Do you want a 2013 five-year Farm Bill or not? Or are you just as happy to let Congress gnaw away at USDA’s budget to draw down the deficit while you and your customers/suppliers live under the extended 2008 bill?

The assault on ag began this week when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D, NV) unveiled his party’s plan to avoid most of the fiscal pain of the $85-billion in 2013 federal budget cuts brought on sequestration and set to begin March 1. His $110-billion plan is pretty much evenly divided between spending cuts and tax increases. The new taxes shouldn’t bother you unless you make $1-2 million a year.  The “spending cuts” portion of the plan is simple: First you cut $27.5 billion out of defense spending, not such a tough thing given the enormity of the defense budget. Then you cut $27.5 billion out of USDA’s budget by killing all direct farm program payments beginning in 2014.

Now the sequestration pain of the entire federal government is being borne by defense and agriculture.  Most argue both the House and Senate Agriculture Committees were pretty much going to kill direct payments anyway, so no big deal.  Senate committee Chair Debbie Stabenow (D, MI) says including cuts in farm program payments in the sequester package eliminates the need for her panel to try and massage old programs to change them into new programs.  House ag panel Chair Frank Lucas (R, OK) disagrees; he called the Reid plan an “attack on rural America,” and says killing direct farm payments – a 53% reduction in USDA’s checkbook – just made his job writing a 2013 Farm Bill that much tougher.

The Reid plan, however, also represents the priority or lack thereof on getting a Farm Bill done this year. Just this week I heard some of the best minds on ag programs/policy in this town state for the record they wouldn’t be surprised if no Farm Bill is enacted this year. Why? Congress doesn’t care about the Farm Bill.

The reason Congress doesn’t care is there is no demand from farmers, researchers, biofuel refiners, specialty crop folks or the even the organic gang — beneficiaries of various farm programs – to enact a Farm Bill.  There’s no countryside drumbeat among ag groups, no screaming to the media about the lack of a Farm Bill and economic pain in the heartland.  The traditional grassroots demand for a comprehensive Farm Bill is eerily lacking this year.

Maybe you’re making a lot of money leasing/selling farm land for oil sand exploration or maybe you’re worried about the tax consequences of all that ethanol/biodiesel you’re refining.  Maybe your income from record exports is embarrassingly high. Seriously, until agriculture gets noisy, Congress will sit on its thumbs.  There are a lot of budget/spending/sequestration pressures and influences – along with their attendant political machinations – but unless those who live and die by the income safety net and other USDA programs demand their programs be treated with the appropriate priority and efficiency, USDA’s budget remains a deep pot of federal dollars from which budget hawks can draw to pay for other “stuff” considered important by its constituents.

Fundamentally, legislation gets done because the direct beneficiaries want the programs and they’re not shy about making their desires known. This is called oiling the squeaky wheel. Time to let your House and Senate members know if you really want a 2013 Farm Bill or not.

I have to admit up front: I’m not a big football fan; never have been. At one point in high school, I participated in “hell week” for about 15 minutes before I decided that much sweat without emotional involvement was not for me.

But last Monday morning, I was scrolling through my email to see several messages talking about the Baltimore Ravens’ win, but referencing “that farmer ad” that aired during the Super Bowl. I clicked on the link and watched a two-minute love letter to farmers and ranchers from Ram trucks. The ad wasn’t a comic approach to product promotion, it was legendary radio personality Paul Harvey reciting his original essay entitled “So God Created a Farmer,” while iconic farm and ranch images were shown.

I later learned that in addition to the commercial, Ram trucks teamed up with several farm equipment manufacturers to declare 2013 “The Year of the Farmer.” And if that wasn’t enough, every time the Super Bowl ad is viewed, downloaded or shared, Ram trucks donates money to the National FFA Foundation and National FFA Organization to support the FFA Foundation’s “Feeding the World – Starting at Home” program.

The ad obviously struck a chord with Americans. USA Today’s “Ad Meter” rated the Ram trucks spot the third most popular Super Bowl commercial. As of late yesterday, the site on which it runs had over six million hits. Watch the ad here: http://www.ramtrucks.com/en/keepplowing/.

The Farm Animal Welfare Coalition (FAWC), an ad hoc DC coalition I coordinate made up of national ag groups working to ensure any legislation/regulation affecting farm animals balances animal wellbeing against farmer wellbeing, and the Animal Agriculture Alliance (AAA), an ag-supported public education group, seized the opportunity to galvanize U.S. ag. We drafted a letter and sent it out into the universe. What evolved was a letter of sincere thanks to Chrysler Group LLC Chair and CEO Sergio Marchionne and his Ram trucks team – signed by over 255 national, regional and state ag groups representing all aspects of American agriculture. You can read the letter and see who signed by going to www.animalagalliance.org.

