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.

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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.

CAUV Increases of 300 to 600 Percent Need to be Addressed Say Ohio Farmers

COLUMBUS – Representatives from Ohio farm organizations and forest and woodland owners will be discussing the state’s broken farmland property tax system in Plain City on Tuesday, April 11.

Organized by Ted Finnarn, attorney for the Ohio Farmers Union, this public meeting is co-sponsored by OFU and the Ohio Farm Bureau along with Mayer Law, LTD of Waynesville, Rural King, Seed Consultants, Crop Production Services, EBY Trailers, Finnarn Ag Law, ASE Feed & Supply Store and the Ohio Farmers Union Family Farm Center.

Finnarn is a decades-long member of the CAUV Advisory Committee to the Ohio Dept. of Taxation. He has worked behind the scenes in Columbus since at least 2011 when CAUV (Current Agricultural Use Valuation) tri-annual re-valuations at the county level began to skyrocket 100 to 300 percent. Since then, many Ohio counties have been through two cycles of their CAUV values going up triple digits each cycle. In some cases, farmers’ property tax bills have grown 600 percent or more over the past six to eight years.

For the past three years, Finnarn, has worked across the state putting together public meetings on the issue. In Plain City, he is expected to give his presentation on CAUV and why we have it and why it worked from the 1970s to just recently. He will explain the modest changes in the state formula that need to occur and inform farmers and rural landowners what they need to do to help push legislation pending in Columbus that would fix CAUV.

Also presenting will be Leah Curtis of the Ohio Farm Bureau Federation and Paul Mechling representing Ohio forest and woodland owners. Finnarn said there will also be farmland conservation and woodland preservation experts available to farmers to answer questions regarding their land.

Dessert will be provided compliments of the sponsors.

This meeting is targeted at Champaign, Delaware, Franklin, Logan, Madison and Union Counties, but anyone is invited.

Details:

What: CAUV Public Meeting

When: Tuesday, April 11, 2 p.m.

Where: Der Dutchman, 445 S. Jefferson, Route 42, Plain City, Ohio 43064
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