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Nebraska Farmers Union |
1305
Plum Street • Lincoln, NE 68502 Contact
John Hansen Office: 402-476-8815, Fax: 402-476-8859, Cell: 402-580-8815 |
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 24, 2005
NEBRASKA FARMERS UNION SAYS NATIONAL
FARM & TRADE POLICY NEEDS OVERHAUL, NOT FINE TUNING
Lincoln, NE. Nebraska Farmers Union state President John Hansen calls on Nebraska farmers to “start squealing” to federal officials including the House of Representatives, the Senate, and the Bush Administration about the collapse of domestic grain prices at the same time energy and fuel prices are skyrocketing. Hansen said “We all know that it is the squeaky wheel that gets the grease in our political system. We also know that public officials take silence on the part of voters to be either approval or acceptance. The last thing farmers can afford these days is for their public officials to think collapsing domestic grain prices and skyrocketing energy and fuel prices is either approved or accepted by farmers and ranchers.”
Hansen said, “Current national farm policy is a colossal failure. He pointed to his latest DTN cash grain market prices report that lists the price of corn in Newman Grove, his home town elevator closed at $1.66 per bushel on Wednesday, August 24, 2005. Hansen pointed out that he was born in 1951, and that in 1951 the average national price of corn was $1.66 per bushel. “We cannot pay 2005 expenses to run our farms and ranches and raise our families, and get paid in 1951 dollars and expect to stay in business. That is a sad, obvious, and tragic fact.”
Hansen continued, “The collapse of ag commodity prices document the economic foolishness of the current national farm and trade policies. No other major sector of our economy that is still in business is getting paid the same prices for their production or services as they were 54 years ago. $1.66 corn in 2005 is an indictment of the failure of our national farm and trade policy to focus on fair and appropriate prices for production agriculture. Farmers and ranchers take the most risk, do the most work, and unlike any other sector in the food economy, cannot either set the price of their own production, or pass their cost of production on to other the next player in the food economy. $1.66 corn in 2005 is somewhere between an insult and a disgrace.”
Hansen said his organization will be taking back 10 farmers and ranchers September 11-14 to Washington, D.C. to “squeal” as loud as they can to Washington, D.C. officials about the cost price squeeze farmers are in. Hansen said that while the Newman Grove corn bid was $1.66, the price of the diesel fuel used to pump irrigation water to thirsty crops was $2.06 per gallon. “Our farm bill needs a massive overhaul, not a minor tune up,” Hansen concluded.
Nebraska Farmers Union is the state’s second largest and oldest general farm organization representing over 4,500 farm and ranch families and the rural communities they live in. The mission of Nebraska Farmers Union is to improve the economic well being and quality of life of family farmers and ranchers, and the rural communities they live in.
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*Note-this is the pasted Nebraska Cash Grain reference page from the NEFU’s DTN. Thanks to DTN for the outstanding job they do in helping farmers keep up to speed on agricultural markets. |
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