Finding Solutions for Farmers and Ranchers in 2024

Jan 15, 2024

In 2023, my first full year serving as executive vice president at the American Farm Bureau Federation, I enjoyed witnessing the complete cycle of the grassroots policy development process, from county Farm Bureau meetings to last year’s convention in Puerto Rico. Together, our farmer and rancher members have accomplished much, and we have the potential to do even more in 2024.

Farm Bureau took a giant step forward on the right to repair issue in 2023 by signing memorandums of understanding with five farm equipment manufacturers. The agreements formalize farmers’ rights to access tools and parts to repair their equipment. Our members called upon us to find a private solution to this issue, and we answered that challenge. Now, almost three-quarters of agricultural equipment in America is covered by right to repair agreements.

The U.S. Supreme Court handed down a major victory for America’s farmers and ranchers in its Sackett v. EPA ruling. The justices ruled unanimously that EPA overstepped its authority under the Clean Water Act. It forced EPA to rewrite the Waters of the United States rule. Our work continues to create a rule that is clear and concise, while protecting our nation’s waterways.

Farm bill

Every American should be urging Congress to pass a new farm bill as a top 2024 priority. This legislation is a critical tool to ensure our nation’s food and farm security and to meet new challenges, continue innovating and advance sustainability goals. While Congress passed an extension of the 2018 farm bill, providing short-term stability and allowing for more time to get revisions right, a new farm bill must be a priority in the new year. Supply chain challenges we experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic, trade wars and weather disasters are just a few examples of why we need modernized legislation. The farm bill has always been a bipartisan effort and we encourage lawmakers to work in that spirit to get the job done early in 2024.

Ag labor

Securing labor remains one of agriculture’s most frustrating challenges and urgent needs. The H-2A visa program doesn’t provide enough workers to meet the demand of many farms, and a flawed wage calculation system makes it difficult for many farmers to afford help. AFBF has long called for a bipartisan, workable solution for labor reform and while we were unable to find that solution in 2023, it must be a top priority for lawmakers in 2024 to create meaningful labor reform.

Trade

Many of the trade issues we faced in 2023 will continue into 2024. The U.S. Trade

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Video: The 15-Year Bet Behind Every New Variety!

Canada is trying to decide how much agricultural research capacity it can afford to lose. Brian Rossnagel believes the better question is whether the country can afford to rebuild it.

The longtime barley and oat breeder makes the case with a simple fact about his profession: the consequences of today’s decisions may not become visible for 10 or 15 years.

“Pick the right parents. That’s the biggest thing,” Rossnagel says. “If you pick the wrong parents, you’re not going to get anywhere—and you don’t know that until 10 years, 15 years later.”

That warning carries particular weight as Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada moves to reduce spending and streamline parts of its science operations. The department’s 2026–27 plan anticipates the loss of approximately 665 positions by 2028–29 and says some research will be reduced where capacity exists in academia or industry. AAFC says the changes will make its science operations more cost-effective over the long term.

For Canada’s seed industry, Rossnagel’s career illustrates what is at stake.

This fall, the retired University of Saskatchewan breeder will be inducted into the Canadian Agricultural Hall of Fame. During his 35-year career at the Crop Development Centre, he helped develop more than 100 barley and oat varieties, including CDC Austenson—one of Western Canada’s most widely grown feed barleys. His induction recognizes not only those varieties, but the collaboration and research system that made them possible.

Rossnagel is quick to emphasize that none of it was the work of one person.

“The first thing I thought about was all the other people who contributed to whatever success I and my program had over the years,” he says. “We know that it’s not an individual who does this. It’s a group—a team.”

That team extends well beyond the breeder whose name appears beside a variety. It includes technicians, pathologists, quality specialists, statisticians, regional testing sites, seed growers and industry partners. It also includes the breeders who came before and those who will carry the germplasm forward.

CDC Fraser barley, for example, moved through three breeding careers. Its parents came from Brian Harvey’s program. Rossnagel advanced the material after Harvey retired, and Aaron Beattie later guided it through registration and release.

That kind of handoff is normal in plant breeding. The person who makes the original cross may never see the resulting variety reach farmers.

It also explains why lost research capacity cannot simply be switched back on when budgets improve.

“If you shut it off, it’s very, very difficult—and particularly costly—to start it up again,” Rossnagel says. “If you have to start from scratch, it’s going to be at least 10 years before anybody notices whether you’re getting anything done or not.”

The concern is not simply how many experimental lines Canada can process. Modern equipment, statistical tools and genetic technologies allow today’s breeding programs to evaluate tens of thousands of lines—far more than Rossnagel could handle when he entered the field in the early 1970s.

But efficiency and automation do not generate every idea.

“If you pare back down, and instead of having six or seven individual scientists concentrating on wheat breeding, you go down and say three people could handle all this, well, that’s half the ideas gone,” he says. “Particularly if you happen to lose the three people who had the really neat and innovative ideas, boy, that’s a problem.”

It is a timely distinction for Canadian agriculture. Consolidating programs may preserve the volume of material moving through a system, at least initially. It may not preserve the diversity of thinking, regional knowledge or willingness to pursue unconventional crosses.

That regional knowledge matters because Canadian agriculture is not one uniform production environment. A variety suited to southern Alberta may face different disease, moisture and maturity pressures than one grown in Manitoba, Ontario or Atlantic Canada.

“Agriculture is applied biology,” Rossnagel says. “Biology, all around the Earth, moves from the poles to the equator. It does not move from Newfoundland to B.C. like politics do.”