After several years of tax increases, legislators on verge of providing some relief

COLUMBUS – As state budget negotiators enter the final days of House-Senate budget negotiations, the Ohio Farmers Union reminds legislators that CAUV reforms contained in both versions of the budget are desperately needed – and overdue.

“We’ve been fighting for some meaningful changes in the CAUV formula since around 2012,” said OFU President Joe Logan.

“It’s been a long haul, and along the way farmland property taxes have increased 300 percent or more for family farmers in every corner of Ohio, Logan said.

Logan points out that while farmland property taxes have skyrocketed, other small businesses in Ohio have seen large tax breaks.

“Family farms, which have struggled to generate income in an era of low commodity prices, are perhaps the only small business category that have been taxed more while others’ taxes have decreased over the past three state budgets.”

CAUV, or Current Agricultural Use Valuation, is the way farmland property tax values are determined.

President Donald J. Trump announced earlier this year his intention to weaken and eliminate funding for rural development at USDA as part of a larger ‘re-organization.’

This isn’t selling well with many in rural America.

The National Farmers Union and the Ohio Farmers have joined  joined a coalition of 578 farm and rural organizations, businesses and local governments in sending a letter to Congress pushing back on the administration’s recent budget proposal and proposed reorganization for USDA. The groups urge lawmakers to reject both proposals, as they would eliminate Rural Development as an essential Mission Area of USDA and cut Rural Development funding and staffing by 30 percent and 20 percent, respectively.

Let’s start with what USDA Rural Development programs mean to Ohio.

The Avita Health System facility in Ontario, Ohio, just west of Mansfield in Richland County recently opened. It brought 350 jobs to the area and according to USDA, Avita Ontario will serve the health care needs of around 125,000 north-central Ohioans.

It would not have happened without USDA Rural Development.

Avita Ontario got $91 million in Community Facilities loan funding to repurpose nearly 200,000 square feet of abandoned retail space. Inpatient hospital services, an emergency department and labs are among the features at Avita Ontario.

Rural Development dollars in Ohio for FY 2016 included (among others):

• $53.6 million in rural electrification loans or guarantees
• Nearly $500 million in single-family housing lending in rural areas
• $44.5 million in waste and water district lending in rural areas

“The administration’s proposals do not sit well with family farmers and rural residents who benefit tremendously from the work of USDA Rural Development,” said NFU President Roger Johnson. “While we appreciate Secretary’s Perdue’s heightened interest in rural economic development, President Trump’s proposed budget does not align with this interest. In fact, the budget proposal and proposed USDA reorganization bring the long-term viability of USDA RD into question.”

The coalition letter noted that for more than 50 years, USDA rural development programs have improved housing, utilities and community facilities, and economic opportunity for rural America. In fiscal year 2016 alone, USDA made available more than $29 billion in loans, guarantees, grants, and related assistance to over 157,000 individuals, businesses, non-profit corporations, cooperatives, and governments.

Yet there is still much work to be done in rural America, the coalition argued.

According an analysis of socio-economic well-being prepared by the Wall Street Journal, rural counties in America are in worse condition than big cities, suburbs and small or medium metro areas. Rural communities, and the people who live in them, have higher poverty and unemployment rates as well as a higher incidence of substandard housing and rent overburden when compared to metropolitan areas.

Despite this information, the Trump Administration proposed:

• Eliminating funding for two dozen housing and rural development programs.
• Rescinding USDA’s responsibility to provide direct rural housing loans, grants for mutual and self-help housing, financing for water and waste disposal systems, or loans and grants to small rural businesses, cooperatives, and value added producers.
• Reducing funding for many other programs under Rural Development well below their current rate.

“What will be left is a hollowed-out Rural Development function, degraded within the Department with far fewer resources to help rural America,” the coalition noted. “We urge the (Appropriations) Committee to reject the Administration’s FY 18 budget and reorganization proposals for Rural Development and instead provide appropriations at no less than the current rate and maintain the Rural Development mission area and position of Under Secretary for Rural Development.”

