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Farm agency leader talks to Rotary

• The administrator of the United States Farm Service Agency dishes on the farm bill, trade and commodities prices.

Barbara Rivera Holmes

ALBANY — While the food vs. fuel debate will in all likeliness continue, a top agricultural official said Tuesday that ethanol isn’t solely responsible for rising food costs.

“There are economists in the Farm Service Agency that do not believe that the increase in the cost of groceries is from ethanol more so than what’s going on in the rest of the world,” said Teresa Lasseter, administrator of the U.S. Farm Agency Service of the United States Department of Agriculture.

The fact is, she said, that economies such as that of China and India are doing better, thereby people have more spending power.

“It’ll affect everything. ... We are going to compete,” she said. “That’s why trade is so important.”

Lasseter said the United States produces enough food to meet demand, she said, and must “continue to teach other countries how to farm, grow crops, spread our knowledge.”

“The commodity price is not as much a factor as the transportation, the packaging. ... Not as much as the news makes you believe,” said Lasseter, a Tifton native with residences near Washington, D.C., and in Moultrie, who was in town Tuesday to speak with Dougherty County Rotarians.

Although a federal official with numerous credits to her name, Lasseter, a graduate of Abraham Baldwin College in Tifton, said Tuesday that, “I’m a south Georgia girl who knows how to appreciate agriculture.”

There are several challenges facing America’s producers, and one of the biggest is the holdup on a new farm bill.

The bill dictates details of the 100 farm programs offered to the nation’s 2 million agricultural producers; farm loan programs through the $30 billion line of credit with the U.S. Department of Treasury; and disaster and federal crop insurance programs.

The current bill was good through 2007, but has been extended until a Congress passes a new bill.

That legislation, Lasseter said, is in conference committee. She is hopeful, she said, that something will come out of that.

“It could be on the House floor this week,” she said, “although we’ve heard that before.”

“I believe that we will have a farm bill soon,” she said. “That our leaders recognize the importance of agriculture and that they will put measures in place (for) food and fiber.”

“I’ve heard firsthand from Sen. (Saxby) Chambliss (R-Moultrie) that he’s working on it,” she said.

Despite the limbo, she said the farm loan program is safe in part because the higher commodity prices means many farmers have a little financial cushion.

“If it were three years ago,” she said, “then there would have been a real service problem.”

Still, the delay means that implementing the bill into 2,300 farm agency offices with a combined staff of 12,000 county employees and 9,000 county committee members and advisors, will take that much longer.

Implementation spans everything from understanding the bill to rewriting more dozens of handbooks to ensuring that payments are provided uniformly. Also, Lasseter said, the Farm Service Agency is working to get online in the 21st century, so many Internet and computer details must be sorted.

Lasseter said her staff is using as framework the bills that came out of the House and Senate as well as the previous farm bill.

The new bill also will address closings of agency offices, which last year sent ripples through farm communities. In the 1930s, she said, there was an FSA office in every county in the union.

“It’s such a touchy subject,” Lasseter said, “that in the farm bill we’ll get some language that says we can’t close an office” that’s more than 20 miles from another office.”

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