09/22/05 The Jones Act and fertilizer prices

09/22/05 The Jones Act and fertilizer prices

Farm and Ranch September 22, 2005 One idea for helping Pacific Northwest farmers get relief on fertilizer prices, which had been going up even before Hurricane Katrina, is to at least temporarily suspend the Jones Act. That's the federal law that requires shipping of U.S. products between states to be done on U.S. ships. Randy Suess, farmer and member of the Washington Wheat Commission, raised the subject at the commission's recent meeting. Suess: "Right now there is fertilizer available up in Alaska yet there are no U.S. bottoms available in the Northwest that can haul that fertilizer down to us. And it is my understanding that it is about half the price of the fertilizer rates we are paying right now. All that fertilizer in Alaska is now going overseas to China and Japan. So that would be a big concern of mine and it is something I visited with Representative McMorris about to see if we could get a Pacific Northwest exemption on that." Suess also points out that lack of U.S. bottoms prevents shipping of wheat from the Pacific Northwest to Hawaii. Meanwhile, the Agriculture Energy Alliance is urging Congress to continue to implement policy changes needed to diversify both the types and geographic locations of U.S. energy supplies, particularly natural gas used to make nitrogen fertilizer. That national coalition is comprised of 72 farm groups and agribusinesses including, the National Association of Wheat Growers, the Far West Agribusiness Association and the Oregon Wheat Growers League. The alliance members are calling for re-examination of moratoria on offshore development of natural gas fields. I'm Bob Hoff and that's the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.
Previous Report09/21/05 2006 wheat revenue insurance prices
Next Report09/23/05 Potatoes part of Wa governor`s trade trip