THE ARMY CORPS OF Engineers reports enough rock has been removed to provide clear navigation on the Mississippi River between St. Louis and Cairo. ..........2
THE NEW BATCH OF field moms and the DeKalb County hog farmers they visited recently each said they learned something from the other. .....................................................3
FOOD CHECK-OUT WEEK marked the point at which the average American had earned enough income to buy food for the entire year. ..................................................12
Sequestration’s here: What happens next? Monday, March 4, 2013
BY MARTIN ROSS AND DANIEL GRANT FarmWeek
Lawmakers evacuated Washington last week after Congress and the White House failed to reach an agreement
Two sections Volume 41, No. 9
on efforts to head off acrossthe-board federal budget cuts. Sequestration kicked in Friday, mandating $85 billion in spending cuts over the next 10 months. The process, directed under 2011 budget legislation,
REACTING TO MARKET
will require a roughly 8.2 percent immediate cut in mandatory program spending and a 7.6 percent reduction in congressionally appropriated spending. That could translate to a nearly $500 million cut in 2013
John Spangler of Marietta in Fulton County took advantage of rising soybean prices last week and sent a semi load to the ADM facility in Havana. Bean bids were edging close to $15 a bushel as last week came to a close. Spangler said his farm yielded about 50 bushels per acre last year, down about 5 bushels from his average. His Western Illinois region remains dry; field tiles are not running, he said. (Photo by Ken Kashian)
commodity program spending, American Farm Bureau Federation Senior Economist Bob Young told FarmWeek. Young sees USDA providing direct payments for 2013 crops but suggested payments could be “whacked” by about 8 percent. Addressing farmers in Decatur last week, U.S. House Ag Committee member Rodney Davis, a Taylorville Republican, called sequestration “just bad policy.” “This is crazy,” Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack declared at last week’s Commodity Classic in Florida. Sequestration could slash USDA’s remaining fiscal 2013 operating budget by $1 billion to $1.5 billion, preclude conservation assistance for 11,000 to 12,000 farmers and landowners, impact meat plant inspections, and eliminate $500 million in near-term U.S. “trade opportunities,” Vilsack said. “This shouldn’t be happening in a functioning democracy,” Vilsack said. “This is a tough situation.” Davis argued the prospect of “unpalatable” cuts was designed to “force people to the table to seek commonsense solutions.” However, lawmakers were unable to pass a Senate Democrat “sequester replacement” package that proposed to cut
$27.5 billion in commodity program spending. While Davis deemed sequestration a gesture of “laziness” by the past Congress, he said “the world will not end” as a result of sequestration, and “the pain many in this country will feel will not be immediate.” Davis and Young stressed that while program payments may be reduced, farmers would see no change in 2013 crop insurance premium subsidies. In recent weeks, Vilsack repeatedly raised the specter of budget-mandated furloughs for meat inspectors, resulting in processor plant shutdowns and market disruption. Given limited options for shifting administrative funds, Young believes USDA likely will have to look at “staffing shuffles” to continue providing inspection services. However, he noted many plants are served by multiple inspectors, and suggested USDA could respond by paring back to a skeleton force and/or seeking added processor revenues to fund inspections. “Right now, your taxpayer dollars only pay for those inspectors from 8 to 5,” Young pointed out. “Plants are paying for inspectors who are there outside of normal business hours.” See Sequestration, page 4
Periodicals: Time Valued
Proposed farmland assessment amendment to phase-in changes
BY KAY SHIPMAN FarmWeek
The ability of different soils to produce different crop yields would be better reflected in a proposed amendment to
FarmWeekNow.com
For morel information on the proposed changes to the Illinois farmland assessment law, go to FarmWeekNow.com.
the state’s farmland assessment law. The current assessment val-
ues seem to suggest that “a higher (productive) soil produces 40 times better than lower (productive) soils, but the actual data in Illinois doesn’t support that,” said Brenda Matherly, Illinois Farm Bureau assistant director of local government. Under HB 2651, sponsored by Rep. Frank Mautino (DSpring Valley), the farmland assessment process would phase in changes to equalized assessed value by soil productivity index (PI). Those changes would not exceed 10
FarmWeek on the web: FarmWeekNow.com
percent of the certified assessed value of the state’s median soil PI, which is 111. The changes were proposed by the Illinois Department of Revenue and are supported by IFB because they would maintain fair and equitable assessment of farmland. The PI indicates a specific
soil’s suitability to produce a crop. It is based on crop yields under average farm/crop management. During the recent Governmental Affairs Leadership Conference, Matherly presented a workshop on proposed changes to the farmland assessment law. If the amendment passes, all soils — regardless of their PI — would increase by 10 percent of the median soil PI. The 2013 certified value for a See Assessment, page 3
Illinois Farm Bureau®on the web: www.ilfb.org