By TIM ALEXANDER

Illinois Correspondent

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. — State Farm Bureau presidents, agricultural association representatives and agribusiness leaders met with President Donald Trump in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 5 to express their continuing concerns over trade and tariffs.

Those in attendance, including Illinois Farm Bureau President Rich Guebert Jr., informed Trump, along with Vice President Mike Pence and USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue, about some of the unique financial difficulties heaped on farmers due to retaliatory tariffs placed on American ag products by foreign countries.

Guebert joined American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) Vice President Scott VanderWal – also president of the South Dakota Farm Bureau – and Texas Farm Bureau President Russell Boening in telling Trump and Pence that they “needed open markets soon,” according to the AFBF.

“Farmers and ranchers are counting on the administration to fight for strong trade deals that expand our markets – now, more than ever, as we face the worst farm economy in 12 years,” said AFBF President Zippy Duvall.

“This White House has been the most ag-focused in recent memory, and we are grateful to have a seat at the table with our nation’s leaders to discuss the importance of agriculture to our rural economies and the importance of trade to farmers and ranchers across the country.”

Guebert called the visit and unannounced audience with the President a unique opportunity to travel to the nation’s capital and offer insights to the Trump administration.

“I thanked them for the trade mitigation aid that was sent out, but I did make the comment that from what I have been hearing, our corn producers are not happy with the 1-cent payment rate,” Guebert told Farm World.

The USDA announced this month that payment rates for seven commodities are based on 50 percent of a farmer’s production for the commodity receiving aid under the Market Facilitation Program (MFP). A payment rate of 1 cent per bushel on corn planted for grain (silage is not eligible) was announced.

The breakdown on payment rates determined by the USDA for other crops includes soybeans ($1.65), wheat (14 cents), grain sorghum (86 cents) and cotton (6 cents per pound).

“I said with all due respect, if you’d have told them they were going to receive zero, that would have been better than 1 cent. Secretary Perdue said, ‘Rich, I’ve heard a lot of the same thing,’ and left it at that,” Guebert continued. “He did say that USDA needs to do a better job explaining how rates are determined.”

He also stressed to Perdue and other top officials that a new farm bill needs to be completed and approved in 2018, agriculture trade deals need to be finalized with Mexico and the European Union and a bilateral agreement must be reached with Japan by 2019 to prevent beef and other producers from trade restrictions.

“We told them we worry about the young farmers in 2019 and how they are going to be impacted. When we look at crop insurance and the revenue package, we are going to have a lot lower level of guarantee under the farm bill next year,” Guebert added.

“Older guys who have been in this business a lot longer have lower levels of debt, and we cannot afford to lose another generation of farmers like we did in the 1980s, when things were terrible.”

In the days following the meeting, Trump ratcheted up the trade threat level with language indicating he would soon impose more sweeping import tariffs on Chinese-made goods. During the Sept. 5 meeting, the administration indicated not-so-subtly that the farmer-leaders should not expect the Chinese market for American farm products to reopen anytime soon, according to Guebert.

“Secretary Perdue told us he hoped we could get something done with Mexico and Canada, get something done with the EU by the end of the year and get a bilateral agreement started with Japan. He thought that maybe after the first of the year we could get something done in principle with China, but knowing that it is going to be a while to get things resolved with China,” Guebert explained.

Other topics covered in the meeting included a full government commitment to increased E15 ethanol production. “We need everything to help move these products into the marketplace. We’ve got a really good crop and we need everything at our disposal to get it off the farm, because there is not enough storage capacity on the farms.”

Soybean basis was another topic of discussion. The trade conflicts have helped soybean basis jump to historic levels in recent weeks, leaving farmers with little option other than to store a large portion of their 2018 crop in bins. Beans are near a historic value, in terms of weakness – as low as 90 cents to $1-plus per bushel below futures prices – according to the Illinois Farm Bureau and MID-CO Commodities.

“Our members are behind the President in that somebody has got to get China under control and get them to stop stealing our intellectual property and following the rules like everyone else in the World Trade Organization,” Guebert said.

“Somebody has got to take them to task, and we applauded the President for doing so. (But farmers) are suffering out there, and we really need to get this problem under control sooner than later.”