IFB prez calls for free trade

But speech at annual Illinois Farm Bureau meeting also attacks ‘green initiative,’ Pritzker fair tax

Richard Guebert Jr., president of the Illinois Farm Bureau, addresses the organization’s annual meeting in Chicago this weekend. (FarmWeekNow.com)

By Ted Cox

The head of the Illinois Farm Bureau bemoaned the “perfect storm” of foul weather and adverse political issues that plagued agriculture this year in his speech to the group’s annual meeting in Chicago this weekend.

IFB President Richard Guebert Jr. said, “I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to be done with 2019 and turn the page to 2020.”

Guebert called for free trade and told Illinois farmers, “We need to change the debate to demonstrate how agriculture can play a positive role in addressing climate issues.” But he immediately followed that by taking swipes at what he labeled “the green initiative,” and he attacked the “fair tax” advocated by Gov. Pritzker, saying it’s “not the answer” and that next fall’s referendum to change the state constitution and allow a graduated income tax “must be defeated.”

Guebert cited the issues they’d all combatted this year: President Trump’s continuing 18-month-old trade war, an African swine fever outbreak in China that deprived corn and soybean farmers of a critical feed market, “lower-than-we’d-like commodity prices,” and “major, major weather challenges.” Striking a keynote theme of pursuing unity in the face of those tests, he added, “We weather these storms by being stronger together.”

Calling the statewide spring flooding that hit Illinois “unprecedented,” Guebert said, “It was eerie to see unplanted fields.” The 20 million prevented-plant acres, as of September, set a U.S. record. Things didn’t get better with a “challenging harvest,” he added, which saw 7 inches of rain fall in some areas, followed by “snow for Halloween.”

Guebert said, “We’re in the sixth year of depressed commodity prices and low farm income” and pointed out that “40 percent of farm income came from government farm payments,” including trade bailout payments under the Market Facilitation Program and disaster aid.

“This is not how farmers want to operate,” Guebert said. “We want to earn our income from the marketplace.”

“This is not how farmers want to operate. We want to earn our income from the marketplace.”

Illinois Farm Bureau President Richard Guebert Jr. (FarmWeekNow.com Video)

He cited how retaliatory tariffs in Trump’s ongoing 18-month trade war were “focusing particularly on ag products,” with the result that soybean exports to China were down 53 percent, or 546 million bushels. “We need President Trump to demonstrate results by resolving trade disputes and advancing new trade agreements, and we need Congress to stand up and support trade,” Guebert said. “Members of Congress say they support farmers. They need to prove it by voting yes on trade agreements.” He called that a “future litmus test for our congressmen.”

In July, the US-China Business Council issued a report finding that Illinois suffered the worst losses in Trump’s trade war with China, losing $1.86 billion in exports from 2017 to 2018, far outpacing Iowa in second place with $1.16 billion in losses.

Guebert also said farmers felt betrayed by the Trump administration’s wavering support for ethanol and other biofuels under the Renewable Fuel Standard. According to Guebert, “ethanol growth has slowed,” due to waivers granted to oil refineries by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency so that they don’t have to meet demands to increase ethanol production. “Boy, have they been granted the last two years” under President Trump, he added. As a result, where waivers granted under the Obama administration cut production 690 million gallons, some 85 exemptions granted from 2016 through 2018 cut production 4 billion gallons. Biodiesel alone, he said, was down 667 million gallons, with a $6.4 billion impact.

“The administration listened” to farm complaints “in October and amended an agreement to reestablish the integrity of the RFS — or we thought so,” Guebert said. “But the U.S. EPA must not have been listening,” in that the eventual rule that was implemented “fell short” of what had been promised. He insisted, “The farm bureau will continue to fight the oil industry to protect the integrity of the RFS.”

After advocating for free trade, Guebert identified two other key goals for the bureau next year: changing the debate on climate change and implementing a political agenda. Those two goals dovetailed, but also drew potential political battle lines.

Guebert almost apologized to some farmers when he acknowledged that the overwhelming scientific evidence supports the theory of climate change and the need to limit greenhouse gases. He insisted, however, that “it is time for farmers to move beyond playing defense and take the offense in this discussion,” adding, “We need to be at the table.”

He touted how the Trump administration had cut back a 2015 Obama administration order to protect the “Waters of the United States” — an initiative that had been backed by the Sierra Club and other environmental groups. Guebert derided “crazy ideas like the green initiative that would drive our country backwards,” and defended IFB’s current climate policy: “We oppose any regulations or treaties relative to global climate change that will unfairly impact U.S. agriculture and the U.S.economy.”

He was unsparing in his attack on Pritzker’s fair tax, which goes before voters in November in a bid to change the state constitution to allow a progressive income tax. He repeated charges from fearmongering tax critics that it would “open the door to adjusting graduated tax levels to pull in more taxpayers” and that it was “only a matter of time before the General Assembly casts out the net further” to include other taxpayers.

Guebert said in no uncertain terms: “This ballot initiative must be defeated.”

Pritzker and leaders of the General Assembly have repeatedly insisted that the tax brackets they’ve agreed to implement if the fair tax is passed next year would only increase taxes on the top 3 percent of Illinois earners making more than $250,000 a year.

Guebert spoke Saturday at the IFB’s annual meeting, at Chicago’s Palmer House Hilton, which continues through Monday. FarmWeekNow.com posted a video of his speech.