I’m not naïve enough to believe Chrysler/Ram trucks created the ad out of the goodness of its corporate heart. No, the ad is designed to develop brand allegiance and sell trucks. Ag folks buy a lot of trucks, not just Ram.  That’s good capitalism at work.  Over 164 million people watched the Super Bowl in whole or part; if a 30-second spot on the broadcast cost a reported $3.7 million, I’m guessing Ram trucks paid, discounts and such, somewhere north of $11-12 million to run that ad.

The most cynical construction placed on Ram trucks’ motives can’t erase American agriculture’s heartfelt, positive reaction to the message. It’s rare anyone – even companies making billions annually off the work of farmers and ranchers – says anything unsolicited about the importance of farming and ranching. It’s even rarer when they do and that message is as positive and as critically important to the masses as the Ram trucks ad is, focusing in a very dramatic way on the vital contribution of farm and ranch families to every American’s quality of life.

The show of gratitude from those 255-plus organizations represents the individual appreciation of over two million Americans at least, compounded as word of the ad circulates. This is what U.S. agriculture will do for any individual, group and company willing to stand shoulder to shoulder with food producers to ensure they’re appreciated and valued in the face of uninformed, political rhetoric aimed at consumers, propaganda designed to scare the buyers and bankrupt the producers.

So, 164 million Super Bowl viewers, two million grateful aggies and growing, six million hits on the YouTube.com site and growing, and judging by the activity on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, et al, the universe of grateful folks is expanding darn near exponentially.

Ram trucks made one heck of an investment. Thank you.

Sen. Richard Lugar (R, IN) lost his bid for reelection; Sen. Kent Conrad (D, ND)retired; Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R, GA) announced last week he’s had it with the gridlock and infighting in the Senate and will not run again in 2014. This week, Sen. Tom Harkin (D, IA) announced he’s not going to run again in two years because, as he succinctly put it, “It’s time.”

Harkin’s announcement is kind of the tipping point for a lot of ag lobbyists in town who’ve watched the likes of Sen. Byron Dorgan (D, ND), Sen. Tom Daschle (D, SD), Sen. Alan Simpson (R, WY) and other ag champions depart the Senate either by choice or whim of the electorate.

Lugar, Harkin and Chambliss each served as chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee, Harkin having wielded the gavel on two separate occasions; Chambliss and Lugar sat in the ranking member chair; all three have always been stalwart champions of agriculture. Conrad was the protector of all things budgetary, while bringing serious brainpower to the ag committee.  All have survived Farm Bills as far back as 1980.

These gentlemen may have come at these roles from different regional perspectives, but rarely did they allow political affiliation to get in the way of fostering U.S. agriculture.

(Harkin is the trifecta of key Senate influence; he’s chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pensions (HELP) Committee, which oversee all things FDA and food safety; he’s a senior member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, and he sits as a senior member of the Senate Appropriations Committee which decides how much money gets spent on USDA and FDA programs. If there is loss by degree, Harkin’s departure will leave the biggest void.)

I’m ambivalent about these gentlemen leaving the Senate. On one hand, that’s going to be a major brain drain and a lot of institutional memory lost.  I fear losing even a scintilla of agriculture expertise and understanding on Capitol Hill.  On the other hand, as Harkin aptly put it, it’s time.

I’ve heard the gnashing of teeth among veteran lobbyists over these resignations – and it’s bicameral as senior House members announce they’ll not run again or lose reelection. I think it has more to do with personal self-interest than it does with good governance. I see these departures as the natural order, one which should be fostered and encouraged.

I used to rail against term limits. I’d wax eloquent about the loss of institutional memory, the loss of expertise, etc. More often than not – if I was being totally honest – I was afraid of losing those with whom I had close working relationships, I was afraid of losing my champions. Conversely, there isn’t a lobbyist in DC who doesn’t have a list of Senators and House members he or she believes have stayed past their prime. These are often members who routinely oppose what you’re paid to promote.

However, those in Congress who’ve been around long enough to amass tremendous individual power through seniority, fundraising and deal cutting also tend generally to be those for whom the retirement has no meaning.  They believe they hold their jobs by dint of charisma and superior intellect.  They forget who elected them and why, save for those six months just prior to the election.

