12/30/2024 Enough!

Part 1 of 2
While their hearts may be in the right place… farm, biofuel, and commodity groups have had a limited success in bringing home key favorable farm and biofuel policy results for those that represent us from DC. We do not have, in my opinion, strong Ag sector advocates and leaders in part because they have a disunified grass-roots following. There is no united front as these groups evolve into fiefdoms having developed their own Echo chambers. Farm and biofuel groups do not have the financial resources of opponents such as Big Oil or Environmental groups. When I watch John Oliver trash producing corn and ethanol or RFK trash carbon pipelines in very well-done YouTube presentations, I do not see effective counterpoint responses that receive equal exposure to the general public. Historically, commodity groups seek their measure in how much cash aid they can bring home to members from Washington DC and by what they get included in the farm bill. That worked better before government aid went out of style and they stopped writing new farm bills. Everybody has been going to Washington to get something and all become special interests in the process. The well of cash there to draw from has gone empty so the fight to get a remaining share of the spoils has intensified. It is not spoils that we need, it is better market access. The willingness of Congress to check the limits of the federal credit card looking to use government money to bail everyone out of new adversity is no longer going to occur as freely as it once did. To Elon Musk government aid is pork. He is the man of the moment for as long as it lasts. The score in the latest engagement with Congress brought us yet another extension of the old farm bill, $10 bln in direct payments but most important they let year-around nationwide E-15 get away again.