LONDON, Ont. — It doesn’t matter which option U.S. farmers choose under the country’s latest farm bill.
According to the president of the American Soybean Association, it’s a matter of cashing in sooner or later.
“In the long run it will probably balance out,” Richard Wilkins said in an interview during Grain Farmers of Ontario’s March Classic conference March 24.
Wilkins said the farm bill that was passed last year gives farmers two options for each eligible crop they produce: agricultural risk coverage or price loss coverage.
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They had until March 31 to sign up.
Michigan State University economist David Schweikhardt told a meeting earlier this year that most U.S. farmers will opt for the agricultural risk coverage because it’s likely to put money in their pockets sooner.
Wilkins said neither program is expected to deliver a significant amount of support for the 2014 crop year.
However, that will likely change this year if the substantial drop in commodity prices that some analysts are projecting materializes.
Wilkins, who farms in Delaware, also said he supports Grain Farmers of Ontario’s efforts to maintain broad access to neonicotinoids.
The province’s environment ministry recently released proposed legislative changes aimed at reducing the amount of insecticide used for corn and soybeans by 80 percent within two years.
“We’re watching the situation in Ontario and the European Union, and the American Soybean Association is a very close ally to the Grain Farmers of Ontario and the Canadian Soybean Council,” Wilkins said.
“Banning neonicotinoids is not in itself going to resolve pollinator health issues. It’s a knee-jerk reaction.”
Wilkins said farmers had to request that neonics be included with their seed when they were first introduced.
Seed companies began to automatically include the insecticides in corn only after the technology proved so popular.
“The marketplace worked. Today the industry has gone in that direction,” Wilkins said.
Non-neonicotinoid options are available, but close to 100 percent of seed corn and 30 percent of soybean seed is now sold with one of the insecticides, Wilkins said.
The treatment tends to be used more widely in soybeans in more northerly U.S. growing areas.
Mark Brock, chair of Grain Farmers of Ontario, said his organization has spent a considerable amount of time over the past year working on the neonicotinoid issue.
It supports the Know GMO campaign, which is administered by the Farm and Food Care Foundation. The goal is to air a documentary film aimed at enlightening the general public about the genetic modification of food crops.
