Page 105 - Farm Bill Series_The 7 Things You Should Know

And even among its most stalwart advocates, congressional staff say that support for RD is often
splintered in respective silos. For example, rural water advocates do a great job lobbying for
water programs and the same is true with the rural electric cooperatives, advocating for low-
interest loans. And organizations like NTCA-The Rural Broadband Association have been
actively promoting expansion of broadband.

But during the last farm bill debate, rural advocates say there was not a strong enough
coalition of all rural and farm groups “beating the drum” for a more comprehensive
approach to job creation in rural areas.

“Everybody has their top-line interests. It’s not that those interested in Title one aren’t interested
in RD (Title Six), it’s just that they may be more interested in protecting some parts of the farm
bill more than others,” recalled a source who worked on the last farm bill.

Long-time staff members remember seeing some renewed interest in RD from farm leaders,
starting in early 2000.

Farm groups have RD history

“The lack of profitability in production agriculture has
many growers looking for ways to extract greater value
from their production.”

While this quote could have been echoed just about anywhere
in 2017, that was National Corn Growers Association
President Lee Klein, testifying before the House Agriculture
Committee in 2000.

At the time, Klein said that “value-added is perhaps the
most talked about trend at the coffee shop today.” And Former NCGA President Lee Klein
NCGA was at the forefront of looking for new ways for
growers to make a buck. He went on to describe how the 1980 farm crisis caused a spurt of
interest in rural development and alternative agriculture, both of which tend to move people
away from or out of traditional crop production. But two decades later, the value-added
discussion seemed to be “geared toward using modern technology to extract more value as
opposed to getting out of production agriculture.”

Klein led one of the nation’s largest commodity organizations, focused primarily on helping corn
farmers. NCGA saw how the Renewable Fuel Standard, created as part of the Energy Policy Act
of 2005, later helped spark an ethanol boom. As a result, small ethanol plants started popping up
in small towns across Nebraska and the Midwest. For some communities, it was the only new
employer they’d seen in decades.

But Klein also understood how difficult it was to create jobs and opportunities to draw young
people back to farms and, more broadly, rural America. At that time, he lived near the small
town of Battle Creek – population 1,158 – in Madison County, Nebraska. (See highlighted
county on map.)

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