By DOUG GRAVES

Ohio Correspondent

PIQUA, Ohio — Calling it a “key tradition in Ohio’s 8th District,” U.S. Rep. Warren Davidson welcomed 124 attendees to the 2019 Farm Forum last Saturday in Robinson Theatre at Edison State Community College in Piqua.

The event gives those involved in farming the opportunity to hear industry experts share updates in agriculture across the state, as well as nationally. Atop the list of topics that day was trade.

“One of the things that has been long overdue is fixing our trade deals,” the Ohio Republican said in his opening remarks. “Trade has certainly benefited the ag community a lot, and as I’ve talked with folks about the importance of our export markets for the ag community.

“I’ve also talked with a lot of people who get how broken some of the agriculture markets are through either tariffs or non-tariff barriers, and how critical that is to get that solved in the big picture.”

Jack Irvin, senior director of state and national policy for the Ohio Farm Bureau Federation, spoke later about how the agricultural economy has taken a hit, losing half its income in the last five years and seeing a significant decrease in exported products like soybeans.

“Unfortunately, I think a lot of the farmers in the room are all too aware of this, but when we’re talking about the farm economy, I think it’s important to note how challenging it is out there,” he said, amid a lot of mumbling from those in attendance. “Roughly the last five years we’ve seen over a 50 percent slide in farm income.”

Irvin said that was due to a number of factors, but in later talking about the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) he spoke about how the agriculture industry needs to pay attention to trade in order to remain competitive.

“I don’t think we can stress how important trade is to agriculture,” he said, adding that with the implementation of NAFTA since 1994 agricultural trade quadrupled. Irvin noted that with just Mexico and Canada there was $40 billion a year made in agricultural trading.

“China historically has bought every third row of soybeans across the U.S.,” he said. “This past year, it was nearly zero.”

“The European Union picked up some of that slack, but U.S. soybeans have seen over a 40 percent decline in exports,” Davidson added.

Davidson fielded questions about his stance on trade agreements, such as the defunct proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), now known as the CPTPP without the United States.

“I think it’s regrettable that the TPP was not able to be accomplished,” he said. “Of course, that was coming to a close right as I was coming to Congress. During the 2016 election, both Republicans and Democrats campaigned on saying no to a deal on TPP, and the Obama administration wasn’t listening to people in regard to TPP.”

Health care was a rousing topic and Davidson criticized the lack of media coverage and the lack of a Senate vote on ending health insurance companies’ exemption from antitrust laws in 2017.

“We’re either going to go where the government runs the health care system or we’re going to turn back to the free market because the status quo really is worse than either, in a way,” he said. “There is no competition. And why would there be no competition? The health insurance companies are exempt from antitrust laws. The status quo is broken and you’ve got candidates out there campaigning for Medicare for all.”

Water quality was another hot topic for the day, and Kirk Hines, P.E. of the Ohio Department of Agriculture discussed its commitment to agriculture as well as to water quality.

“Ohio’s food and agriculture industry is the state’s largest, accounting for $124 billion in annual economic impact and one in eight Ohio jobs,” Hines said. “Ohio Governor Mike DeWine considers water quality of Lake Erie to be a top priority, and the budget he plans to introduce will demonstrate the administration’s commitment to improving water quality in the state.”

The proposed Green New Deal was brought up during the question-and-answer period that day and Davidson made his stance known, comparing it to “Marxist ideology.”

“Frankly, the Democrats didn’t campaign on being for stuff, they campaigned on resistance and against Trump,” he said. “And now the Democratic Socialists have taken over the historic Democratic Party.”

Finally, Jim Buchy, senior advisor of the Batchelder Co., spoke about 4-H and FFA. A Greenville native who served in the Ohio House until 2016, he talked about the impact these programs have made on schools in Cleveland and Cincinnati.

“The 4-H curriculum in the classroom was initiated in 2013 and schools in these cities have shown improvements in the graduation rates, thanks to these programs,” he said.

“Using East Technical High School in Cleveland as an example, that school had a four-year graduation rate of 46.5 percent and a five-year graduation rate of 57.8 percent in 2013. This school reached its highest graduation rate in recent years in 2015 with a five-year graduation rate of 80.5 percent.”

Buchy attributed that success to the FFA program, saying that last year “the valedictorian and salutatorian and the next four ranking members of the class all wore blue and gold. They were FFA members.”