I believe we should limit Senators to three terms – 18 years in one gig is long enough for anyone – and we should limit House members in a similar fashion. I also firmly believe it’s time to limit the number of years any individual can hold a leadership job. We currently limit in both chambers the number of consecutive committee chairmanships a member can hold; this same logic and justification should be extended to the Senate Majority Leader, his minority counterpart, the Speaker of the House, the minority leader and their “teams” as well.

It’s never good to put too much power in any one person or group of people.  It’s very good to get outside our comfort zone once in a while.

My wife keeps telling me “change is good.” And ultimately, I’ve learned it generally is. It’s good to bring in new blood, new perspectives, new thinking and new energy.  It’s our job to find those aggies who are smart, eager and crazy enough to want to sit in Congress working for the good of U.S. agriculture.

There’s an excellent website out there called thedailymeal.com. It’s information central for all things related to food – once it’s left the farm. The site is rife with interesting and informative recipes, restaurant news, cooking tips, trends, events/festivals and a smattering of real news.  Perusing the site gives me the same jolt as poring over toy catalogs as a child.    Realizing what the site is about, I shouldn’t be frustrated when it published on January 15  “The 50 Most Powerful People in Food” list.  Sitting at #50 is “The Family Farmer.”

I’m going out on a limb here – perhaps not all that far – that implicit in the definition of “family farmer” are the unspoken desiptors “small,” “independent,” “local,” “natural” and maybe even “organic.” In other words, I’m guessing multi-family, incorporated conventional farms and ranches are not deemed necessarily to be “family.”

Most of the folks on the list are chefs/TV personalities, cookbook authors and restaurateurs. There’s a handful of retailers, including McDonalds, Whole Foods, Subway, Kroger, Trader Joe’s, WalMart and Costco. There are some of the household names among multinational food companies, among them Nestle, Cargill, Tyson Foods, Pepsi and ADM. Politicians on the list include First Lady Michelle Obama, FDA’s Deputy Commissioner for Food Mike Taylor and Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack. Then there are the food industry gadflies, including PETA’s Ingrid Newkirk and writers Michael Pollan and Mark Bittman. I do thank the folks at the dailymeal.com for leaving everyone at the Humane Society of the U.S. (HSUS) off the list.

“In the food world, the people with power are the ones who affect what and how and where and why we eat, or could if they wanted to,” writes the site’s editor. That last phrase implies there is inherent “power” in some of these folks to move great chunks of the populace from burgers and ice cream sandwiches to organic sprouts and quorn. I give the public more credit.

I submit if you accept the definition of “power” in the food world, then the family farmer belongs firmly and unassailably in the #1 position. Without farm/ranch families – big or small – all those other folks have to give up their day jobs or find other media trumpets to tootle.

Those living in the “food world” – at least those represented on thedailymeal.com – suffer from a certain ego and myopia. Yes, food is as sensual an experience as you can get; yes, if you have the money and platform, you can get the attention of a portion of the population and you may be able to actually influence what, how, where and why we eat. I contend the food crowd forgets food is one of the last parts of our modern lives where, for better or worse, we exercise total personal control of what, where, how much and when we eat. In short, consumers may listen, but they also dismiss what challenges that personal control, the right of choice.

I’d wager most of the folks on the list haven’t spent a lot of time with your average conventional farmer or rancher. If they had, they’d understand that there is no more independent species on the planet. To imply because Monsanto produces a GM seed, all growers of that crop will rush to buy and therefore Monsanto’s CEO has “power” ignores the inborn skepticism and distrust of big companies found in most farmers. No one rejects a technology or mechanism faster than a farmer/rancher if the product or technology doesn’t do exactly what he/she needs it to do or it doesn’t deliver on its promises.

Also, implicit in the list is an assumption that if a retailer demands, a producer will produce. In most cases, I’d agree based on the notion the consumer is the ultimate arbiter of what the farmer grows. As retailers read their customers, that message goes back down the line to the folks who grow what the retailer needs. However, if ordered by a retailer to stop using a technology or system, most farmers rebel. I can give you a list of dairy producers who, when told to stop using BST on their dairies, told dairy processor/retailers to pound salt. There are pork producers out there who really don’t care how execs at various retailers emotionally react to sow stalls or HSUS threats. Retailers/restaurateurs need to remember: There are fewer and fewer folks producing what you need to maintain your business. If they refuse or can’t afford to produce for you or sell to you, well…

The “food world” needs to give the farmer/rancher her/his due. They are the foundation on which all of the rest of this stuff is built. Not everyone in this country eats every day. Many do not want or cannot afford locally grown, seasonal, natural/organic whatever. Not everyone in wants to spend hours or even minutes contemplating wine/food pairings or which exotic spice from which developing country perfectly complements their latest recipe. The folks who do thrill to these activities represent only about 5-10% of total consumers.

