Ohio Farmers Union

Serving Family Farmers and Consumers Since 1934



United to Grow Family Agriculture Since 1934

Bill in Congress Would Destroy Renewable Fuel Standard – and Biofuels Industry – As We Know It

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WASHINGTON  – The following statement was released today following the introduction of a bill that would eliminate the corn-based ethanol mandate for biofuel production and restrict overall volume targets. The following statement should be attributed to Roger Johnson, president, National Farmers Union.

“The elimination of the corn-based ethanol mandate and blend cap will gut the nation’s biofuel production, strand existing investment in second generation biofuel production and hurt family farmers, ranchers and rural communities that have experienced much-needed reinvestment from this policy. This is not only a bad step for agriculture, but also is a major setback to the environment and our nation’s attempts to manage its carbon emissions. We urge Congress to reject this policy and continue to embrace the vision of a robust renewable fuels industry as a component of this nation’s overall energy portfolio.”

OFU 2015 Special Orders of Business

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ofulogofbfeatAdopted by delegates to the 81st Annual Ohio Farmers Union Convention

You’ll find below a link to our 2015 Special Orders of Business. Each year at the OFU Annual Convention, delegates debate a range of public policy topics they believe need attention from state or federal officials. Many of these are officially adopted as ‘special orders of business’ for OFU to pursue as an organization throughout the rest of the year. This year’s slate of special orders covers topics from taxes to money in politics to the water quality issue in the western basin of Lake Erie.

Click Here for 2015 OFU Special Orders of Business

Click Here for advisory white paper accepted by convention delegates regarding Current Agricultural Use Valuation in Ohio

Read the news release:

Ohio Farmers Union Outlines State, Federal Policy Priorities for 2015

Lake Erie, Pipelines, Taxes and Trade Among Concerns

 

COLUMBUS – Meeting in Columbus over the past weekend, Ohio’s second-largest general farm organization adopted twelve state and federal agricultural policy priorities for 2015.

Joe Logan, president of the Ohio Farmers Union, said delegates to OFU’s 81st Annual Convention focused primarily on two issues – water quality in the western basin of Lake Erie and farm real estate (CAUV) taxes.

“Most Ohioans don’t realize that many farmers’ real estate taxes on their farmland have spiked 100, 200 – even up to 300 percent in the past few years,” Logan said.

“Ohio’s program for establishing the tax value of farmland was a major issue for delegates and we approved a policy proposal that we believe would alleviate the shocking increases in tax rates farmers have experienced,” Logan said. “Farmers are being asked to shoulder an unfairly large portion of the total tax burden,” Logan added.

“This is an alarming trend that has been picking up steam in recent years.”

On Lake Erie, Logan said that the “overwhelming majority” of farmers are good stewards of the land and water. Many have adopted conservation, technological and nutrient management best practices to alleviate agricultural run-off into Lake Erie.

“The science tells us that agriculture remains a significant source of the phosphorous feeding harmful algal blooms in the lake. It appears that the legislature is choosing a more regulatory approach to nutrient management. We believe any regulations should be targeted toward those watersheds where problems are known to exist and should deal with all sources of nutrient overloads,” Logan said.

The twelve policy statements, or “special orders of business” for OFU may be found online.

They include statements on:

  1. Water Quality in Ohio
  2. Syngenta GMO Corn Litigation
  3. Current U.S. Trade Policy Concerns
  4. Private Property Rights and Private Sector-Owned Pipelines
  5. Farm Real Estate Taxes – CAUV
  6. Maintaining Guaranteed Landline Telephone Service
  7. Community Right to Know
  8. Seed Saving and Genetic Diversity
  9. A Move to Amend the U.S. Constitution
  10. Severance Taxes on Oil and Gas in Ohio
  11. Change Laws Regarding the Commodity Checkoffs
  12. Funding Claims Under the “Predator Law” in Ohio

81st OFU Convention Preview

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Here’s the press release sent statewide by the Ohio Farmers earlier today:

ofulogofbfeatWater Quality, Farmland Tax on Deck for Ohio Farmers Union 81st Convention

State Representatives Sheehy, Patterson will be honored on final day of meeting

COLUMBUS – Ohio’s educational and advocacy organization dedicated to family farming will tackle several hot button issues in Ohio during its 81st annual convention in Columbus this Friday.

