Wilfong, continued
suppliers were already experiencing various
degrees of financial stress.
Current market conditions will require both farmers
and suppliers to cut costs out of our operations.
The position that we in agriculture find ourselves
makes it more important than ever to have a strong
Farm Bureau organization to support pro-ag policies
at all levels. In our state, West Virginia Farm Bureau
is the only organization that is out there every day
working on beha lf of farmers and rural issues.
We have many accomplishments legislatively but
there is much more to do. As I am writing this, the
state legislature is in its third week working to close a
270 million budget hole. We don’t know what effect
the eventual budget will have on our agricultural
issues. What is evident is that we have more
government than we can afford. The legislature needs
to downsize state government considerably. There are
whole agencies that we would not miss if they were
eliminated. Personally, I want to see realistic cutbacks before there is any talk of raising taxes.
One back-door method the state is already
using to raise taxes on farmers is the School
Building Authority (SBA). They pressure counties
to pass excess levies on property in order to
qualify for SBA funds. SBA is a very poorly run
agency. Their solution often is to tear down and
build new buildings when repairs and ordinary
maintenance are all that is required.
But most of the financial woes of our state
government are due to the over-reach of the EPA and
its war on coal. EPA has an anti-business agenda. We
must mount a strong defense against them. Thank
goodness we have an Attorney General (Patrick
Morrisey) who stands up to the EPA. We should all
appreciate his work.
There has never been a time when we needed
more to be unified and have a strong organization to
work on our behalf. We need every farmer, business
owner, homeowner, landowner and consumer who
cares about the future of our state and country to be a
20 West Virginia Farm Bureau News
part of our Farm Bureau organization. You don’t have
to be a farmer to join - we represent the interests of
anyone who cares about our food supply.
Please encourage your friends and neighbors
who are not members to join us so we can do an
even better job standing up for agriculture, rural and
consumer issues.
Duvall, continued
like never before. I hear this when I visit with them.
Thanks to good weather and improved technology,
we expect an abundant grain harvest. But this won't
yield good prices for farmers already struggling to get
by. It's no secret that farm incomes took a nosedive
this year--what's worse, incomes are expected to drop
further still. TPP would increase cash receipts for a
variety of farm products, including rice, corn, cotton,
beef, pork, poultry, dairy, fruits and nuts, vegetables,
soybeans and wheat. Overall U.S. exports would
increase by $5.3 billion per year with this deal.
But those numbers don't mean much if we hand
economic leadership over to other countries like
China. "Other countries should play by the rules
that America and our partners set, and not the other
way around," President Obama wrote recently.
"The world has changed. The rules are changing
with it. The United States, not countries like China,
should write them." What's more, other countries
won't keep waiting on us for enhanced trade rules.
In fact, 15 Asian countries, including China, met
recently to start working out their own trade deal.
And we can bet their trade deal won't look out for
American agriculture.
We live and work in a global economy today-and that's good news for U.S. agriculture. We're in a
growth business, but if we want to keep that up into
the future, we need good deals like TPP to remove
trade barriers and open up new markets Today, our
auction barn is global, and when the opening gavel
echoes, our lawmakers need to make sure our goods
are in the arena.