Fundamentally, it’s good to find shelter, clothe ourselves and find intellectual distraction. However, it’s imperative we breathe, drink water and eat. Give the folks who feed us the credit they deserve for the real power they wield.

In the wake of the stuff and nonsense and media hysteria that was the “fiscal cliff” negotiations and “deal,” reasonable people have every right to hope common sense and adult behavior will prevail as we move into the 113th Congress.  However, two episodes developing as I type this are disturbing to me: President Obama appears to be at least considering political edits to the Constitution, and Congress has wasted no time returning to its schizophrenic behavior and statements and spending and deficit reduction.

That President Obama is even considering some form of enhanced national gun control, not through congressional action and White House reaction – we in DC call it “due process” – but rather through executive order gives even greater credence to what the Wall Street Journal dubbed this “imperial presidency.” To be clear, my concern has very little to do with gun control and everything to do with the sanctity of the Constitution as it limits powers and provides for checks and balances.

While every president has no doubt wished he could solve a problem by fiat rather than through the process of due consideration, i.e. Congress, the Administration and, if it comes to that, the Supreme Court, to actually consider manipulating the Second Amendment is at best ill-conceived and for the President, ill-advised. It also makes perfectly understandable the question many are asking, namely, “If the Second Amendment can be manipulated through executive order, what about the First Amendment and free speech or the Fourth Amendment and protections against unlawful search and seizure?

Executive orders normally set up commissions, clarify personnel matters, set policy within strict limits or remove remnants of the previous administration’s overreach. A first hint of this new approach came when the President, again through executive order, essentially implemented a big chunk of the so-called Dream Act, legislation that would have provided deportation protection for some children of illegal immigrants as long as those children were pursuing higher education or actively serving in the military. The President reinvented the federal immigration enforcement and deportation systems to provide protections for the children of illegal immigrants despite the same program being rejected by Congress three times in two different sessions.

If the White House has rejected this strategy, it should say so loudly, clearly and immediately.

The second situation – that of congress saying one thing and doing another – doesn’t necessarily shock observers. The case in point, however, is the ever-morphing, ever-expanding Superstorm Sandy disaster relief legislation, what many are calling the return to good, old fashioned pork barrel legislation, and just when we thought Congress had learned its lesson.

While New York and New Jersey politicians went ballistic when House Speaker John Boehner (R, OH) did not take up the over $60 billion in spending when the 112th Congress adjourned, the bill was split into at least two legislative packages when the 113th Congress convened. The first portion, a near-$10-billion expansion of federal flood insurance borrowing authority requested by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), was approved quickly and signed by the President. The remaining $50 billion is the problem. In the original Senate bill – which Senate Majority Harry Reid says may be voted on around January 15, fiscal conservatives in both chambers argue the bill carries too many programs and spends too much on issues not related to natural disasters, including money for salmon fisheries in Alaska and a series of “incentive projects,” what one Republican Senator called “gimmes” designed to get GOP votes. The House may split the package yet again, voting on $18-25 billion for immediate recovery needs – expected to pass and including more dollars for FEMA’s emergency disaster relief fund – and then take up a $33-billion package of long-term “mitigation projects” so that areas can better withstand future storms. This latter package has a very iffy future because it’s likely to contain more and more spending with nothing to do with disaster assistance and everything to do handing out pork barrel projects.

Save for our friends on the Hill evangelizing against such wanton spending, did not at least leadership learn anything from the last two elections? Why are members of Congress paying lipservice to fiscal restraint and deficit reduction while loading up a much-needed disaster bill with expensive projects they know have no chance of congressional approval if considered on their own? Votes should be won on the merit of the bill, not on the size of the federal dollar give-away.

Each situation is by any definition a reach way too far.

Now that the “miracle” of the fiscal cliff deal is law – I’m talking about the nine-month extension of the 2008 Farm Bill as described by House Agriculture Committee Chair Frank Lucas (R,OK) – ag groups across Washington, DC, and around the country are gnashing their teeth in frustration they didn’t get a five-year bill. Bob Stallman, president of the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) said the extension is little more than a stop-gap measure, saying he’s “disappointed Congress was unable or unwilling to roll a comprehensive five-year bill into the fiscal cliff package.” The National Corn Growers Assn. (NCGA) said the extension is “Congress’ failure to act, push(ing) agriculture aside.” The National Farmers Union (NFU) said the extension “left rural America out in the cold.”

