So earlier this week, Bill Graff – Illinois farmer, blogger and former head of Illinois FSA – offered his thoughts on NCGA's proposed farm program, the Agricultural Disaster Assistance Program, or ADAP. Yesterday, he contrasted ADAP and ACRE. Today, further thoughts on the whole shebang. Take it away, Bill… Bill: Crop Insurance is very good for risk management as long as your spring price is OK. If we have a huge drop in commodity prices then crop insurance is not so…

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A couple weeks ago, NCGA rolled out their farm program proposal: ADAP, or Agricultural Disaster Assistance Program. Like every other government program, it has its ins and outs and will undoubtedly work better for some than for others. To help dissect the proposal, I asked Bill Graff - an Illinois farmer who spent nearly 8 years as head of Illinois FSA, administering such programs – for his take on it. As he says, "do not go out and buy a farm based on what I think may or may not…

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Last week, I asked for your opinions on what the next farm programs should look like. Early feedback?  In no particular order: *Scrap direct payments ("Do we really need them with $7 corn? It's just plain silly.") *Cap direct payments *Define small farms (maybe under 1,000 acres) and come up with equation that is fair to them *Good luck getting anything out of the House *Simplify crop insurance ("The government would save millions or billions of dollars by just offering the…

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Earlier this week, Maple Park farmer Steve Pitstick did an interview with Fox News, talking farm subsidies. And in a piece titled, "It's All Your Money: How much are farmers costing you?" (a title that doesn't exactly beg lack of bias), Pitstick responds that most corn and soybean farmers would be fine if direct payments went away, but crop insurance is still vital to the health of the industry. "It's kind of a national security thing, to produce a good crop every year to feed the world…

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After 18 months of non-action, President Obama has filled the legally-mandated ag and food adviser spot on his policy staff. His choice – Illinois native David Lazarus – has been applauded by the Washington ag press, and appears to be a sound pick who may actually understand the agriculture that exists beyond local, small and organic. Interestingly, I got to know Lazarus during the presidential campaign when he became the key force in Obama's camp for getting a slate of…

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