDA workshops ever to be held to discuss competition and regulatory issues in the agriculture industry. The all-day workshops, which will begin in March 2010, will be held in Alabama, Colorado, Iowa, Washington, D.C. and Wisconsin. The Wisconsin visit is set for June 7 on the UW-Madison campus. Specific areas of focus may include concentration, marketplace transparency and vertical integration in the dairy industry. For more information, view the press release

KEEPING THE DEER HERD IN CHECK
The Wisconsin State Farmer newspaper features a story on the Farm Bureau’s suggestions to the DNR on keeping the state’s deer herd in check. Paul Zimmerman, executive director of public affairs for Farm Bureau, said that the DNR hasn’t put out hard numbers on the deer population this year as they took a lot of heat for it last year. “But coming out of the hunting season in 2008 we started with 1.6 million deer and 450,000 were killed. Then with winter attrition I’m guessing we have about a million deer out there,” he said. It is long-standing policy of Farm Bureau that bag limits should be increased along with the number of permits to reduce the population of deer and other wildlife populations. When those deer populations rise, the organization would like to see DNR institute the earn-a-buck program or any other program that will draw down the deer herd. To read the story, click here.

UDDERLY SILLY: CALIFORNIA’S ‘HAPPY COWS’ WILL NOW BE FILMED IN…NEW ZEALAND??
Journalists are having a field day with this one. California’s ‘Happy Cow’ ad campaign (that drives us all crazy in Wisconsin) is making news this week. Apparently it’s cheaper to film commercials overseas than in the land of Hollywood. See the story in the LA Times and a more tongue-and-cheek blog at DailyFinance.com

NEWS FROM AROUND THE WORLD
World leaders going into the United Nations world food summit have backed off of firm targets and instead will pledge to commit to sustainably ending world hunger at the earliest possible date, reports Reuters. The group has a goal to halve world hunger by 2015, but it is acknowledged that meeting that goal is unlikely.  Reuters also has a story that says next month’s Copenhagan climate talks are likely to take a close look at farms, both as a victim of climate change and as a cause. A new research program to test low-carbon incentives, aimed at the world’s 2 billion poor living on small farms, could come out of the summit.

2050 CORN HARVEST WILL AFFECT FOOD, FUEL POLICIES
What corn yields are likely to be in 2050 matters a lot when the government is debating far-reaching energy policies that could take land out of crop production and encourage more biofuel production in the United States and globally. The Des Moines Register features a story that says the lower the yields, the more these policies could squeeze food supplies and drive up prices worldwide. The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which bases its projections on long-term historical trends, sees moderate growth, with yields reaching about 240 bushels an acre in 2050. But scientists with the biotech seed giant Monsanto Co. have been telling economists and government officials that yields could be far higher - as much as 300 bushels per acre by 2030. The difference between those two projections is huge. With an average yield of 300 bushels per acre, U.S. farmers could have produced as much corn as they did this year on just 43 million acres. This fall, they're harvesting 79 million. "It's hard to overstate how important this is," University of Missouri economist Pat Westhoff said of the corn yield projections.

UW-EXTENSION LAUNCHES WEBSITE TO HELP DAIRY FARMERS
The UW-Extension has launched "farming through difficult times" which helps dairy producers and agriculture leaders find up-to-date information on dairy finances. The hope is to inform the agriculture community on topics such as future outlook, production recommendations and stress management. To take a look at the website click here.