Page 12-Corn Talk, Lancaster Farming, Saturday, October 14, 1995
Farmers Demand Increased Flexibility
GRAND PASS, Mo.—This
spring, Ryland Utlaut found
himself in an increasingly
familiar and quite unwelcome
predicament. He was ready to
plant, but a large portion of his
ground was under water.
Utlaut and his brother, Fred,
farm 3,500 acres. About half of
it is upland. The other half bor
ders die Missouri River.
Rich soils and hefty yields
make that ground a blessing in
most years, but once out of
every 10 the land is prone to
flooding. liately, it’s been two
out of three.
Gary Marshall, executive
director of the Missouri Com
Growers Association, said this
year’s flooding led to a crop
insurance nightmare for many
Missouri producers. Too wet to
plant com, they could have
drilled beans. But if they did
that, they would not have met
prevented planting require
ments, hence no crop insurance
coverage. Luckily, through the
hard work of NCGA and
others, later rule changes cor
rected that situation.
Meanwhile, over in Ken
tucky, grower Terry Rhodes
was patiently waiting in the
Farms Service Agency (FSA)
offices. Rhodes, of Whitesvil
le, Ky., farms about 1,400
acres. Most of that is rented,
and some lies in plots as small
as 40 or 50 acres.
By the time Rhodes had
completed the forms necessary
for each plot, carefully mea
sured each to ensure he did not
overplant his corn base and
OK’d everything with the offi
cials, he had spent a good three
to four days on logistics.
Like most farmers, Nebras
ka grower Lee Klein shared
Rhodes’s frustration with
paperwork. He also found him
self hitting the fields with what
he knew was not the optimal
planting strategy for his opera
tion. Klein farms 1,000 acres of
row crops near Battle Creek,
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Neb. Since he started farming
in 1976, he’s focused on eco
nomics. That led to com after
com after com on a large part
of his ground.
Now Klein has an 850-acre
com base and faces a dilemma:
Nematode problems mean he
must use insecticides on his
com. He could control that
naturally by rotating with soy
beans. But if he does that, not
only are beans less profitable
than com in his area of Nebras
ka, but he will lose base and
collect less m deficiency pay
ments. Deficiency payments
are necessary for survival in
Nebraska, where he has yet to
meet anyone who has pros
pered farming outside of the
program.
Three farmers, three differ
ent situations, but all with one
need: increased planting
flexibility.
“The way the program is set
up, a portion of our crop is not
covered with deficiency pay
ments, and government is
backing out of agriculture from
a support standpoint,” said Rod
Gangwish, president of the
National Com Growers Asso
ciation (NCGA). “If they’re
going to do that, we need some
tradeoffs. One of the tradeoffs
we feel we need—that farmers
are demanding—is flexibility.”
To date, one bill has been
introduced in the House, The
Freedom to Farm Act of 1995,
HR2195, and one in the Senate,
The Agricultural Competitive
ness Act of 1995, SI 155.
Another contender is Sen. Tom
Daschle’s (D-SD) Targeted
Marketing Loan program. All
call for increased planting flex
ibility. However, there is a dif
ference in the amount of flexi
bility allowed. NCGA has
proposed Full Farm Flexibility,
a program that combines bases
and allows full production on
those acres.
“I think there’s probably
good in a number of the pro
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posals, recognizing that not
any one proposal will be
adopted in its entirety,” said
Todd Barlow, executive direc
tor of the Kentucky Com
Growers Association. “There
are a lot of questions that need
to be asked about these propos
als, but I think they are all
going in the direction of flexi
bility. We lean toward Full
Farm Flexibility because it
takes us where we want to go.
The others don’t go far
enough.”
Increased flexibility would
help fanners on a number of
fronts, these farmers say. First,
it would allow them to farm for
the market—and a fickle
Mother Nature—rather than
government rules. From a pro
duction standpoint, they could
utilize proper rotations. That
would boost yields, cut produc
tion costs and help the environ
ment as they applied fewer
chemicals and fertilizers.
With increased flexibility,
soil erosion could be further
decreased. “Years ago we actu
ally had an erosion problem if
we raised soybeans because we
didn’t know how to farm like
we do now. The soybean
stubble ground would tend to
blow away because we didn’t
handle residue like we do
today,” Klein said. “Now we
till less. Part of that is due to
the different herbicides we
have today. The other is if we
plant soybeans now we’ll come
in with rye for a cover crop in
the fall and plant com in stand
ing rye the next year. More
flexibility would give us even
better options.”
Crop insurance problems
could also be alleviated. By
removing the acreage con
straints present in today’s sys
tem, fanners could react to the
weather and plant more crops
in a timely fashion. “Under
past scenarios you have been
required to plant one thing for
crop insurance purposes, one
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thing for farm programs and
another from a rotational
standpoint for crop residue
puiposes,” Marshall said. “Full
flexibility would allow those
plans to be much simpler and
allow greater combinations of
them,”
And as for those long waits
at the FSA office, those would
disappear, too. Fanners would
simply have to tell the agency
where and how much of each
crop they planted. The rigorous
guidelines could be a thing of
Something New For
Mid-Atlantic Tillage
Lynn Hoffman
Penn State
Agronomy Department
The 1995 Mid-Atlantic Til
lage Conference will be pre
sented this year in a new for
mat; a satellite video
conference.
The conference, long a popu
lar draw for farmers and agri
cultural professionals, will be
held two evenings Dec. 6
and Dec. 13 from 7 p.m. till 9
p.m.
One evening will emphasize
the equipment side of conserva
tion tillage, including items
such as planting and planter
adjustments and maintenance,
row cleaners, soil compaction,
and other timely topics. The
other evening will emphasize
fundamental principles and
issues of conservation tillage.
Emphasis will be given to
new pesticides, no-till pasture
renovation, high residue and
PENNSYLVANIA MASTER CORN GROWERS ASSOC., INC.
Conference
the past.
“In farming we use a myriad
of different tools to raise our
crops,” said LaMoine Smith, a
grower from Minden, Neb.
“When you put these things
together, like the options pro
gram, federal crop insurance
and flexibility, you have a total
program. When you leave one
of the links out, it’s just like a
chain. Wherever the weak link
is. it breaks. If we don’t get
flexibility in this farm bill, the
other aspects aren’t going to be
very important to us.”
plant diseaire interactions, and
no-till small grains.
This is a major change in for
mat for this conference. It
should make the conference
more accessible to a wide geo
graphical area within tire mid-
Atlantic region.
It will utilize speakers from
Ohio, Virginia, Maryland,
West Virginia and Pennsylva
nia with expertise in these
areas. There will be an oppor
tunity for live response to ques
tions by all the speakers
involved, even though some
will be broadcasting from their
home state.
An additional plus to this for
mat will be the availability of
the tapes from these programs
for future use.
Contact local extension
offices for information on
attending the meeting locally or
call the agronomy department
(814) 865-2543) for the the
satellite information if you
wish to view it at home.