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Speaker
of the House John Boehner
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22nd
Annual Farm Forum held
Tough fracturing regs; improvements through bioengineering
By Lyn Bliss, Associate Editor
“One thing I learned in my time at the USDA, about regulations, is if
it walks, crawls, slides or slithers; if it moos, clucks, bleats or
neighs; or if you can sniff it, eat it, smell it, or smoke it, the USDA
probably regulates it.
“The agriculture arena has improved around this country, we’ve gotten
better with food and fiber, fabric and fuel production. We’re becoming
more productive, and safer, and cleaner, and more global with our
efforts. Today we produce enough food to feed everyone in the world.
World agriculture produces 17% more calories per person, per day than
it did thirty years ago – despite a 70% increase in population. That’s
enough to provide everyone in the world with about 3,000 calories to
eat every day.
“It’s not always in the right place and it’s not always in the right
areas, but we are productive enough to do the job.” summed up Ed
Shafer, featured speaker at the 22nd annual Farm Forum at the Piqua
Campus of Edison Community College.
The Farm Forum is sponsored by Speaker of the U.S. House of
Representatives and Congressman from Ohio’s 8th District John Boehner.
Director of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources Jim Zehringer
served as Moderator. Zehringer was previously Director of the Ohio
Department of Agriculture and State Representative.
Those who were members of the panel, assembled to address International
Trade, Food Security and Biotechnology were Under Secretary for Farm
and Foreign Agricultural Services in the United States Department of
Agriculture Michael T. Scuse, Senior Vice-president for Industrial
Products and Government Relations at Ag Processing, Inc., AGP John
Campbell, Vice President of Biotech Affairs and Regulatory for Pioneer
(Dupont) Dr. Jerry Flint, and William (Bill) Hoffman a member of the
Trade Policy and Biotechnology Action Team for the National Corn
Growers Association.
Bio-engineering was discussed and identified as a major part of the
driving force behind increases in agricultural productivity. Much was
said about how bioengineering is used to make our beer taste better and
our cleaning products do a better job……..but, when our crops are
improved by bio-engineering, there are protests. The major challenge
seems to be in educating the public that this is the same process that
is used in other areas of their lives to increase qualities they value
in products they use daily.
Speaker Boehner held a press conference at which media from around the
country were in attendance. The main focus of questions was budget
concerns.
“Next week the house will pass a continuing resolution to fund the
government until March 27th, through September 30, included in that
continuing resolution will be an agreement on the Department of Defense
Appropriation Bill and the Military Construction VA Bill which will
give those agencies much more flexibility than they have today under
the CR. Also included in this bill will be a re-programming authority
that will allow agencies to come to Congress and ask to reprogram funds
from one account to another in order to make sure that the cuts that
have to be made are in areas where they can be made as opposed to more
vital services.” explained Boehner.
“We have 18 million more people on food stamps than we had four years
ago. This is because they lowered the eligibility requirements, and it
[fraud] has to be addressed. We’ve got money rolling out the door, and
the American people don’t mind seeing their hard earned money being
spent to provide a safety net, but they surely hate to see people take
advantage of their hard earned cash.” stated Boehner when asked about
fraud in the food stamp program, which is funded through the Farm Bill.
Featured Speaker for the event was Ed Schafer, former Secretary of the
U.S. Department of Agriculture, former Governor of the State of North
Dakota and chair of the Western Governors’ Association. He has
also been equally effective as a business leader, serving as president
of Gold Seal, where he oversaw a 50 percent increase in sales and
tripled the private company’s net worth. He negotiated sale of the
company, realizing top dollar value for shareholders.
“We need to keep up our pace to feed the growing population. … We face
serious challenges in the long run to grow food without adding water
and land on our globe. We have approximately a net increase of 80
million new mouths to feed every year…….we will have to double our food
production by 2050. That’s certainly a lot of work.” said Shafer. He
continued on by discussing how agriculture is impacted by farm
supplements, insurance, world trade, biotech, regulations, bio-fuels
(food vs. fuel), yields and preservation of farmlands.
During open session Q & A, when asked what could be done about the
debt and lack of fiscal responsibility by government leaders today,
Shafer answered, “Everyone of us in the room can do something about it.
I think we can not overestimate your power to interact with your
legislative leaders, your elected officials, the people who are
representing you in government, find candidates out there that believe
the way you do, convince them to run, raise money for them to get into
the race, work for them to get elected, get them in office. WE have a
representative form of government and our government is representative
today of people who are not thinking the way we in agriculture and
rural America believe our country should be run. You can help change
that, and please do.
When asked about what precautions are in place to insure our drinking
water is safe while hydraulic fracturing is used, “Hydraulic fracturing
has been around for 50 years and there has never been one confirmed –
not one – confirmed time when hydraulic fracturing fluids, or escaped
products from the well bore, have contaminated the water supply…. We
started to make sure that we put strong regulations in place as the
economic activity from oil production increased. We have the toughest
regulations for hydraulic fracturing of any state in the nation. we
have the toughest siting rules, we have a very strong program for
reclamation…don’t abandon your principles.”
Breakfast was provided to the Ohio Pork Producers, the Ohio Poultry
Association and the Miami County Farm Bureau. Lunch was provided by the
Ohio Cattlemen’s Association, Buckeye Insurance and Trauth Dairy.
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Boehner
gives an autograph to an attendee
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Boehner
talks to a group of attendees
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