From Washington with John Block

Let me open by reading a statement from Rep. Glenn Thompson (R-PA). “Without a robust rural America, people in the city are going to wake up hungry, and the more I learn about cotton, they’re going to wake up naked too.” I like that quote. We don’t want the consuming public to forget the essential value of the farmers, ranchers, and whole ag industry. [READ MORE…]

It seems that this year we have faced more costly climate challenges than I can remember. Hot dry weather in many states has provided ideal conditions for wildfires. [READ MORE…]

I will be going to the farm in Illinois this Friday and will update you on what I see back there next week. Today I plan to touch on a number of subjects that are in the headlines every day. [READ MORE…]

We are still living with inflation. Energy prices may be down a little, but still very high. The food that we love costs much more. Ground beef surged up 11% from last year. The cost of bacon jumped 9.3%. Chicken breast is up almost 24%. From the farm and ranch perspective our prices needed to go up. Our costs for raising the crops that feed our animals continue to hit new peaks. [READ MORE…]

We are still living with inflation. Energy prices may be down a little, but still very high. The food that we love costs much more. Ground beef surged up 11% from last year. The cost of bacon jumped 9.3%. Chicken breast is up almost 24%. From the farm and ranch perspective our prices needed to go up. Our costs for raising the crops that feed our animals continue to hit new peaks. [READ MORE…]

We always put a high priority on our crop land – corn, beans, wheat and vegetables. Let’s spend some time focusing on our forest land today. We all know that we need lumber from our forests to build our houses. With the extreme heat, wildfires are burning down our forests. Ag Secretary Vilsack tells us that the Forest Service has invested $100 million this year in reforestation. That is more than 3 times the investment last year.
[READ MORE…]

We expected another big increase in the cost of fertilizer to feed our crops. The U.S. International Trade Commission voted to approve new increased duties on imports of ammonium nitrate from Russia and Trinidad and Tobago. Those countries export to us more than 80% of the nitrogen fertilizer that we use. Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and more than 80 members of Congress sent a letter urging the ITC to suspend the process. No more tariffs. Suspension was approved. Thank you. [READ MORE…]

This week like almost every other week we have a host of difficult challenges facing us. Countries all over the world are experiencing an explosion in food costs. There is hunger and even famine in some regions. With Russia blocking Ukrainian wheat, we face more suffering. In some cases, Russian troops set fire to the ready to harvest wheat fields – burned them to the ground. [READ MORE…]

This week we celebrated the birth of our nation on July 4th. 246 years ago, our founders wrote the Constitution that set the guideposts for us to live by. [READ MORE…]