Is it all that bad we didn’t get a five-year bill? Not really. The rhetoric is that of frustration. A lot of hard work done in 2012 now has to be revisited. Some programs protected in that effort are now at risk; those programs cut or disappeared have a second chance at fiscal life.

Lucas and Senate Agriculture Committee Chair Debbie Stabenow (D, MI) tried at the 11th hour of the fiscal cliff negotiations to slide into the fiscal cliff mess an “extension package” that included new dairy language to avoid doubling consumer milk prices if programs reverted to 1949 law, new disaster assistance language to include specialty crops, and a proposal to cut direct program payments to pay for all the new stuff. It was the “new stuff” that killed the Stabenow-Lucas effort. While the package saved money over time, it would have cost $1 billion during 2013, according to CBO. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R, KY) and Vice President Joe Biden, the lead Senate fiscal cliff negotiators, nixed the deal saying it would put the entire cliff package in jeopardy on the Senate floor for a whole slew of budgetary reasons. It didn’t help when House Speaker John Boehner (R, OH) weighed in strongly against the Stabenow-Lucas effort.

So, with President Obama’s signature, it is what it is, and we’re back to square one, if not on everything already achieved, on some seriously key issues. The complexion of the 2013 battle, however, comes with a few new wrinkles.

Wrinkle #1: There will be less money in the 2013 Farm Bill pot when House and Senate Agriculture Committees get down to rewriting the omnibus farm program package. This is because each year, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) calculates, based on previous farm program spending, how much money it will take to run the programs included in the Farm Bill. This is called the “budget baseline.” CBO will issue this the new baseline in early March. It will be lower than the baseline used to write the 2012 Farm Bills.

Wrinkle #2: The wished-for rewrite of dairy support programs is now part of the “controversial” list of Farm Bill issues. While it was quietly rolled into the House Agriculture Committee-approved bill, due to the championship and protection of ag committee ranking member Rep. Collin Peterson (D, MN), it became the leading suspect in the demise of the Stabenow-Lucas extension effort. If you recall Boehner hates Farm Bills – even when he was a member of the House ag panel he hated them – mainly because he doesn’t believe in federal payment programs. Now recall he’s Speaker of the House, so his telling McConnell and Biden during the fiscal cliff negotiations that the dairy language in the extension package was a non-starter, then you see why any new approach to dairy supports is now increasingly controversial.

Wrinkle #3: Sen. Pat Robert (R, KS), the Fred Astaire to Stabenow’s Ginger Rogers in the very carefully choreographed bipartisan dance that led to the Senate-passed Farm Bill is no longer ranking minority member of the Senate Agriculture Committee. Sen. Thad Cochran (R, MS), member and former chair of the ag panel, was term-limited out of his ranking member spot on the Senate Appropriations Committee, and exercised his seniority to take the ranking spot on ag. The Senate Farm Bill’s commodity title is now up for a rewrite given its risk-based approach angered southern crop producers who say it favors large Midwest corn and soybean farmers. Cochran’s ascension to ranking member – along with his alliance with former committee chair Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R, GA) – means the South shall rise again. Stabenow must return to the drawing board when the committee takes up the Farm Bill again. The House Agriculture Committee-passed Farm Bill includes a commodity title with southern-friendly marketing loans and deficiency payments.

Wrinkle #4: While all of the ranting and raving about the debt ceiling, spending cuts, entitlement program changes and tax reform will be echoing about their heads next year, the ag committees will still have to figure out how much of the federal food stamp program gets whacked.

The committees have about three months to get their respective bills ready for the floor so they avoid lengthy summer recess delays and hit their end-of-September deadline. Most of the two bills completed in the 112th Congress will emerge in the 113th Congress pretty much unchanged. It’s just those few wrinkles that have to be ironed out.

Below is a snarky list of political, procedural and practical changes I’d like to see in Washington, DC, next year, especially with the kick-off of the 113th Congress. I hope as I write this on December 27, 2012, at least some of the items listed will be reality, and hopefully, before the freshman class of congresspeople finds the restrooms in January. Having said that, I’ve worked in Washington long enough to know that common sense and politics are the strangest of bedfellows, so I’m not crossing my fingers just yet.

