Farmers wary amid rising corn prices, rising costs

Farmers expect 2008 to be defined by record crop prices, but also unprecedented risk as costs soar for chemical fertilizer and other items used in growing commodities such as corn.

"When I talk to farmers, they are both elated and scared at the same time, and I think they have rights to both emotions," Ohio State University professor Carl Zulauf told nearly 250 people on Saturday, March 1, at Edison Community College.

The rise in crop prices coincides with rising demand, defying conventional wisdom among economists, he said.

Zulauf has researched basing farm subsidies on the rise and fall in crop prices instead of a predetermined target price prescribed in past farm bills; his method has figured into the crafting of the federal farm bill, which is currently at a stalemate.

Bob Peterson, president of the Ohio Farm Bureau Federation, exhorted the crowd to urge Congress to approve the new farm bill this month, lest it languish until after the fall elections.

But Cal Dooley, president and chief executive of the Grocery Manufacturers Association, said the farm bill as written is too generous to farmers, would "maintain policies of the past that are increasingly indefensible," and risks undermining the credibility of the agriculture industry.

Even as U.S. agriculture exports are expected to pass $100 billion this year, the nation's domestic programs for farmers, found to be distorting trade, could jeopardize access to some overseas markets, he said.

Zulauf said the farm bill in its current form does reflect some new thinking in prioritizing organic, socially disadvantaged and start-up farmers.