April 22

Sens. Tom Harkin (D-IA) and Bob Kerrey (D-NE) have introduced a bill to restore the farmer owned reserve.  Helping farmers financially by holding commodities off the market could increase prices, they say.  It's one way to help farmers "through these hard times."

For feed grains, they say, a "general rule of thumb" is that every 100 million bushels removed from the immediate market stream generate a price increase of 3-5 cents per bushel.  A 600 million bushel feed grain reserve could increase corn prices by 25 cents a bushel.  The legislation authorizes a reserve of 1 billion bushels of corn and 300 million bushels of wheat.

The legislation would restore the FOR, a program that reimburses farmers for storing surplus production until prices improve.