“We expect 2015 to be an exceptionally important year for Ohio’s farmers in terms of state legislation and Kasich administration tax policies,” said Linda Borton, executive director of the Ohio Farmers Union.

“Farmers in Ohio are facing additional regulation with manure application and they are already feeling the effects of agricultural property taxes increasing by 50 to 300 percent in the past couple of years,” Borton said.

“Those two items – water quality and the broken CAUV formula – will be major points of emphasis for our policy committee,” Borton said.

CAUV, or Current Agricultural Use Valuation, is a state tax formula instituted in the 1970s to help protect Ohio farmland by lowering the property tax bills for farmland. The program is responsible for keeping much of Ohio’s agricultural lands in production as the lower property tax rates do not skew the farmers’ cost of production, especially in areas where rural land is threatened by urban sprawl and suburban development.

Due to changes in commodity markets and the effects of a changing larger economy, over the past two to three years, the formula used by the Ohio Dept. of Taxation for determining a farmer’s CAUV tax value has begun to wildly fluctuate. In many cases across the state, family farmers have seen their farmland property taxes rise by 300 percent or more in a single year.

Borton said that on the water quality front, OFU is expected to adopt policy for 2015 urging the Ohio General Assembly to take a “science-based and targeted” approach to new regulation. During the debate over H.B. 490 in 2014, OFU President Joe Logan and other members asked the Ohio House to limit tighter regulatory schemes to distressed watershed areas such as the Maumee River Basin in northwest Ohio.

“No one wants to see the algae problems we’ve had in Lake Erie and in other waterways,” Borton said.

“The key is for regulation to be fair, fact-based and targeted,” Borton added.

[Read more…]

NFU releases new data showing Canadian claims regarding Country of Origin Labeling bogus

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from the National Farmers Union

nfulogo-postContrary to arguments made by America’s trade competitors to the World Trade Organization (WTO), an economic downturn that sapped consumer demand — not Country-of-Origin Labeling (COOL) — caused decreased demand for cattle imports into to the U.S., according to a new study released last week.

“COOL did not cause the declines in livestock exports to the United States, which largely coincided with a substantial global economic downturn that sapped demand for more expensive meat products,” notes the study, authored by C. Robert Taylor, Ph.D., an Auburn University Alfa Eminent Scholar and Professor.

Canada and Mexico challenged COOL provisions related to muscle cuts of beef at the WTO in 2008, alleging the widely popular labeling law was a trade barrier that compromised their export opportunities and market access to the United States for live cattle and hogs. The cost of implementing COOL, they argued, discouraged U.S. meatpacking and processing companies from purchasing livestock of non-U.S. origin and, as a result, reduced the prices of these livestock exports.

But after close examination of more robust data sources to assess the impact of COOL on market access, the study found:

  • COOL has not had a significant negative effect on the price paid for imported slaughter cattle relative to comparable domestic cattle. In fact, the fed cattle price basis declined after the law went into effect. “The price basis is lower in the six years since implementation of COOL than it was the preceding four years,” the study notes;
  • COOL did not negatively impact imports of slaughter cattle. “Qualitative and econometric analysis of Mandatory Price Reporting (MPR) and monthly trade and price data cast considerable doubt on assertions that COOL negatively affected imports of slaughter cattle,” says the study. Failure to recognize the effects of imported and domestic captive supplies of slaughter cattle and beef demand uncertainty, along with other factors, played a larger role in reduced import demand than acknowledged in previous studies.
  • COOL did not significantly affect imports of feeder cattle. “USDA monthly data on imports of 400-700 lb. cattle did not show COOL having a significant negative effect of imports of feeder cattle from either Canada or Mexico relative to placements in U.S. feedlots,” the study points out.

