The Big Sandy Mountaineer -

According to Matt Perdue, Government Relations Representative at National Farmers Union in Washington DC, it's important to know your facts and act accordingly. He was introduced as "He is up on the hill every day!" And when he started his presentation he said, "And it is very important you stay!" Commodity Prices have dropped 49% from 2013. In just five years the loss is $65.7 billion. The medium farm income is projected to be $1,691 less in 2018.

He mentioned farms bill struggle to pass during the year it is supposed to passed in and so it is good news this one did. "This farm bill is a status quo farm bill with Agriculture Risk Coverage (ARC) & Price Loss Coverage (PLC) to stay intact.

Conservation programs will mostly stay intact as well. According to the NRCS/USDA web site "The Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) helps agricultural producers confront those challenges – all while conserving natural resources like soil, water and air. This voluntary conservation programs helps producers make conservation work for them. Together, NRCS and producers invest in solutions that conserve natural resources for the future while also improving agricultural operations."

"Through EQIP, NRCS provides agricultural producers with financial resources and one-on-one help to plan and implement improvements, or what NRCS calls conservation practices. Using these practices can lead to cleaner water and air, healthier soil and better wildlife habitat, all while improving agricultural operations. Through EQIP, you can voluntarily implement conservation practices, and NRCS co-invests in these practices with you." He believes the EQIP program will grow in use.

The current farm bill found funding to finance 39 Orphan programs. You can review these orphan programs on farmbillaw.org. Orphan program are programs that don't have ongoing funding and stand-alone unless current funding can be found. This farm bill found funding for the orphan programs along with financial support for new programs to help with the mental depression and high percentage of suicide attempts of rural communities. In order to fund these, they had to find saving. They found it by taking away the "Cushion for Credit" for rural electrics. I will be following up this article with a discussion with Hill County Electric

In case anyone is interested the new "Nafta" or the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA will impact only 1% of the wheat grown in Montana.

Farmers continue to only get 14% of every dollar spent on food.

Matt Perdu continued by mentioning, "There are laws on the books to eliminate mergers but it isn't being enforced. The bottom line is it is more important for consumers food costs to remain lower." Large mergers in the beef industry means that 85% of all beef is controlled by those mergers, pork 74%, poultry 54%, corn seeds 89%, soybean seeds70%, and potash is 100% controlled by merged companies.

Concerning the volunteered beef food label. As long as the beef passes through the United States it can have "Product of USA" label on the package of meat. Tyson and Cargill are investing in Animal Cell Culture Technology –fake meat. I reported last week that you could purchase this fake meat, but nowhere in Montana. A steak about the size of a deck of cards made in a cultured lab will cost about $50.

"Most important is we need to find ways for farmers and ranchers to make better profit and how do you get to the next generation." He encouraged everyone in attendance to attend every event when Montana's senators and representatives are present.