Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome to Missouri Corn Talk, your go to weekly agriculture podcast delivering fast, reliable updates on market development efforts, ethanol demand, and the issues shaping today's corn industry. I'm your host, David Geiger. Corn growers are making their voices heard from Washington, D.C. to Jefferson City. This week on Missouri Corn Talk, we continue our conversation with Missouri Corn Director of Public Policy Derek Steen to talk about a busy stretch for Missouri Corn Growers association members.
Derek, you were in D.C. primarily dealing with ethanol and fertilizer issues in May, which we spoke on a lot last week. As you were working on that, have you heard much about the farm bill and energy prices in general?
[00:00:38] Speaker B: To your question about just high energy prices right now, gasoline, diesel fuel, obviously the quick upswing and diesel prices in particular are certainly adding insult to injury, I think, to crop farmers right now as they're in the fields trying to get things planted. Diesel prices are extremely high and I don't know what the solution is there except hopefully some of the conflict around the world that's, that's caused some of those spikes will die down as the year goes on. Those kinds of issues are well out of the control of the hands of farmers and even lawmakers to some degree. So we'll have to just wait and see on the energy price side. But, you know, we're hopeful that those prices will come down by year's end. On your question about farm bill and E15 and these other big policy issues that we've been working on for years, I think the will is there to get these things across the finish line. I know Congress in general has strong support for farmers, and it's an election year. You got to remember that. So election years help drive legislation as well, because they need to go back to their constituents to show that they've accomplished things and accomplished things for their, especially for rural senators and rural reps they work for. So I think there's the motivation there is to move these policies along and get them passed this year. What's important for us is that we continue to keep the pressure, and when I say us, I mean farmers to keep the pressure on Congress to keep these things moving and to keep their attention on them. And so, you know, part of our work at Missouri Corn Growers and as a staff person is not only to, to help represent them on their behalf, but also to help, you know, ensure that farmers are continuing to communicate that and stress that importance directly, you know, to their elected officials, whether it's at the state or the federal level. And that's something that's Going to be extremely important this year.
[00:02:28] Speaker A: E15 farm bill on the Hill definitely considered legislative wins. These are Missouri Corn priorities helping to get across the finish line. And that also includes the MAS BDA tax credit as well as some regulatory certainty for Missouri Agriculture as well. Can you tell us about that Missouri side and what works being done there?
[00:02:52] Speaker B: Yeah, you know, we've been talking about all the things going on in Washington, D.C. but, you know, it's also been an active time here in Missouri in Jefferson City. You know, I'll just start that. We have a great policy team here at Missouri Corn. We have a great board of directors that helps set our priorities every year, both, both at the state and federal level.
And, you know, we, we accomplished several good wins, solid wins in the state Capitol. And so those two, as you mentioned, what we call the MASBA is the Missouri's Ag Small Business Development Authority. It's housed in the Missouri Department of Agriculture. It was a tax credit extension bill. So there's a number of tax credits that's, that help support Missouri agriculture. They help incentivize investments in ag processing that adds value to Missouri ag products. But those tax credits have an expiration date, and so we've had to renew those from time to time. And it's important to renew those ahead of time to ensure that there's no gaps where they become expired. We don't want that. So we, we actually started working on this last year, and this year we were successful in getting those tax credits extended until 2033. So these tax credits will, will be good until 2033, in which time we'll, you know, we'll, we'll work on extending them again. But I'll just remind people that these tax credits were, were really instrumental in getting the ethanol and biodiesel plants built and constructed and operating in Missouri without, without these credits, that probably would not have happened here in Missouri. But the tax credits help address other areas of ag, including meat processing and even in the forestry products area, even some urban farming incentives that are important for our, our folks in the city. So a number of ag tax credits got extended this year, and that was a huge win, a big win for Missouri agriculture. The second one that we focused on, our second top priority was a permitting reform bill targeting really, Missouri farmland, Missouri agricultural farmland, really a bill that helped provide clarity and certainty to our landowners and our farmers in Missouri that their common farming practices that, that they do day in and day out will never be subject to any sort of environmental permitting. And this kind of goes without saying, this is common sense stuff. But unfortunately, Missouri law just wasn't clear in that. And even though our partners at Missouri Department of Natural Resources had no plans to start permitting everyday practices, we wanted to make sure the law was clear in that regard too. And so we helped, worked with some sponsors to get some legislation passed to change the law to ensure that that was the case from this point forward. And again, we were able to get that approved in the General assembly, both by the House and the Senate. All of both of these bills ended up getting passed on the very last day, almost in the last hour last Friday of session. It's often the way things work after, you know, four or five, six months of grueling session work here in Jeff City, it comes down to one day a week, the last week where lots of these things ultimately get passed. And that's kind of how things went this year. And proud of our policy staff for, for all the hard work that they put in long days in the Capitol to get that accomplished. But also we had growers in the Capitol almost every week working with legislators on these issues as well. That really helps get it across the finish line.
