Agricultural policy summit July 6-8

Plans are underway for an agricultural policy summit this summer in Ames. The current federal farm program legislation, adopted in 2002, will expire in 2007. The conference, which will be at ISU's Scheman Building, is titled "New Directions in Federal Farm Policy: Issues for the 2007 Farm Bill."

Leopold Center associate director Mike Duffy, who also leads the Center's Policy Initiative, is a member of the summit planning committee, headed by Paul Lasley, chair of the ISU Department of Sociology.

Target audiences for event will be Iowa farmers, state and national farm policy leaders, Iowa's congressional delegation and leaders from Iowa's farm and commodity organizations and rural groups. The summit is designed to gather input on what Iowans believe should be included in the next farm bill.

Goals of the summit are to:

• review the past 20 years of evidence from the scientific community on the costs and benefits of federal agricultural policy,

• assess the health and status of Iowa's agriculture,

• solicit input from agriculture leaders and producers on directions for the 2007 Farm Bill, and

• initiate a national discussion on farm legislation.

In addition to several overview sessions, breakout sessions are planned for discussion of specific trends and issues. Topics include crops, livestock, financing and land values, structure of agriculture, tax policy, crop insurance and risk, marketing and transportation, cooperatives and value-added agriculture, environment, conservation, international trade and competition, rural economic development, agricultural research initiatives and faith and community concerns.

Check the Leopold Center events calendar for details as conference plans are finalized.

New generation cooperatives

Cooperatives that had their heyday in the early 20th century are outmoded in today's marketplace, which has global supplies, lots of competition and fragmented demand… Rather than being a seller's agent that works for the farmer, new coops need to be a buyer's agent who responds to the needs of the buyers. -- Peter Goldsmith

Peter Goldsmith, agricultural and consumer economist, University of Illinois-Urbana/Champaign, presented seminars in February for the Leopold Center, the ISU Graduate Program in Sustainable Agriculture and the Value Chain Partnerships for a Sustainable Agriculture (VCPSA) program. He specializes in researching ways that producers can work together to sell to buyers in large markets.

The presentation, "The Role of Cooperatives in the Post-Modern Food System: Working with Buyers," is available as a PDF on the VCPSA web site: http://www.valuechains.org.
 

Back to Spring 2005 Leopold Letter

Published by the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture
Ames, Iowa 50011, (515) 294-3711
URL: www.leopold.iastate.edu