Of course I want to see the perils of plowing over the fiscal cliff avoided knowing it will take smarts, political guts and compromise to get there.  So big is that desire, I reserve a special spot on my personal list of priorities.  With that disclaimer and tongue planted firmly in cheek – sometimes – here’s my “wish list” for 2013 and beyond:

1. I want Congress to demonstrate collective maturity, common sense and bipartisanship, with all members understanding their political affiliation has a lot less to do with the national interest than they think.

2. I want all members of Congress, particularly the incoming freshman class, to understand and remember they were elected to represent the best interest of the voters of their state/district, not individual self-interest, career enhancement or their party leadership.

3. I want all members of Congress to think locally, then nationally, then globally as they contemplate legislation to be introduced, bills to be debated and final packages to be voted up or down. The days of “all politics is local” are quickly disappearing; we prosper or fail in a global context.

4. I want to resurrect the idea of a constitutional amendment on term limits for members of Congress. I’m not saying it’s the magic cure to all that ails the institution, and I’m not saying I’m for or against term limits, but it’s a concept based on the behavior we’ve seen over the last several years deserving some serious, lively and very public debate.

5. A more immediate improvement in how Congress operates is fairly simple. I want both the House and Senate to amend their respective rules to limit the terms of the Senate Majority Leader, the Speaker of the House and the various party leaders. This eliminates intraparty backbiting and public posturing. It’s also a great way to avoid megalomania, especially among members who should have retired years ago. If it’s important to force committee chairs and ranking members to rotate out of those powerful slots, it’s important to bring new thinking and perspectives to chamber leadership, especially since what we’ve seen since President Obama was elected in 2008 is the inspiration for the first four items on this list.

6. I want to see all future Farm Bills move forward without the political baggage of the so-called “nutrition title,” i.e. that chunk of the omnibus ag bill carrying federal food stamps and other “feeding” programs. Not only do these programs represent 80% of the total cost of the package, they’ve bottom line got nothing to do with producing the food they distribute or underwrite. Food stamps, Women/Infant/Children nutrition programs, etc., are important and deserve separate debate. Farm programs and food stamps were only mashed together in an attempt to secure votes back in the day. Them days is over.

7. If we go through the next two years as bad or worse than the last six or eight years, then I’m going to be the first to demand both IQ tests and mental health evaluations for all candidates for public office.

We all have a vested interest in this country’s success, so we must remember politics is the art of the possible and compromise is an agreement where all involved are a just little ticked off when they walk away from the table. Yes, there are issues where facts must prevail over emotion and fantasy; but there are just as many issues where the middle of the road is the safest place for all of us to be. Fingers crossed…

Happy New Year!

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack presented a pretty good speech to the Farm Journal Forum here in Washington, DC, last week. Buried within the cheerleading for newly reelected President Obama and the recounting of USDA’s achievements of the last four years were a couple of nuggets in need of further discussion.

First, Vilsack says rural America and its dwindling “relevance to the politics of this country” is a major reason we don’t have a 2012 Farm Bill ready to go come the New Year. By “relevance” the Secretary cites the 16% of the U.S. population living in rural communities, and using USDA math, translating that to 16% of elected representatives represent rural America; 84% don’t.

I don’t think the fate of the 2012 Farm Bill is so much a factor of “relevance” as it is numbers, as in cost. In my mind, not since now-Sen. Pat Roberts (R, KS), then Rep. Pat Roberts, chair of the House Agriculture Committee, force fed “Freedom to Farm” to his colleagues, have we had a Farm Bill in either chamber so chock-a-block with significant change in conventional thinking. I contend we’d have a Farm Bill with a presidential signature affixed had House Speaker John Boehner (R, OH) laid his own personal opinions of farm bills aside, gotten out of the way – taking Majority Leader Eric Cantor with him – and let the House work its collective will last summer.

Vilsack also said, “We’ve got something to market here. We’ve got something to be proactive about.” And then he called for a “good fight, a strategic fight and one that’s worth fighting for,” chiding those who criticize “strategic” decisions like the UEP-HSUS alliance on egg layer cage sizes – obviously he believes this is a good idea – and wrapping all of it under the rubric of “embracing diversity” of opinion and acknowledging “that guy has got a point.”

I agree generally with the Secretary’s statements. Broadly, diversity has value in bringing the new and different to the table, so embracing that value makes sense. However, there are no absolutes in diversity, and just as with conventional thinking folks come up with a whole lot of bad ideas, diverse as they may be.  Such diversity requires both objective and subjective evaluation.  And, let’s not forget, it’s rare that opinions 180 degrees apart wind up reconciled.

