WASHINGTON, D.C. – American politicians believe a new golden age is emerging in agriculture due to the advent of fuel such as ethanol that can be made from grain and crop fibres.
That sentiment promises to influence the design of the next U.S. farm bill, which American legislators likely will begin drafting next year.
“I think you’re going to see a lot of push in the next farm bill on energy,” said Iowa senator Tom Harkin, who is Democratic leader of the U.S. Senate’s agriculture committee.
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Americans see renewable fuel development as a way to support farmers and rural communities. The U.S. government also wants to reduce its reliance on imported oil.
“We will see a greater interest in using America’s vast agricultural resources to help in the cause to make America less dependent on foreign sources of energy and that trend will continue,” said U.S. House agriculture committee chair Bob Goodlatte.
Both men made their comments during the annual meeting of North American Agricultural Journalists in Washington, D.C., in early April.
The Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute anticipates a considerable rise in American ethanol production over the next few years. Funded in part by the U.S. Congress, the research institute provides independent policy analysis on agriculture.
The institute has projected that 2.8 billion bushels of corn will be turned into ethanol in the United States by 2014, compared to about two billion bu. of corn that were used to make ethanol last year.
“At current trends, ethanol demand will exceed corn exports by market year 2007-08,” the institute said in a News release
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American legislators are also vowing to give conservation programs a significant profile in the next farm bill. Tied in with that will be an effort to compensate producers for complying with environmental rules.
“If farmers are going to have to comply with various types of laws primarily focused on environmental regulations, they should get some assistance with that,” Goodlatte said.
“That kind of assistance can be more uniformly spread throughout all types of agriculture so I think there is a lot of interest in that.”
A criticism of the current farm program is that most of the commodity program subsidies go to only five crops.
U.S. federal politicians have been frustrated by the difficulty in striking a new agreement under the World Trade Organization. Having that agreement in place would help the Americans design a new farm bill that was compliant with WTO rules for agricultural trade.
However, while expressing a desire to play by international trade rules, American legislators are also sending a clear signal that they intend to protect the interests of U.S. producers.
“We’re not going to let the WTO or Europe write the U.S. farm bill,” said U.S. Senate agriculture committee chair Saxby Chambliss.