[Read more…]

Ohioans Landlines Safe for Now, Ag Bill Stalls in Ohio Senate

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There was good and there was bad in what ended up as Substitute H.B. 490, but after eight months in the Ohio General Assembly, the bill is dead.

The bill was an omnibus measure originally a part of Ohio Gov. John Kasich’s Mid Biennium Review. It contained several hundred pages dealing with matters under the jurisdiction of both the Ohio Departments of Agriculture and Natural Resources. The bill included a prohibition on spreading manure on frozen, snow-covered or saturated ground in the western basin of Lake Erie, movement of the Ag Pollution Abatement Program from ODNR to ODAg and some tightening of regulation on the handling wastewater from fracking operations.

It also included, as an unexpected – some would say unwanted – gift from outgoing House Speaker William Batchelder a provision which would have allowed telecommunications companies in Ohio to pull the plug on landline phone service offerings for customers. The Ohio Farmers Union has been urging rural residents to call their state senators to demand that provision be taken out.

Senate President Keith Faber said today that HB 490 had become too weighed down with amendments. He said that while the House had eight months to work with the bill, the Senate has had only a week and could not do it justice in lame duck.

For now, it’s all over for HB 490 – but there’s always next year for many of the bill’s original provisions.

NFU Blasts Anti-Family Farmer Language Snuck Into Federal Appropriations Bill

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nfunr2National Farmers Union President Roger Johnson and United States Cattlemen’s Association (USCA) President Danni Beer today sent a letter to the House and Senate leaders strongly objecting to three anti-family farmer and rancher provisions slipped into the 2015 Appropriations Act in the dark of the night, without a single congressional hearing or an ounce of public discussion.

“NFU and USCA are very concerned that the report language included on Country-of-Origin Labeling (COOL) could be used as an opportunity to stop the appeals process at the World Trade Organization or re-open the legislation that mandated COOL, both of which are unacceptable,” notes the letter. “Congress should not intervene in the WTO process.”

Formally known as Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act, 2015, the bills are being considered before both the House and the Senate this week. The joint letter points out that also hid inside the Act is a provision that orders the Secretary of Agriculture to refrain from implementing a reformed beef checkoff program, with the irony that the closing period on public comments for the beef checkoff is today.

“National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) is so fearful of losing its $40 million-plus revenue stream through the beef checkoff that it has lobbied for this language to be included in the report rather than allowing producers the ability to have their comments recognized and addressed through the commenting process. NCBA has lobbied Congress on a mandatory producer checkoff program that they control,” notes the letter.

Also contained in the proposed Act is a legislative provision that prohibits the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyard Administration (GIPSA) from implementing regulations on the livestock and poultry industry that would address an array of fraudulent, deceptive, anti-competitive and retaliatory practices.

The letter points out that gutting the GIPSA law “would deny farmers protection from retaliation when they use their first amendment rights to speak with congressional representatives, deny them the right to a jury trial, and deny them the right to request information on how their pay is calculated. This provision is unconscionable.  Its inclusion in a funding bill is unacceptable to NFU’s and USCA’s members.”

“We strongly object to the use of the appropriations process as a mechanism to limit the secretary’s authority to uphold the COOL law, to respond to the dire need for reform of the beef checkoff, and to address anti-competitive market concerns.”

Read the letters in their entirety here.

NFU’s Comments to USDA on Beef Checkoff Reform

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nfunr2National Farmers Union President Roger Johnson submitted comments to the U.S. Department of Agriculture today urging major and immediate changes to the current beef checkoff program including a clear separation between any organization receiving checkoff funds and those that lobby.

“NFU believes a very clear separation must exist between all taxpayer-supported, checkoff-funded organizations and related commodity organizations which advocate and lobby for policy positions. In the case of the beef checkoff, such a line of separation does not exist,” said Johnson.