Agriculture is trying, in its own scattershot way, to be proactive, and fundamentally it’s for the very same reasons Vilsack cites in his remarks. Quite rightly, farming/ranching, processing and retailing are trying to rebuild consumer appreciation for food production and the folks who do what they do as well as they do for the benefit of the rest of us. However, those messages aren’t resonating as they should because they’re not focused, get deflected by critics, drowned out by the issue of the day, and not echoed by the trusted powers that be, including USDA.

Later in his speech, Vilsack restated his premise: “I want you to think about this, a proactive message, fight strategic fights, not fighting agriculture, one kind of agriculture against another.”  Are you listening, my friends in organics?

Perhaps someone’s trying to redress their perception of an imbalance, but it’s apparent to me that based upon the amount of time, manpower, ink, paper and electrons USDA expends promoting organic production, natural production, farmers markets, local production, unpopular school lunch mandates, and just about any system that isn’t conventional agriculture, the majority of U.S. farmers and ranchers also may lack certain relevance within USDA’s and the Administration’s “proactive” messaging agenda.

I understand USDA’s constituency includes all of the American public, no matter their dietary habits or philosophy. I also understand some believe USDA is all about Big Ag, but when push comes to shove, food production of all stripes is what the department is primarily about. That proactive messaging the Secretary wants to hear to keep young people in rural America is needed, but equally needed is as much and the same kind of USDA cheerleading for conventional agriculture – if only an echoing of rural community messaging – as there is for “buy local,” organics, broadband access, biofuels and the priming of the export machine.

There’s nothing more relevant to every man, woman and child in the U.S. than food or the lack thereof. USDA can help farmers and ranchers remind folks of that fact.

Does anyone honestly believe the Humane Society of the U.S. (HSUS) is a “moderate” organization in philosophy or action? Well, in a piece written December 6 for Congressional Quarterly (CQ), a major Capitol Hill publication, the headline reads: “Pacelle: Projecting a Moderate Face on Animal Rights.” At least CQ got the “animal rights” part correct.

The CQ article, written by Phil Brasher, editor of CQ’s “Executive Briefing” on agriculture and food topics and the former DC ag editor for the Des Moines Register, details HSUS’ expansion of its Humane Society International programs against livestock and poultry production first in India – Wayne Pacelle, HSUS president, traveled to kick off the effort, complete with a speech by the Dalai Lama – with the idea of moving across the globe – next stop Brazil and Russia – to remind the world only free-roaming animals should be eaten, and the implicit message a vegetarian diet is great, but a vegan diet, such as Pacelle’s, is better.

The article goes on to extol Pacelle’s leadership of HSUS – “Under Pacelle’s leadership, the Humane Society has used a powerful combination of ballot initiatives, social media, undercover videotaping and corporate arm-twisting to force some of the biggest players in the meat industry to end farming practices the producers maintain are sound and ethical.” Examples given are the group’s anti-sow stall campaign and the unholy and short-sighted alliance of HSUS and the United Egg Producers (UEP) to seek federal regulation of egg layer environs.

“Moderate” is a relative adjective, its meaning dependent on what you consider extreme to begin with and what you’re comparing. In this case, CQ is comparing HSUS’ public face to that of PETA, the self-described media whore of the animal rights movement. If PETA’s actions are the benchmark, then Attila the Hun could be considered moderate by comparison.

Telling Congress and anyone else who reads CQ HSUS is “moderate” plays to the public’s misperception of what HSUS is, and unwittingly undermines the efforts of animal agriculture to out HSUS as the world’s largest animal rights – not welfare or “protection” – organization. This then plays to the politicians’ and the food executives’ desperate need to hear there is no danger now or later to playing let’s make a deal with HSUS.

It must be asked: What’s “moderate” about gaining access under false pretenses to private property in order to videotape without permission for as long as it takes to find something you can sell to the media to prove your political point? What’s “moderate” about timing the release of said videotape to your best media advantage? What’s “moderate” about taking the tax-deductible charitable contributions of your members to underwrite millions of dollars in multiple state ballot referenda? What’s “moderate” about propagandizing across social media? What’s “moderate” about corporate and political “blackmail?”

Choosing to negotiate with groups like HSUS to avoid corporate or political “arm-twisting” – I call it “blackmail” using the dictionary definition “to force or coerce into a particular action” – is proof of the truth in the Benjamin Franklin axiom “If you lie down with dogs, you will get up fleas.” There’s no such thing as a free lunch; eventually you’ll have to a pay a price.