[Read more…]

U.S. Should Create a Fair Trade Framework That Puts Family Farmers, Ranchers, & Rural Communities First

The National Farmers Union released today public comments it has made to the Trump Administration regarding re-negotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

In public comments submitted today to U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, Johnson highlighted the shortcomings of the United States’ current free trade paradigm, citing its contribution to the massive U.S. trade deficit and abandonment of U.S. sovereignty to the detriment of farming and rural communities. He urged Lighthizer to use the NAFTA renegotiation as an opportunity to create a new, fair trade framework for future trade deal negotiations.

“While exports and trade are essential to family farmers and ranchers, free trade agreements too often result in the corporate consolidation of power that ultimately undermines the economic opportunity for farmers,” Johnson wrote. “Renegotiation of NAFTA should prioritize family farmers and ranchers, not agribusiness, and the working people across our country.”

In his comments, Johnson stated that NFU has long been concerned with the nation’s massive and persistent trade deficit that U.S. trade negotiators have failed to address in past negotiations. In 2016, the U.S. accumulated a trade deficit of $502.3 billion, which represented a 3 percent drag on the U.S. gross domestic product (GDP).

“While agriculture typically maintains a trade surplus, which is beneficial, it represents less than 4 percent of the overall trade deficit,” he added. “Unfortunately, in recent years, even the agricultural trade surplus has declined. Free trade agreements have not resulted in a stable positive balance of trade for U.S. agriculture.”

Johnson noted that free trade agreements – which typically operate under the framework that NAFTA initiated – have benefited multinational corporations, often at the expense of farming and rural communities.

[Read more…]

Big news on the Farmers Union membership benefits front. National Farmers Union has negotiated a great deal with Sprint for your wireless phone service. Below you’ll find the flyers from Sprint that outline these great savings. You should know that Sprint has been improving its national wireless network over the past couple of years, so their coverage areas are bigger and better than ever. If you are currently with another provider and find that the Farmers Union Sprint program will provide savings for you and your family, Sprint is also offering up to $300 to take care of any costs associated with getting out of another contract early.

If you would like to download PDF versions of both of the documents below you can do that:

1. Sprint Flyer 1
2. Sprint Flyer 2

The Ohio Farmers Union has put on another program explaining Current Agricultural Use Valuations (CAUV) and why the formula for how our Ohio farmland is taxed needs to be reformed.

Issues like former prison farms to be dealt with in Senate

For the past several years farmers in Ohio have seen skyrocketing farmland property tax increases – that could be coming to an end with Ohio’s next state budget.

“We’ve had a couple days to review what the Ohio House is proposing and consider whether we can be fully supportive,” said Joe Logan, President of the Ohio Farmers Union.

“We’ve sought relief from the Ohio Dept. of Taxation for years with little relief, but finally our elected representatives are responding to the desperate cries of Ohio’s family farmers,” Logan said.

Ron Sylvester, OFU external relations director said Tuesday that the family farm organization is asking members to contact state representatives and express support for House passage of the state budget bill.

“We are concerned about the Administration’s and some legislators’ desire to work outside of normal open and competitive bidding processes to sell the thousands of acres formally farmed by the Ohio Dept. of Corrections,” Sylvester said.

“We do want the budget to pass the House this week and we’ll try to learn more about state leaders’ decision-making on these public lands in the Senate,” Sylvester said.

Ted Finnarn, OFU attorney and 41-year member of the Ohio Dept. of Taxation’s Agricultural Advisory Committee said what the House is proposing “will return the CAUV calculations to more reasonable values and allow conservation acres to be taxed at lower rates since these acres do not produce any crops.”

“The interest-capitalization rate used in the formula will be modified to lessen the influence of non-farm factors by increasing the holding period from five to 25 years,” said Finnarn. “These changes, resulting in lower CAUV values, will be phased in over two re-evaluation cycles (6years), so that they do not cause any dramatic impacts to local governments and schools.”

Ohio’s farmers have experienced farmland property tax increases reaching 300 percent in each of their past two to three triennial Current Agricultural Use Valuations. While the CAUV formula is complicated, one component, has been adversely affected by the U.S. Federal Reserve’s near zero interest rates – so-called quantitative easing – which lasted for years after the official end of the last recession.

CAUV was instituted so that agricultural land would be taxed at its “use” value and not it’s real estate development value. CAUV helps keeps farms in production and cuts down on unnecessary urban sprawl.