Johnson suggests that there should be a new beef checkoff program that, like every other checkoff program, is devoted to research and market development, but divorced from all political, policy advocating organizations. “Every other commodity checkoff program has separated the policy organization from the non-political, promotional entity. Under this popular model, checkoff dollars are used exclusively for research, market promotion and product improvement.”

Johnson points out that the beef checkoff is the only program that has failed to embrace this new paradigm, which has caused an enormous rift in the industry. “Ranchers dislike that their checkoff dollars are being controlled by a lobbying organization that is fighting against the very policies many of these ranchers support. All other commodity checkoff programs have gone to this model, and it is time for beef to follow suit,” he said.

Johnson notes that the current beef checkoff is controlled by National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA), an organization that has “aggressively lobbied against a number of very important producer and consumer programs, frequently placing themselves in direct opposition to the very producers they purport to represent.”

Johnson says a long list of such examples abound, including NCBA’s aggressive opposition to Country-of-Origin Labeling (COOL) in court, at the World Trade Organization and in Congress; NCBA’s opposition to the Renewable Fuel Standard; and NCBA’s opposition to the 2014 Farm Bill, including provisions written specifically to aid livestock producers suffering from disastrous, weather-related livestock losses. “Such actions undermine producer confidence in the check-off program because cattle producers know that NCBA also controls the check-off program, which is required to operate in a strictly non-political, independent fashion,” he said.

[Read more…]

Annual OFU Kids Poster Contest

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Roger and Sandra Wise teamed up last year to announce award winners in the 2014 Poster Contest.

Roger and Sandra Wise teamed up last year to announce award winners in the 2014 Poster Contest.

Just a reminder that entries for the annual OFU Poster Contest for kids grades 1-6 is December 31, 2014.

OFU will once again award winners at our Annual Convention in January. Contact your county Farmers Union chapter or Linda Borton at 800-321-3671 for poster blanks. The theme this year is Renwable Sources of Energy (such as wind or solar).

H.B. 490 Update

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OFU leaders and other CAUV stakeholders meet with State Rep. John Patterson and Vice Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee Gary Scherer in December.

OFU leaders and other CAUV stakeholders meet with State Rep. John Patterson and Vice Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee Gary Scherer in December.

This past week OFU President Joe Logan, Executive Director Linda Borton and myself spent Wednesday at the Statehouse talking to legislators and the Senate Agriculture Committee about H.B. 490. Additionally, we delivered written testimony to Senate Ag from Ashtabula/Lake/Geauga Farmers Union President Mardy Townsend on 490.

OFU continues to urge members to contact their state legislators regarding the insertion of anti-consumer telecommunications language by the House Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee. The language would allow telephone service providers to abandon their landline (copper wire) service to Ohio residents. OFU opposes this measure due to the fact that many rural residents would not have a viable option from the standpoints of reliability and cost in place of their traditional landline telephone service. The language put into the bill does contain any guarantees regarding consumers.

As for the rest of this bill – and you can get background here – since the election, House Republicans watered down some of the regulatory measures regarding horizontal well drillers and frack water disposal, but on the whole there is still some progress in terms of greater scrutiny of frack water disposal and stiffer penalties for willful polluters. On the ag front, a ban on application of fertilizers (and manure) on frozen, snow covered or saturated ground was put in the bill in the House. This prohibition applies only to the western basin of Lake Erie.

CAUV Note

OFU leaders also met with State Rep. John Patterson and Vice Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee Gary Scherer on the problems with the CAUV or Current Agricultural Use Value, property tax system. State legislators are getting plenty of calls regarding the wild upward fluctuations in CAUV values around the state. Patterson created a task force in northeast Ohio to document the problem and propose remedies for the Kasich Administration and lawmakers. While it appears no fix will be available for 2014, legislators and others we spoke to this past week believe there will be CAUV reforms in early 2015.

NATIONAL FARMERS UNION

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Ohio Farmers Union
P.O. Box 363
1011 N. Defiance Street
Ottawa, Ohio 45875
Phone: (419) 523-5300
Toll Free: (800) 321-3671