By Doug Rich

Agriculture needs to speak with one voice.

With budget cuts to agricultural programs seemingly always on the horizon it becomes increasingly important for the agricultural industry to speak with one voice. However, finding an issue that we can all agree on is not as easy as it sounds.

Cattlemen seemed to have had it moving in the right direction until the Canadian border issue came along and put two groups of cattlemen in opposite corners of this fight. Bickering between these two groups not only has delayed the opening of the border with Canada but it has spilled over into negotiations to open export markets for U.S. beef to Japan. The cow that stole Christmas just keeps on giving and giving.

The issue of payment limitations threatens to tear apart the coalition of farm groups that supported the 2002 farm bill. Changing payment limitations as they are stated in the 2002 farm bill will definitely break the coalition between cotton and rice and corn and soybeans.

Maybe it is time to stop focusing on single issues and to start looking instead for a single theme that everyone can get behind. Something that would not only bring agricultural groups together under the same flag, but garner support from groups outside agriculture, also.

Energy, health, and the environment are three areas that everyone is concerned about today and agriculture has at least partial solutions for all three. There is no single answer that can solve the myriad of problems associated with these three issues but agriculture can be part of the solution on a national basis. For example, rising gas prices have Congress thinking seriously about a new energy bill and expanded use of renewable fuels like ethanol. Pharmaceutical crops offer enhanced health benefits in addition to their nutritional value. Twenty companies worldwide are developing plants for the production of pharmaceutical or industrial proteins using rice, white, corn, and other plants. The environment and farmers' bottom lines will benefit from carbon sequestration. Carbon sequestration is a method for caturing and isolating gases that otherwise might contribute to global climate change. Grain farmers are primed and ready to provide this country with renewable fuels, healthier crops, and improved environmental practices.

Instead of looking for ag-related issues that all groups can support why not promote all of agriculture as a national asset? Viewing agriculture as a "national asset essential to the future of this country" has a much better ring to it than agriculture as a "drain on the federal budget" and agriculture as an "industry in decline." Public support for a national asset would put budget debates in an entirely new arena. Agriculture could be viewed by policy makers as a cohesive unit rather than a fragmented industry with each little group jealously fighting to protect their own turf.

Agriculture is a diverse industry made up of independent men and women from different regions of the country producing a variety of products each with its own unique needs. That is never going to change but we can change how we see ourselves as an industry and how others see us.

Agriculture as a national asset can speak with one voice.

Doug Rich is a senior field editor in Lawrence, Kan., and can be reached by phone at 785-749-5304, or by e-mail at Richhpj@aol.com.

Date: 4/20/05