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California Association of Wheat Growers (CAWG)

May 2, 2008

FB CONFERENCE COMMITTEE MEETS, FINISHES MOST ITEMS.  After months of delay and weeks of heavy negotiations, House and Senate farm bill conferees met Thursday night and approved the vast majority of farm bill provisions.

The conferees approved all titles save for about 10 issues that remain to be worked out by staff or are waiting on Congressional Budget Office scoring. Some remaining issues are serious and could prove contentious; payment limitation levels have yet to be established, tax provisions were held up and a provision that would privatize the food stamp program was put off after a lengthy debate.

Two amendments that would have restored a full direct payment were rejected by conferees during the meeting. The first, offered by Rep. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), would have reduced the increase in target prices and loan rates approved for some crops, redirecting the money to the direct payment program. The second, offered by Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), would have eliminated a $175 million earmark for salmon recovery that was not in the House- or Senate-passed versions of the bill and reduced Title II, or conservation, spending by $141 million, redirecting that money to the direct payment program. NAWG advocated for both amendments throughout the week.

Despite those defeats and the remaining items, the Thursday meeting, which lasted until about 1 a.m. Friday morning, was a major step forward in the formal farm bill process. The 2002 Farm Bill officially expired on Sept. 30, 2007, and has been extended five times to allow negotiators to continue work.

The most recent extension was passed this week by both chambers and would take the bill through May 16. President George W. Bush was expected to sign the extension, though he has repeatedly voiced opposition to continued short-term extensions. It remains unclear whether the President will sign the final bill when it eventually gets to his desk.

Conference committee head and Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) indicated no further conference meetings would be held until, at the earliest, Tuesday afternoon.

CLEAVINGER TESTIFIES ON RAIL BEFORE HOUSE SMALL BUSINESS.  NAWG President David Cleavinger testified Thursday before the House Small Business Committee about problems wheat growers continue to face when utilizing the nation's railways.

Cleavinger joined other witnesses in telling Committee Members about issues faced with pricing, service and a lack of competition.  “We understand that new railroads are not going to be built, so competition in that sense is unrealistic,” he told the Committee, chaired by Chairwoman Nydia Velazquez (D-N.Y.). “What we can accomplish is accountability on all sides, to find good service at reasonable rates.”

Cleavinger also expressed NAWG’s support of H.R. 2125 and S. 953, which are aimed at increasing rail competition.

In other rail news, the House Judiciary Committee reported H.R. 1650 this week to the full House on a bipartisan voice vote. H.R. 1650 and its companion bill, S. 772, would amend federal antitrust laws that currently exempt railroads.

Last week, the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure held a hearing to review rail capacity issues.

As Cleavinger told the Committee this week, wheat growers have been working on the rail issue for upwards of 30 years. Rail transportation remains a top NAWG priority because of the significant effect it can have on producers’ bottom lines.

FSA RELEASES FARM DATA REQUESTED UNDER FOIA.  USDA’s Farm Service Agency announced this week that it has released data that can be used to gain details about farms based on geographical location to a commercial vendor that requested the information under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

An FSA press statement said the release encompassed FSA data for individually owned and operated farms and “closely held family-owned business entities”. The data was released in “sets of complex and statistically detailed databases from FSA files.”

The vendor applied for the data under FOIA in July 2005. USDA denied the request based on a FOIA statute that exempts release of information that would invade personal privacy, but the vendor appealed. In February, FSA was ordered by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to release the data.

SCIENTISTS IDENTIFY FROST TOLERANCE GENES IN WHEAT.  The genes responsible for the wide range of freezing temperatures that can be tolerated by different wheat varieties have been identified by a team of U.S. and European scientists, led by a plant scientist at the University of California, Davis.

The study results suggest that frost-tolerance genes are activated at milder temperatures (53-59 degrees Fahrenheit) in frost-tolerant wheat varieties than in frost-susceptible varieties.  The findings, reported in the March issue of the journal Plant Molecular Biology, are important for better understanding winter injury, a major economic risk factor in producing wheat.

Professor Jorge Dubcovsky, a UC-Davis wheat breeder and geneticist and ex officio member of the NAWG Research and Technology policy committee, said in a press release about the findings that the identification of these genes will enable breeders to develop hardier, more productive wheat varieties.

The study was funded by the USDA’s Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension Service (CSREES), the Hungarian Wheat Spike Consortia, the Hungarian National Research Fund, the National Science Foundation Plant Genome Program and the Ohio Plant Biotechnology Consortium.

The study is part of an ongoing research program by Dubcovsky and colleagues to uncover the genetic basis of important wheat traits. More information on this research is available at: http://www.plantsciences.ucdavis.edu/Dubcovsky/

WORD ON WHEAT: UG99 PUTS LIVES, FOOD SECURITY IN DANGER.  Paul Penner.  NAWG Environment and Renewable Resources Chairman

To many people, wheat is something to sing about in patriotic songs and the main ingredient of bread. But, more than that, the crop many of us have devoted our lives to growing is a staple food source all over the world, made even more important by that Revolution, a period of dramatic increases in productivity that kept millions from starvation. An estimated 20 percent of all calories consumed in the world come from wheat.

The progress promoted by world wheat production is under threat today, however, by something most Americans don’t even know exists - a new and highly virulent race of a old wheat disease, a disease that has been under control since the days of the Green Revolution.   Ug99, named such because it was first discovered in Uganda in 1999, is a race of stem rust, a disease that infects the vascular tissues of wheat plants. It can cause 100 percent yield loss in infected plants. This new race is virulent on plant genes that have provided stable resistance for nearly five decades. A large proportion of world wheat is now highly vulnerable, including nearly all spring wheat varieties and 75 percent of winter wheat varieties planted in the U.S.

Though the disease had been contained to Africa, the world got confirmation earlier this year that it had spread to Iran, meaning that the wheat fields of that country, Iraq, Pakistan, India, Syria and Turkey - which account for 20 percent of world wheat production - will soon be threatened as it spreads further on wind or clothing.   It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to conjure up the havoc spread of Ug99 will cause in terms of famine, finances and political instability. The best, and perhaps only, defense against these outcomes is increased research aimed at locating and deploying new genes for resistance in new wheat varieties.   But while we are looking at the critical vulnerability and possible destruction of 3/4 of the world’s wheat supply in one of the most volatile regions on earth, funding is being cut for world wheat research projects.

In the past, the U.S. government has typically funded the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) centers at around $25 million per year from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) budget. About $5 million of that funding typically went to CIMMYT, the international center responsible for wheat improvement.  CIMMYT develops new wheat varieties with higher yields and improved disease resistance for the world and facilitates international exchange of germplasm among wheat breeders. CIMMYT is now leading the international battle against Ug99.  

Despite frantic meetings by members of the wheat chain, like NAWG and the National Wheat Improvement Committee, and public appeals for action from people as laudable as Borlaug, who wrote on the issue in the April 26 edition of The New York Times, this critical funding is being cut in this current fiscal year. And, the outlook for next year’s funding is no better.   Bread, something most Americans take for granted and millions around the world rely on to survive until the next day, is being threatened for the lack of $25 million from a country with a $14 trillion economy. 

Of all the uncontrollable “what if”s of farming, Ug99 is one threat that investment and ingenuity might be able to prevent, if the resources are there. Please call your Members of Congress and urge them to act on this issue for the sake of the American wheat producer and people all over the world. 

- Penner is a wheat producer in Hillsboro, Kansas