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New tools, services offered on TFB website
Texas farmers and ranchers will have some new tools at their disposal with the addition of several features to the Texas Farm Bureau website.

"We have been in the process of improving our Internet products for several months now," said TFB Marketing Director Curt Lancaster. "It began with a redesign of our home page and has progressed with tools that surveys say farmers want and need most—weather and markets."

Users of the site now have full access to DTN’s up-to-the minute weather maps and forecasts, daily agriculture headline news and live futures and investment market information.

Weather information—including current and long-range forecasts, live radar and even storm trackers—are easily programmable to be viewed locally, regionally and even nationally. Likewise, users can also track financials on everything from Chicago corn and Kansas City wheat prices to live cattle, energy markets and even stock indices.

"We believe these tools will serve as a nice complement to the services already found on our website, including our own daily news service (Texas Ag Daily), our blog (Texas Agriculture Talks) and tons of other resources on Texas agriculture and Texas Farm Bureau as a whole," Lancaster said. "If you haven’t in a while, we invite you to stop by and try it out. Then let us know how you like it. We’ll likely never replace your hometown news source, but we definitely have the tools farmers and ranchers need to become your regular home page."

To learn more, visit www.txfb.org and www.texasagtalks.com.

Vilsack, Peterson kick off new farm bill talks
In the first official hearing on the 2012 farm bill, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack told the House Agriculture Committee that the Obama administration will leave writing of the bill largely to congressional agriculture committees, but the administration believes the bill should contain a safety net for farmers plus provisions to help create better off-farm jobs in rural America.

Vilsack said the administration would provide an outline of a bill, but has no intention of providing a complete farm bill.

In questioning, ranking member Frank Lucas (R-Okla.) expressed concern to Vilsack that the Obama administration wants to turn rural America into a bedroom community where people drive to work and drive back, but Vilsack said that is not the goal. He said that jobs in biorefineries and firms using broadband Internet service would help people stay in rural America.

In remarks to reporters after Wednesday’s House Agriculture Committee hearing on the 2012 farm bill, Chairman Collin Peterson (D-Minn.) said the Average Crop Revenue Election program has "elements we need to look at for the future."

ACRE is the first program to shield farmer revenue from poor yields as well as low prices. Price support payments now are triggered by low prices. Critics say they provide little support when growers lose a crop to bad weather.

Because of the federal deficit, Peterson made it clear that the next farm bill will be different than previous farm bills. There is simply not enough money to increase crop subsidy rates as high as some backers want.

"I think it will be very difficult to pass a status quo farm bill in 2012," Peterson said.

'Rural Community Building’ blog launched
AFBF has launched a new blog, http://ruralcommunitybuilding.fb.org/ that offers resource ideas to help improve the quality of life in rural communities.

Topics on the website "Rural Community Building" include agritourism, broadband, education, energy, entrepreneurship, funding opportunities, local food systems, wealth transfer and USDA news.

The site is intended to be an easy-to-use tool for rural community building and is accessible to all. The site is searchable by subject category and comments are welcome. The blog also offers the opportunity for dialog and sharing ideas. Users may subscribe to daily posts or a weekly digest of items posted.

Food security a long-term threat
Food security is the most pressing long-term threat to the world, and with global population expected to reach 9.1 billion people by 2050, now is not the time to downsize U.S. agriculture in order to plant trees to avert climate change, according to American Farm Bureau Federation President Bob Stallman.

Stallman was part of a panel discussion during a meeting of the North American Agricultural Journalists Monday in Washington, D.C. "The response to climate change should not ignore the consequences of policies that could make the world less food secure," Stallman said.

The AFBF president cited data by the United Nations that says agriculture is being told it must increase food production by 70 percent by 2050. "There is an inherent tension—if not outright contradiction—in these choices," Stallman said.

In addition, Stallman said that data shows the U.S. passing climate legislation on its own doesn’t provide enough benefits in reducing greenhouse gases to make an impact. Also, leaders of developing countries showed at the United Nations climate summit in December that they didn’t think climate change was a big enough concern to change their practices to reduce their own emissions.

Notable Quotables
"Clean, renewable, domestic energy will help Americans achieve long-term economic growth, create a cleaner environment and shield our economy from unreliable foreign energy sources. American farmers and ranchers are playing a bigger role in supplying our nation with the energy it needs through the production of agricultural-based, renewable energy sources. Tax incentives play a key role in the development and production of renewable energy."

—American Farm Bureau Federation Bob Stallman pledging support for the Grow Renewable Energy from Ethanol Naturally (GREEN) Jobs Act of 2010 (S. 3231). The legislation would bring the nation one step closer to energy independence.