And if the tactics don’t turn you off to this form of “moderation,” perhaps the hubris of HSUS might. Nearly 850 million of the world’s population are chronically hungry, and one third of those – roughly the population of the U.S. – lives in India, says the Food & Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. And if 80% of Indians are Hindu – who don’t eat beef for religious reasons and most eschew poultry and fish for dharmic, karmic and other spiritual reasons – then the CQ’s explanation of why India is the HSUS target makes sense: “Meanwhile, Pacelle, as the India trip shows, sees no end to his group’s influence…He is particularly interested in expanding to countries where sufficient money can be raised (emphasis added) to support operations. India is one of those.” Or maybe it’s simply because PETA has an Indian office in Mumbai, the same Indian city where HSUS is opening its new digs.

There are two constants when watching Congress deal with any looming crisis. First, substantive action to avert said crisis is always preceded by posturing, finger pointing and serious rounds of the blame game. Second, nothing inspires final congressional action more than an absolute deadline to avoid disaster. Unfortunately, Congress inevitably runs out the last seconds on the clock before it magically comes up with the “fix.”

We’ve just finished Act One of the fiscal cliff drama. Will the eventual lame duck fiscal cliff fix be the “grand bargain” the President talks about? Will it include some form of farm program extension or rewrite? My guess is any package hitting the President’s desk before January 1, 2013, will be a short-term fiscal fix – carrying at the very least some form of modified Farm Bill extension – but it won’t be the end game.

The President is racking up miles on Air Force One hoping his communications skills inspire the American people to “put pressure” on Congress to buy his proposed fix on the looming fiscal cliff, and the White House gets points this week for the audacity in its plan as delivered to the Hill by Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner. House Speaker John Boehner (R, OH) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R, KY) – who reportedly laughed out loud as Geithner detailed the plan – rejected the Obama approach outright because the President’s path to cutting $4 trillion from the deficit over the next decade does not include action on entitlement programs, and is built on $1.6 trillion in new tax revenues generated over the next decade by increasing rates on the top 2% of U.S. wage earners – those making over $250,000 a year. Also in the White House plan are tax increases on capital gains and dividend income, $600 billion in new taxes, more “stimulus” spending — $50 billion for “infrastructure” in 2013 – and a return to 2009 estate tax rates. Just for grins, the White House threw in new authority to the President to raise the nation’s debt limit without congressional approval.

This led to the inevitable schoolyard taunts by Sen. Chuck Schumer (D, NY) et al, basically chanting, “We’ve showed you ours, now you show us yours.” There’s some truth in Schumer’s demand, but he knows the GOP won’t reveal its plan until Republicans have milked every political point they can from the kabuki theater of fiscal cliff negotiations.

Just as the President’s plan is his well-known wish list, the Republican counteroffer will hold few surprises. It will be long on program spending cuts, will include revenues through tax loophole elimination and will tinker with entitlement programs, including Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. It won’t raise taxes on anyone, but will magically – through the same creative accounting used by the Administration – come up with $4 trillion in cuts. Everyone will then praise the plan as enlightened and progressive or condemn it as anti-middle class, anti-elderly, etc.  Then the real negotiating begins.

What will emerge between now and New Year’s Day is a deal that in the near term won’t achieve much more than tinkering with existing tax rates. There isn’t enough time or political will to do the heavy lifting. We’ll see a deficit reduction “down payment” and the “framework” for the rest of the job some on Capitol Hill talk about. There will be a six to nine-month extension of the Bush era tax rates with maybe some minor tinkering, and the rest will be pledges to act by dates certain on tax reform, deficit reduction, entitlements, revenues and so forth next year. Everyone will then proudly point to the bipartisanship so difficult to achieve, so necessary to avoiding the known outcome of a swan dive off the fiscal cliff, all of it to protect the American people.

That deficit “down payment” is where we see a “modified” extension of farm programs, with a much-ballyhooed “income safety net.”  I’ve said this before: The ultimate 2012 farm program product – notice I didn’t say “final” Farm Bill product – will be a hybrid of the Senate-passed bill, the House committee-approved bill – because of the savings that can be moved to the spending/deficit reduction side of the federal ledger – the House-passed disaster bill and a passel of tweaking necessary to avoid reverting to 1949 “permanent” ag law that will force us to pay $7 a gallon for milk.

Think of these fiscal cliff shenanigans like any Christmas. You make up your list of perfect gifts and you share it with everyone. Unfailingly, you wind up with what folks think you need or want.  In this case, Congress is the gift giver.