05/25/06 WAWG says extend farm bill

Farm and Ranch May 25, 2006 At a board meeting earlier this month the Washington Association of Wheat Growers voted to support an extension of the 2002 Farm Bill. Many commodity and farm groups around the country have called for an extension of the existing farm law until after it's known what happens, or doesn't happen, in the Doha Round of world trade talks. But Washington Wheat Growers President Jerry Snyder says that wasn't the reason for his board's action. He says one driving force for the decision was the interest so many other groups have in a new farm bill. Snyder: "Over a hundred I know, different groups gonna be involved from organic growers, not just crop growers, but you know organic, livestock and so on and so forth that want to be involved that have never been involved before. Because when you are talking about the current farm bill you are talking about cotton, rice, soybeans, corn and wheat and the other commodities haven't had many things in there. So I expect tree fruit. I expect apples to be in there. I expect marketing programs to be different than we have seen in the past. I expect there to be "green" payments which we haven't had before. 32 This is an election year too and Snyder says; Snyder: "Anything done in an election year should probably not be looked at as being extremely positive for farmers and ranchers. So we would support the extending of that bill until we can get our act together and sit down and have some good discussions." I'm Bob Hoff and that's the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.