Farm Bill 2014 in-depth sessions ‘packing them in’ (VIDEO)

By BECKY KISER
Hays Post

The morning session of the 2014 Farm Bill program next Wednesday, Feb. 11, at the K-State Ag Research Center in Hays is completely full, so the organizers have added an afternoon session.

“We have 263 people signed up for the morning session,” Ellis County Extension Agriculture Agent Stacy Campbell said Thursday. “The speakers offered to stay and conduct another program in the afternoon, so we will. We’ve extended the RSVP deadline to Monday, Feb. 9.

“McPherson actually had to turn away people at their session so I think we’ll see some people driving to Hays from that area. Goodland had nearly 500 participants,” Campbell added.

K-State Research and Extension is teaming with several sponsors to host 15 educational meetings across the state as farmers face major decisions by the end of March under the new farm bill. Once a commodity program is elected, that farm serial number is locked in for the next five years, according to Campbell.

“This program will start off with the ‘nuts and bolts’ of the 2014 Farm Bill. Dr. Art Barnaby, one of our K-State agricultural economists is going to be discussing it. He really knows a lot about the Farm Bill–he deals with it on a daily basis.

“Then after that, Mykel Taylor, another one of our agricultural economists, will show how to use the (Excel-based) decision aid tool that K-State and Oklahoma State University have developed,” Campbell explained.

Joining them will be Greg Kerr of the Ellis County Farm Service Agency.

Campbell encourages those planning to attend Wednesday’s half-day session to “do a little homework first.”

“If you don’t know much yet about the farm bill, I would encourage you to spend a little time on the K-State Research & Extension Ag Economics web site looking over some of the farm bill information. It could help out in better understanding the presentation.”

The Feb. 11 afternoon session starts at 1:30 p.m. with registration at 1 p.m. To RSVP for the second session, call the Ellis County Extension Office at (785) 628-9430 or email Theresa at [email protected].