*Download Convention Registration Here*

We are just weeks away from the Ohio Farmers Union 83^rd Annual State Convention!

Our convention will be held in Columbus at the Airport Marriott. The convention begins at 1 p.m., Friday, January 27 and will conclude with a luncheon on Saturday, January 28.

While we are still finalizing the roster of presenters, we will be hearing from Director of the Ohio Dept. of Agriculture David Daniels and Fred Yoder of President-elect Donald J. Trump’s Agricultural Advisory Board. Stay tuned because we are adding to the program.

Just as importantly, we will of course be setting OFU’s policy priorities for 2017 as well as holding the annual by-laws committee hearing and holding our annual OFU Farm-PAC event on Friday evening before the banquet.

The Airport Marriott is located at 1375 N. Cassady Ave. in Columbus.  A block of rooms are being reserved for OFU until January 10, 2017. Rooms this year are $132.72 per night and reservations may be made by calling 1-800-491-5717 – mention Ohio Farmers Union when you call to reserve your room.

All OFU members are welcome and encouraged to attend the convention. To qualify for voting privileges, convention delegates must be registered by 4 p.m. on Friday, January 27.

Convention registration is now open and costs $75 per attendee. The Friday banquet and Saturday luncheon are included in your cost of registration. Download the convention registration form here.

Checks should be made payable to Ohio Farmers Union and completed registration forms should be sent to: Ohio Farmers Union, P.O. Box 363, Ottawa, Ohio 45875.

Please contact the OFU state office at 800-321-3671 with any questions. We look forward to seeing you at the convention!

Consumers’ holiday food costs have declined, but farmers still receive less than 20 percent of the food dollar, according to the annual Thanksgiving edition of the National Farmers Union (NFU) Farmer’s Share publication. The popular Thanksgiving Farmer’s Share compares the retail food price of traditional holiday dinner items to the amount the farmer receives for each item.

“It’s important to understand the difference between the price consumers pay for food at the grocery store or restaurant and the commodity prices farmers are paid for their products. Just recently food costs started to drop, but farm and ranch families have been plagued by low commodity prices for nearly three years,” said Roger Johnson, president of NFU. “Comparatively, the costs associated with the rest of the supply chain have a more pronounced effect on consumers’ food prices.”

On average, farmers receive 17.4 cents of every food dollar consumers spend, while more than 80 percent of food costs cover marketing, processing, wholesaling, distribution and retailing. For the 15 items NFU tracks for the Thanksgiving version, farmers received 19.4 cents of the retail food dollar.

Turkey growers, who raise the staple Thanksgiving dish, receive about 89 cents per pound retailing at $1.59. Wheat farmers averaged a meager 4 cents on 12 dinner rolls that retail for $3.29. And dairy producers received only $1.44 for the $4.49 gallon of fat free milk.

Thanksgiving presents an opportunity to raise awareness about food production, including misconceptions about food costs, Johnson explained. “Farmers and ranchers play the most valuable role in actually producing the food that is served at holiday dinners, yet they make just pennies on the dollar for their products.”

The Farmers’ Share is based on calculations derived from the monthly Agriculture Prices report produced by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service, and compared to price points of common grocery food items at Safeway supermarket.

The Thanksgiving Farmers’ Share can be viewed and downloaded here.

from the National Farmers Union

Recognizing the importance of fostering conservation and sustainability practices, National Farmers Union (NFU) is pleased by yesterday’s introduction of bipartisan legislation that would ease burdensome requirements for landowners participating in voluntary U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) conservation programs.

 The “Improving Access to Farm Conservation Act of 2016” (S.3288) was introduced by Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and John Boozman (R-Ark.).

 “Improving conservation practices in agriculture production benefits family farmers, ranchers and rural communities. USDA conservation programs encourage producers to implement sustainable practices in their operations, and we applaud any effort to incentivize taking part in these programs by removing restrictive regulatory barriers that might discourage participation,” said NFU President Roger Johnson.

 Similar to the bill’s counterpart introduced earlier this year in the U.S. House of Representatives, S.3288 would exempt recipients of USDA conservation assistance from needing to register with the System for Award Management (SAM) and obtain a Data Universal Numbering System (DUNS) number – a requirement in order to receive financial assistance from federal agencies.

 The legislation will help “remove government red tape that is standing between small and beginning farmers and the conservation programs that will help protect their farmland and the environments within their communities,” Sen. Klobuchar explained in a statementyesterday.

 “NFU looks forward to working with both the Senate and House to move this legislation forward,” Johnson concluded.

This post originally appeared on the National Farmers Union blog and was written by Zack Clark, NFU Govt. Relations Representative.

Last week, two major reports were released that further cemented what we already know – oversupply in the marketplace is driving commodity prices further and further downward, and after three years of declining prices, real estate values and credit conditions are beginning to deteriorate.

The glut of commodities highlighted by last week’s World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates Report (WASDE), which forecasted another increase in corn, soy, wheat, sorghum, barley, and oats, has the potential to continue prolonged periods of depressed prices. Continued overproduction has been failing to match actual demand, driving up supplies and straining storage capacity. Across the countryside, grain is being stored on the ground.

