Agriculture secretary helping to develop nation’s trade policy
HARRISBURG – Pennsylvania’s agriculture secretary, Dennis Wolff, straddles a controversial gulf between opening global trade in farm products and bolstering the state’s No. 1 industry. But he doesn’t see the two roles as incompatible.
Wolff, a 54-year-old cattle breeder who has held the state’s top agriculture post since 2003, is now also helping to develop U.S. trade policy during one of the most contentious negotiations ever on loosening global trade in agricultural goods.
His job these days is two pronged.
On one hand, he’s looking ahead to bring home as many dollars as possible to Pennsylvania farmers from the 2007 Farm Bill, a multi-billion dollar smorgasbord of subsidies and pick-me-ups to help keep afloat the U.S. farm industry.
On the other hand, Wolff is serving as a new member of the U.S. Agricultural Advisory Committee for the Trade in Animals and Animal Products as federal officials head into World Trade Organization talks this December with the intent to rid the world of subsidies and tariffs that restrict free trade.
Critics say globalization will undermine environmental regulations and slash jobs and wages as industry moves to cheaper labor markets in developing countries, as has happened with manufacturing.
But Wolff says Pennsylvania farmers, especially those in the state’s two largest industries of poultry and livestock, will far well by being able to sell in a more open global market.
The Central American Free Trade Agreement, signed into law in August, will give dairy farmers who already own sophisticated milk processing plants a competitive edge to their southern neighbors, he said. Even the apple industry, considered vulnerable to Mexican orchards, may do well if new markets open to Canada, he added.
“Pennsylvania has quite a bit to gain,” said Wolff, whose 500-head Holstein dairy cattle farm in Columbia County specializes in exporting genetically-enhanced cow embryos. “We did well under the trade agreements.”
According to the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau, CAFTA is expected to increase Pennsylvania agricultural exports by $43 million a year. Pennsylvania has been exporting an estimated $1.5 billion annually in agricultural and forestry products, according to the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau.
In a wide-ranging interview that also touched on farmland preservation and beef consumption scares caused by Mad Cow disease, Wolff explained the future he sees for Pennsylvania farmers and how the state and federal government can help while reining in subsidies.
Wolff said Pennsylvania farmers’ needs have been largely bypassed by federal spending on agriculture, since the focus has been to subsidize Midwestern crops like soybeans, corn, rice and cotton. Still, what he’d like to see is not outright gifting to Pennsylvania’s smaller and more diversified farm businesses, but programs that provide a safety net or enhance operations at specialty farms.
That could be funding for marketing campaigns for the apple industry, or research grants to mushroom farmers, or continuing the Milk Income Loss Contract Program, which guarantees dairy farmers a certain price for milk if the market rate dips below a certain level.
Wolff admitted, though, that the MILC program would probably be looked upon as a domestic subsidy during world trade talks.
The Pennsylvania Farm Bureau, which represents 37,500 farmers and rural residents, is supportive of Wolff’s free-trade approach.
“Our opinion is that Pennsylvania farmers are going to win any time we can have free trade,” said Amy Van Blarcom-Lackey, the bureau’s national government relations director. “Any time we can get agricultural products outside our borders, it opens up a market internally. We see free trade as very positive with the caveat that it is fair.”
Blarcom-Lackey and Wolff said it’s possible to support global trade, which fills supermarkets with low-priced goods from abroad, while promoting local consumption of Pennsylvania products.
Meanwhile, Wolff said beef is safe from mad cow disease, a deadly nervous system condition caused by eating parts of infected cows, because of tight U.S. surveillance procedures. So far there have been two U.S. cases of cows testing positive for Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, the last six months ago in a Texan cow.
In August, a Wisconsin beef plant recalled more than 1,800 pounds of beef shipped to wholesalers in six states, including Pennsylvania, because a cow above the legal age limit had been slaughtered.
The mad cow issue has touched off a trade war with Japan, which banned U.S. beef before the U.S. retaliated by banning Japanese beef.
Wolff also touched on farmland preservation, noting that $80 million from the Growing Greener II bond, which voters overwhelmingly approved this spring, would go towards keeping an additional 300 farms alive out of a waiting list of 2,000 farms. The state has so far preserved 300,000 farm acres, more than any other state, Wolff said.
Some have argued that the money would be best spent preserving large and cheaper tracts of farmland in rural Pennsylvania, rather than in rapidly developing suburbs where farms are becoming islands boxed in by congested roads and new housing tracts.
“That’s a debate you can have,” said Wolff. “Unfortunately, areas where farms are under the most pressure is also where the best quality soils are.”
Wolff said the goal of the program is not to provide open space, even as many suburbanites see that as the primary advantage.
“We want to see these farms continue to be farmed, not necessarily as open space,” he said.
That can happen by putting an emphasis on contiguous farm properties. In his most recent trip to Bucks County, Wolff said he visited a couple farms growing an innovative compilation of products, from grass-fed beef to mums and pumpkins and ornamental corn stalks.
This fall, Wolff is visiting seven farming communities across the state to get their input on what Pennsylvania should advocate for in the 2007 Farm Bill. On Oct. 19, he will be in Eighty-Four to talk with western Pennsylvania farmers, including those from Fayette, Greene and Beaver counties.
Alison Hawkes can be reached at 717-705-6330 or ahawkes@calkins-media.com