12/22/05 WAWG will continue loan rate battle

Washington Ag December 22, 2005 The Washington Association of Wheat Growers appreciates the increase for soft white wheat loan rates for 2006 announced by the USDA this week but they are going to keep battling over the safety net issue. So says association director of issues Gretchen Borck. USDA boosted the soft white rate by 21 cents a bushel, trimmed hard red winter wheat by a penny and dropped the hard red spring wheat loan rate by about 20 cents. Bork says differences among wheat classes are still inequitable to soft white wheat. Borck: "The other thing about the 2006 loan rate is we had put in a request to make it retroactive back to 2005 and that was not even considered, nor have we received an answer on that. So we will continue to try and bring to USDA's attention the inequity that stands between soft white and other varieties." Borck emphasizes the association doesn't want to bring loan rates for other classes down to soft white, they want soft white taken up. A prime concern has been growers switching to hard red winter wheat to get a larger government loan even though there can be quality problems producing hard red winter in some areas. I'm Bob Hoff.