By KEVIN WALKER
Michigan Correspondent

LANSING, Mich. — The National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) Michigan field office will continue to operate, despite the elimination of Michigan-funded employees.

Recently, Farm World reported that the Michigan field office would be eliminated if proposed cuts to the state budget went forward, but that was incorrect. It was also reported that federal funding of the Michigan field office is tied to matching funds provided by the state, but this is also not the case, according to Vince Matthews, deputy director of the Michigan field office.

The inaccurate information arose from an incorrect Michigan Department of Agriculture (MDA) informational bulletin about the Michigan field office, as well as a statement about the budget cuts issued by the Michigan Farm Bureau (MFB).

“It went a little too far in saying what was going to happen,” Matthews said of MFB’s statement. “Our office is mainly federal.”
“Enough funding has been found to keep one employee,” Matthews said of the three Michigan-funded employees. “It’s better than we thought.”

Of those three employees, one will retire, one will go to a different department and one will remain at the Michigan field office. The cuts will go into effect on May 4.

For fiscal year 2008, which will go into effect Oct. 1, there will be only $75,000 for Michigan specific programs, down from $326,000.
“If this is not cut further, it would allow some work to be done by federal staff on a pay-for-project basis,” Matthews said.

Although the NASS-Michigan field office will continue its work with its 20 federally funded employees, some programs that go beyond what the federal employees do will be eliminated. A paper released on April 16 by Michigan field office Director David Kleweno describes the effects of the cuts. The Michigan Agricultural Statistics Publication, which began in 1886, will be eliminated. Because of this industry representatives will not have a packaged and consistent product to promote Michigan agriculture, Kleweno writes.

The dry bean stocks report will be eliminated. This report, which costs $1,300 to produce, was reinstated in 2006 at the request of the Michigan Bean Commission and Shippers Assoc. Without it, the industry will have to guess at the total stocks position by type of dry bean. The rotational survey program will be eliminated. These surveys include fruit, vegetables, nurseries, Christmas trees and turf management. Each of these surveys goes into more detail about Michigan than the federal program.

According to the paper, $80,000 has been spent so far on the 2006-07 fruit rotational survey; the work will be wasted without more funds, however, because there will be no one to summarize the information.

Without these surveys these industries will not have current, reliable information. The turf industry in particular will suffer, since the federal program provides only basic data about the industry.
“Shifts in new fruit plantings and removals will not be known,” Kleweno writes. “The risk of planting and producing the wrong commodity mix will increase grower, packer and processor costs and reduce profit margins.”

Other Michigan field office programs to be eliminated include county estimates, the wine grape survey, equine survey, consultation services, senate and house legislative district agricultural profiles and the Statistical County Publication.

The apple storage data summarized for the Michigan Apple Committee will be done once a month rather than twice a month.

For more information about what the Michigan field office does as well as the proposed cuts, call 517-324-5300.