Issue 24
Prairie Grains Magazine
1999

Prairie Grains is the official publication of the Minnesota Association of Wheat Growers, North Dakota Grain Growers Association, South Dakota Wheat, Inc. and the Minnesota Barley Growers Assocation.

Copyright Prairie
Grains Magazine
Nov/Dec  1999

Prairie Shortcuts

NDGGA:  Quality adjustments must be fixed

The ND Grain Growers Association is urging that quality adjustment factors used to calculate losses on wheat, durum, and barley be evaluated. 

The 1999 harvest illustrates again that crop insurance quality adjustment factors revised several years ago do not adequately reflect actual marketplace discounts.  The problem has become more severe this year, with sprout and quality damage.  "The quality adjustment factor tables list discounts for up to 35% damage on wheat, when typical elevators will not accept grain that has over 10% damage," says Lance Gaebe, executive director of the NDGGA.  The group along with others continue to press the USDA's Risk Management Agency to revise the quality adjustment factors.

MAWG board member Richard Mag-nusson, a Roseau, MN, producer, joined other commodity group leaders in Washington, D.C. this fall, urging federal lawmakers to fashion a 1999 weather-related disaster program for agriculture, similar to the 1998 single-year disaster program.

Farm assistance averages $10,000 per MN farm operator

The $8.7 billion Farm Emergency Assistance package approved by lawmakers this fall will average out to about $10,000 per farm operator in Minnesota, according to Kent Thiesse, University of Minnesota Extension educator.  Total government payments for 1999 are pegged at $22.5 billion, which would be the highest amount ever, exceeding the $16.7 billion allocated in 1987, according to USDA's Economic Research Service.  Get more details on the farm emergency assistance package at the web site, www.smallgrains.org

Study: Herbicides cost more in U.S. than Canada

A study by economists from North Carolina State University and the University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada, shows that prices for many herbicides used in Canada are lower than in the U.S. Price surveys done from 1994 to 1999 on 38 different pesticides in Manitoba and North Dakota/Minnesota showed 24 of the pesticides were priced higher in North Dakota/Minnesota.

A complete copy of the study can be found online: www.ridgetownc.uoguelph. ca/CoInfo/Research/Current/CurFrm.htm

Apply for $1,000 young wheat grower award by Dec. 1

The NAWG Foundation and Monsanto are sponsoring the 2000 Young Farmer Leadership Award program.  Young growers between the ages of 25 and 35 have the opportunity to learn more about leadership, and the purpose and effectiveness of association involvement.  Each state association affiliated with the NAWG has a $1,000 scholarship that a selected young producer may apply toward participation in the National Wheat Conference Feb. 8-12 in Las Vegas.  The deadline to apply is Dec. 1.  To obtain an application form and more information, contact your state wheat association.

"F2F" part of the problem, but not the whole problem 

That seemed to be the consensus of a panel discussion on the 1996 Farm Bill, held during the 1999 Big Iron Show in West Fargo.  "It's not so black and white.  Today's problems in agriculture cannot be blamed just on Freedom to Farm.  The answer is somewhere in between," said David Torgerson, executive director of the Minnesota Association of Wheat Growers, and a participant in the panel discussion. 

Torgerson pointed out that F2F allowed producers in the Northern Plains the freedom to plant other crops.  However, he said that the market-oriented, export-focused facet of the '96 Farm Bill promised by policy makers has not transpired, nor have promises for a better crop insurance program.  That underscores the need for changes, he said.

"Parts of (the farm bill) do need to be addressed," said Mike Krueger, Agri-Mark, another panel participant.  But the fact remains that much of the market slump can be blamed on record or near record crops worldwide three years in a row.  "I've never seen that in 25 years in the grain business," he said.