ROGGEN (AP) – Sen. Michael Bennet this week got a close look at a new strain of wheat that combines the nutritional benefits of whole wheat with the taste of refined white flour, and is adapted to growing in dry conditions and resistant to certain viruses.
But talks of the innovative crop were simply a jumping-off point for larger issues at hand.
At Cooksey Farms near Roggen, northeast of Denver, Bennet, D-Colo., met with local producers, members of the Colorado Wheat Research Foundation, the Colorado Association of Wheat Growers and officials from Colorado State University to discuss funding needs for agricultural research – such as the efforts at CSU that produced the on-hand Snowmass Wheat variety.
Resources in the farm bill are critical to fostering such research, Bennet said.
Bennet’s stop in southern Weld County was the first of his Eastern Plains Listening Tour – aimed at highlighting issues for rural Coloradans, including passing the bipartisan immigration and farm bills.
Cooksey Farms recently began growing Snowmass Wheat, which – in addition to its milling and bread-baking qualities and resistance to dry conditions and viruses – is also found to be high-yielding and profitable.
Scott Haley, a CSU professor who developed the Snowmass variety, was on hand Monday.
Haley and others noted that Snowmass Wheat was developed – through cross breeding and not genetic modification – by using research supported by the farm bill.
The current farm bill is set to expire Sept. 30.
While farm bill research dollars already have done much for farmers and agricultural production, more is needed, according to Bennet, Haley and Jerry Cooksey – one of the owners and operators of Cooksey Farms.
They spoke of research dollars needed to solve problems such as Ug99 – a lineage of wheat-stem rust that’s present in fields in several countries in Africa and the Middle East and could spread rapidly – potentially causing a wheat-production disaster.
They discussed the wheat-stem sawfly – a pest that’s traditionally a stranger in Colorado wheat fields, but seen recently in a farm about 40 miles away from Roggen, Cooksey said.
The existing farm bill was put in place in 2008 and originally set to expire on Sept. 30, 2012, but after lawmakers in Washington failed to agree on a new farm bill last year, an extension was put in place.
With lawmakers still struggling on the issue, some wonder if another farm bill extension is on the way.
As a member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, Bennet helped write the farm bill version that passed through the Senate in June.
Talks in the House haven’t been as productive.
In June, the House rejected a farm bill that would have cut $2 billion annually from the federal food-stamp program, largely because those cuts weren’t deep enough.
In July, the House made some progress, passing a farm policy-only bill, by a 216-208 vote.
Much debate, though, remains about the food-stamp program – which accounts for about 80 percent of the spending in the existing farm bill – and other issues.
“It would be nice if we were at a point where we could have a conference with the House and discuss these issues,” said Bennet, a member of the Farm Bill Conference Committee that will eventually work out and negotiate the differences between the House and Senate versions of the farm bill. “That’s where we’ve needed to be for a long time.”
