FARGO, N.D. -- Jerry Hagstrom, Washington, D.C., correspondent for Agweek, will be a featured speaker in the Red River Farm Network 2012 Big Iron Seminar.
Hagstrom, founder of the Hagstrom Report, an agricultural political electronic daily newsletter, and a contributor to Telvent DTN and others, will offer a farm policy update at 10:30 a.m., Sept. 12. The RRFN will run three days of seminars Sept. 11 to 13 at its familiar Issues and Events Center tent, just south of the Big Iron office building at the Red River Valley Fairgrounds in West Fargo, N.D.
Hagstrom says he'll provide late reports on whether Congress can finish a 2012 farm bill by the end of the fiscal year in September, or at least by the end of the calendar year. "I will have attended the Republican and Democratic national conventions and will hope to convey what I might learn there about the prospects for the farm bill and the elections in rural America," Hagstrom says.
Congress is under much more budget pressure in 2012 than it was for the 2008 farm bill, Hagstrom says.
"There's no extra money for anything," he says. "The bill is much more of a regional debate and a debate between traditionalists, who want to provide programs for farmers and hungry people on one side, and those whose top priority is to reduce the federal deficit and reduce government spending."
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The full line-up of speakers and topics so far scheduled is:
Sept. 11 - 10:30 a.m.: wetland and drainage update, Natural Resource Conservation Service officials, North Dakota and Minnesota; 1:30 p.m.: market seminar, Frayne Olson, North Dakota State University, Virgil Robinson, Dupont Pioneer, and Mike Krueger, The Money Farm; 2:30 p.m.: Land Values seminar.
Sept. 12 - 10:30 p.m.: Hagstrom; 1:30 p.m.: market seminar, Tomm Pfitzenmaier, Summit Commodities, Phillip Claussen, FC Stone, Inc., and Betsy Jensen, Prairie Grains Magazine; 2:30 p.m.: land values seminar;
Sept. 13 - 10:30 a.m.: ag career summit, NDSU President Dean Bresciani, Natasha Mortenson, president of the Minnesota Association of Agricultural Educators, Zach Fore, area agronomist with DuPont Pioneer, and Mark Haugland, district sales manager for Bayer CropScience; 1:30 p.m.: Market Siminar, Mike North, First Capitol Ag; Steve Wagner, Country Hedging; Brad Paulson, Northern Crops Marketing and Investments