[00:06:08] Speaker A: I wanted to make a quick note on advocacy because that's what all this is about. That's the, a big purpose of Missouri corn growers is making sure voices are heard. Can you talk about the, the importance of continuing to advocate for these priorities and these issues that you've managed to see so much progress on?
[00:06:25] Speaker B: We as staff can only do so much. Like when we bring growers into the Capitol, whether it's the state or in Washington D.C. our messages that we, that we continue to communicate as staff throughout the year are amplified. It's important to put the farmer voice behind the work that we do as an association. So, you know, whether it's corn of the Capitol, which is our state capital, advocacy efforts where we bring growers and our board in almost on a weekly basis to talk with our state lawmakers as well as our fly ins into DC where we bring again throughout the year, three or four times a year, we'll fly into DC and bring board members and other corn leaders to meet directly with federal lawmakers. That's where the action happens. Lawmakers want to hear directly from farmers. They pay attention, they're attentive to them when we're meeting with farmers. And that's when we always can tell that we get movement. And so that advocacy work directly by farmers is important and ultimately is what helps us be successful in the long run. And so that's one reason why? We're constantly saying that whether it's on shows like this or in meetings, we need our members and our farmers to contact their legislators and talk to them about what's going on across on their farm and across the countryside in the ag industry. So communicating those struggles, those challenges really do help move the needle.
[00:07:51] Speaker A: I'm glad you brought that up because farmer engagement is a big part of how all this works as well. Whether you have the mission to Washington D.C. like you had, or it's corn at the Capitol, can you give ways for farmers to be engaged moving forward
[00:08:05] Speaker B: this year, the ways in which farmers can get more engaged? Obviously they're not a member of Missouri Corn Growers. We'd love for them to become a member and that'll probably get them more information as to how to and when they can engage. You know, we try and provide easy opportunities for them to do that and, you know, we'll do the legwork and, and schedule the meetings and help things get them streamlined. So when they do, you know, make the drive to Jeff City or the fly to D.C. it's well worth their time. And it's streamlined and it's efficient. Here's the thing. We know our farmers are hard at work day in and day out all year round. They don't feel like they probably have the time to make the trek in to town into just city to do this. We know that we try and make it easy for them as well as a very efficient time for them to do that. So that's our job and they just need to reach out like during state session, we schedule opportunities by district and it's really just a matter of coming into town for a day and putting in the time in those offices in Washington D.C. expensive to go to Washington D.C. but we can always call our members of Congress and we send out call to actions with our partner National Corn Growers association. And you know, they should be getting emails if they're a member on how they can directly communicate either by phone or by email to their members of Congress on important issues when they come
[00:09:24] Speaker A: up with the Missouri Corn Growers Association. Derek Steen is the Director of Public Policy. Derek, thanks so much for your time.
[00:09:30] Speaker B: Thank you for having me. And we look forward to the summertime here.
[00:09:33] Speaker A: And that's it for this week's Missouri Corn Talk. This podcast is made possible by the Missouri Corn Merchandising Council and the Missouri Corn Growers Association. To learn more about the work being done on behalf of Missouri corn farmers, visit mocorn.org I'm David Geiger. Thanks for listening.
