The future of U.S. agriculture remains tied to this nation’s competitiveness in world trade. Our country must become more aggressive and assume its leadership role in trade negotiations.

It’s past time for our nation’s president and congressional delegation to lead this trade train. Political posturing and lack of cooperation on both sides of the aisle hasn’t worked. Our elected leaders are sent to Washington on behalf of this nation’s people. It’s time for them to work on behalf of U.S. farmers and ranchers, manufacturing, business and every other sector throughout this great nation.

While U.S. agriculture would like to remain positive about the possibility of keeping current trade agreements viable (NAFTA) while negotiating new deals, it appears the Trump Administration has repeatedly threatened to withdraw the United States from trade agreements. He scuttled TPP during the first week of his presidency.

The president says he’s doing this to secure a better deal for workers in the United States. He’s even placed recent tariffs on U.S. trade with Canada and Mexico. This includes tariffs on Canadian paper and solar panels and washing machines from Mexico.

The Trump Administration needs to understand how important it is for U.S. agriculture to trade with our nearby partners north and south of the border, says Kansas Farm Bureau President Rich Felts. The Montgomery County farmer says it’s vital to continue trade throughout the world.

Sanctions do not work – they only hurt our nation’s ability to trade, Felts continues. Each time we impose new sanctions, we surrender yet another market to competitors who are only too willing to sell in our absence.

In the case of agriculture, if the world’s trade barriers were removed, this country could increase agricultural commodity sales. U.S. farmers could also supply the raw materials for an estimated $40 billion per year in exports of high-valued processed foods from new plants located primarily in rural areas.

“We’re at a crossroads with trade today,” Felts says. “In addition to manufacturing, U.S. trade must include and strongly support crops and livestock this nation’s farmers and ranchers produce.

“Our government must commit to becoming the best we can be in international trade,” the Montgomery County grain farmer says. “If we conducted trade the same way we produced food, we wouldn’t have trouble moving agricultural products to people who need them overseas.”

The United States has the climate, cropland and know-how to supply agricultural products to feed the nations of the hungry world. Our country has the world’s best infrastructure. We have some of the most productive farmers and ranchers on this planet.

It’s time for the political leadership of this country to view American agriculture as one of the premier growth opportunities. For far too long the east and west coasts, and its vast populations receive top billing above those who live in the Heartland. Those who supply much of the world with the healthiest, most affordable food.

For too long, agriculture has taken a back seat to other sectors of this nation’s economy. With only 1 percent of the U.S. population farming and ranching, we are often overlooked.

Remember, our entire rural economy depends on agricultural exports and farm income, Felts says. Local Kansas banks, implement dealers, grocery stores, even health services, depend on our ability to market wheat, corn, soybeans, cattle and hogs abroad.

In 2015, U.S. ag exports totaled approximately $133 billion. This amounts to 25 percent of all U.S. production of grains, feeds, livestock and horticultural products.

Incidentally, nearly half of the wheat from Kansas and other Midwestern states is exported each year.

“We must become more aggressive in conducting trade agreements,” Felts says. “The administration should assign people in our trade offices around the globe to conduct trade on this nation’s behalf.

“Our secretary of agriculture must make international trade a top priority and work it,” the Kansas Farm Bureau president says. “Without strong trade agreements that give us free access to the world marketplace, we cannot prosper in agriculture or any other business that depends so much on exports.”

While President Trump has expressed a preference for bilateral trade agreements, where’s the progress?

Negotiate trade deals beneficial for our country – don’t just talk about them.

Whether such negotiations are bilateral or multilateral should not matter. What is important is that this “business” president work out trade deals – now.

U.S. agriculture cannot afford to be placed behind other sectors of our economy when this nation trades. Agriculture’s position on the trade pecking order is breaking our back. Farm and ranch exports must be moved to the top of our U.S. trade priorities along with manufacturing.

John Schlageck, a Hoxie native, is a leading commentator on agriculture and rural Kansas.

Kansas will have its 47^th Governor, Dr. Jeff Colyer, sworn in January 31^st at 3:00. Governor Brownback will be leaving to be the U.S. Ambassador to International Religious Freedom.

