02/22/06 New NAWG president on some issues

02/22/06 New NAWG president on some issues

Farm and Ranch February 22, 2006 The new president of the National Association of Wheat Growers, Dale Schuler of Montana, says the Bush Administration's proposals on reducing payments and payment limitations couldn't come at a worse time. In fact Schuler says higher input costs means government should be spending more to help farmers, not less, and so NAWG will again aggressively pursue emergency funding from Congress to offset high energy costs. Schuler: "What makes agriculture unique and why we think we are justified in asking for that is almost any other industry is able to pass on their costs to someone else further down the chain whether it is someone else in the processing chain or to consumers. Agriculture is stuck shouldering every additional cost. Not only in his direct production costs, he has to pay that high fuel and fertilizer but he has to pay fuel surcharges on the delivery of those products to his farm and also pay the fuel surcharges for the delivery of his products off the farm. And that just cuts into his profit with no way of recouping those added expenses." Schuler explains what NAWG will be emphasizing for the next farm bill. Schuler: "Is a farm bill that directs more emphasis to direct payments that are guaranteed and producers can feel confident they are going to get those payments that help support their production and profitability on their farm." With less emphasis says Schuler on price support mechanisms that haven't worked well for wheat. I'm Bob Hoff and that's the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.
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