Equally alarming is the release of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City’s second quarter assessment of agricultural credit conditions. Soon after the release of the bank’s first quarter report, NFU President Roger Johnson testified to Congress about the deteriorating credit conditions. As the second quarter report highlights, the situation continues to decline. It found that farm income has continued to fall, there is increased demand for loan renewals and short-term operating loans, and there are declines in repayment rates and falling farmland values.

Over the past year, National Farmers Union (NFU) has ramped up efforts to highlight the declines in the countryside to members of Congress in Washington, D.C. NFU has also long advocated for a strong safety net that reacts to the exact situation we find ourselves in today. Members of Congress, who are currently back home for the August congressional recess, need to hear about these problems from their constituents.

Congress will only be in session for four weeks between now and the election. Yet during September, while they are in Washington, they will need to pass legislation to fund the government. Farmers Union members need to let their congressional delegations know that these spending packages need to contain assistance to combat the deteriorating agricultural economy. Congress should:

~ Increase funding for the USDA’s farm loan programs,
~ Provide emergency assistance for producers in need, and
~ Work with the USDA to provide short-term remedies for low commodity prices.

In addition, Congress needs to immediately begin working on the next Farm Bill to provide a stronger safety net that protects family farmers and ranchers from very low prices. This safety net needs to be written to focus on the needs of our nation’s producers during tough times, not written to fit a certain price tag.

The NFU annual legislative fly-in will provide opportunities for NFU members to come to the nation’s capital to press members of Congress on these important issues and advocate on behalf of the nation’s family farmers and ranchers. A heavy focus of our members’ meetings with their representatives will be the depressed farm economy, and there are concrete asks that NFU is putting forward to help aid family farmers and ranchers through these tough times. We must not miss any opportunities to highlight the growing crisis in the rural economy to members of Congress, especially when its going on in their backyard.

The National Farmers Union Board of Directors passed two policy resolutions in July regarding the worsening farm economy and continuing consolidation in the crop inputs and agriculture chemicals industries.

Ohio Farmers Union President Joe Logan, an NFU board member, attended the meeting in Healdsburg, California and voted in favor of both resolutions.

“As a farmer-led organization, we proudly advocate for the issues important to our nearly 200,000 family farm and ranch members. The farm economy and consolidation in agriculture are two timely industry topics, and these board-passed resolutions will define precise calls to action for our organization,” said NFU President Roger Johnson.

NFU has been a vocal advocate in support of a strong safety net to aid farmers as they continue to face low commodity prices and high input costs. The farm economy resolution calls for “corrective action and evaluation of price support levels” so that farm programs can serve to minimize the farm income drop.

“Research by NFU and others is showing that farm income this year is expected to be its lowest since 2002. NFU is trying mightily to sound the alarm with policy makers that family farms and rural economies are moving in the wrong direction in the greater economy,” Logan said.

The Congressional Research Service published a 2016 farm income outlook in February. It concluded in part:

• U.S. net farm income is forecast at $54.8 billion in 2016, a drop of nearly $2 billion (-3%) from 2015’s level. This represents the lowest net farm income forecast since 2002 in both nominal and inflation-adjusted dollars.
• Measured in cash terms, net cash income in 2016 is also projected lower at $90.9 billion, down $2.3 billion (-2%) from the previous year.
• Cattle prices have also turned downward from their record highs in 2014, while dairy, poultry, and hog prices have turned sharply lower. Prices for all four protein sources are projected lower in 2016.
• Government payments in 2016 are projected up sharply (31%) to $13.9 billion, the highest level since 2006. Lower commodity prices are expected to trigger payments of over $9 billion under the price-contingent PLC and ARC programs, up sharply from the $5 billion in payments under these same two programs in 2015.
• Global demand for U.S. agricultural product exports is expected to turn downward (-6%) in 2016, for a second year of decline after setting a record of $152.3 billion in 2014.

NFU is also concerned for dairy farmers. The resolution notes that milk prices are in the $12-$14 per cwt. range, a 50% drop from 2014 levels and, the average cost of production is above $17 per cwt.

The farm income resolutions calls for awareness among farmers and public officials that things are turning and that, farm programs should minimize the farm income drop and policy makers need to evaluate price support levels and take corrective actions to ensure “farm programs serve their purpose to stabilize farm income in low commodity price circles.”

Additionally, the board passed a resolution in support of more robust enforcement of antitrust laws as the agriculture inputs sector faces growing consolidation. NFU has strongly opposed further consolidation in agriculture due to the damaging effects of reduced competition on the economic viability of farmers and ranchers.

“We’ve been talking in Ohio and Washington, D.C. for many years about successive waves of mergers in agribusiness. While working farmers and consumers are always told these big businesses getting bigger will lead to so-called efficiencies, farmers continue to pay more for inputs every season and their choices in the marketplace simply decline,” Logan said.

“Family farmers and ranchers should call on their elected officials at the local, state and national levels to educate them about the economic problems facing our nation’s family farmers and ranchers,” explained Johnson, who testified on the state of the farm economy before a panel of the House Agriculture Subcommittee on General Farm Commodities and Risk Management earlier this year.

Both resolutions may be read in their entirety at ohfarmersunion.org – search “2016 NFU Board” on the homepage.