Montana Farm Bureau Federation President Bob Hanson, a White Sulphur Springs rancher, had the opportunity to discuss issues of concern with U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack and Secretary Jon Tester during a breakfast meeting with 19 other ag producers and industry leaders yesterday morning in Helena.

“At the beginning of the meeting, they asked what we, who were representing agriculture groups across the state, would recommend U.S. Department of Agriculture should be working on in Montana. The response from everyone was unanimous—brucellosis, pine bark beetles and predators,” said Hanson.

Vilsack agreed to talk with APHIS in detail about the brucellosis issue and how it’s negatively affecting Montana producers, was going to take the concerns of wolf vs. livestock problems back to Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar, along with the idea of using pine bark beetle kill for biomass or other wood products.

Hanson was pleased that the letter he hand delivered to both Tester and Vilsack covered issues that ran closely along the lines of the group discussion.

“One issue was allowing us to aggressively address beetle kill in national forests in Montana, meaning don’t create more wilderness that restricts good scientific protocol for caring for our forests. As for the brucellosis issue, I urged Vilsack to talk to USDA-APHIS about implementing a temporary emergency rule to control diseases within the ruminant wildlife population,” explained Hanson. “I also commented on the economic importance of passing three outstanding Free Trade Agreements with Colombia, Panama and Korea, which could represent roughly $3 billion in new U.S. exports to those countries; and, finally, including $10 million in our FY 2011 budget to complete the Animal Biosciences Facility at Montana State University.”

Hanson concluded, “It was a positive meeting, and later on, at another meeting I attended with Secretary Vilsack and Senator Tester, Vilsack talked about the productivity of modern American agriculture and the fact that one farmer feeds 150 people. The fact that Secretary Vilsack took time to have meaningful discussion with agricultural group leaders in Montana is certainly a big step in the right direction.”