With a cold, blustery and snowy day, hundreds of pro-life Kansans marched in the annual March for Life held in Topeka. January 23^rd marked the 45^th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Roe vs Wade which made abortion legal in the United States. It was heartwarming to me, even though we had inclement weather, to see so many people show up to support this march, including so many young people.

The Senate adopted a resolution congratulating and commending the regional finalists of the 2018 Kansas Teacher of the Year selections. With more than 100 candidates nominated, Samantha Neill from Buhler Unified School District was selected as the 2018 Teacher of the Year.

Last Monday the amusement/agritourism bill was read in and it has been issued a bill number

S.B. 307, for those of you interested in following this legislation. A time for hearings has not been decided but should be scheduled in the near future. I will let all of the counties with amusement rides know when the hearings will be held. I had a very productive meeting with the House chair of Fed and State, John Barker, and vice chair, Ron Highland concerning changes needed for home owned carnival rides.

The State Finance Council met this week and approved the construction of a new Lansing prison. The vote was originally scheduled for January 4^th but was delayed to allow legislators time to gather information on the plan. Under the approved plan developed by KDOC and CoreCivic, the new facility will have 1,920 maximum and minimum-security beds and 512 medium security beds. Technology and design upgrades will allow the KDOC to reduce staffing from 682 to 371.

This week legislators heard from hospital representatives, district attorneys, county sheriffs and leaders from community health centers about the growing mental health crisis in Kansas. A brief background was explained on how both the state and federal governments have cut funding to mental health over the past 60 years. This has resulted in Kansas emergency rooms and local jails being filled with people needing treatment. S.B. 195 will address some of these issues and should be passed out of community next week.

Next Tuesday, Ag and Natural Resources will be working on S.B. 263, concerning industrial hemp. Many constituents have shared their ideas concerning this legislation and may be interested in attending this meeting.

Hard Facts:

• The Kansas economy grew 2.1% in the third quarter of 2017, missing the expectation of 2.8% growth.

• Since December 2016, Kansas gained 6,300 seasonally adjusted total nonfarm jobs and 8,000 private sector jobs.

Kansas Department of Agricultural reports: Agriculture industry employs nearly 247,000 Kansans accounting for 13% of the state’s workforce.  In 2017 Kansas agriculture was valued at nearly $68 Billion approximately 45% of the Kansas economy.

In his State-of-the-State speech, Governor Brownback proposed five goals for Kansas education. The fifth goal was for Kansas to “…offer every Kansas high school student, at no additional cost to parents, the choice of taking either the ACT college entrance exam or the Work Keys assessment.”

I have seen the bad effects of the gao kao exam in China, the GCSE across the British Commonwealth, and the high school exit exams in Japan and South Korea. These information-laden tests worldwide drive teachers to teach-to-the-test, just as the Kansas state assessments have taken away many teachers’ professionalism in curricular design. This is a major reason many veteran teachers and the best of our new teachers leave the classroom.

But the Governor’s recommendation on the ACT is a good proposal.

In contrast to state tests that turn creative teachers into test-prep drill-masters, the ACT is an aptitude
test, not an achievement test. Questions are designed to measure a student’s aptitude, or ability to apply methods and logic when they confront unique new problems, not their memorization of specific content. So it is difficult to teach-to-the-ACT. The small improvements seen in ACT test-prep sessions are due to familiarizing a student with the test format, and learning techniques we call “test-mechanics.”

The ACT should be provided free to all Kansas students. Currently, 20 states already fund the ACT test for all of their students in their senior year. That list includes neighboring Colorado and Missouri.

But over the last 5 years nationwide, the proportion of high school students aspiring to a college education has dropped by 6 percent. And there are one million fewer American students attending college today than a decade ago, a shortfall currently filled by international students. And for the first time in U.S. history, the five-year post-college cohort of Americans has less college education than the next older five-year generation. Unlike all other developed countries, the United States is becoming a less-educated society.

The 20 states that give the ACT to all high school seniors made one important discovery. Some high school seniors who would not have taken the ACT on their own, and who were not considering attending college, discovered from their ACT scores that they were indeed college-ready and college-able. America needs those students in the college classroom.

So what about the Work Keys assessment? Nationwide over the last five years, the number of students wanting to pursue vocational, technical and two-year degrees increased by 2 percent. America does have a shortage of welders and mechanics and plumbers—jobs that often pay more than a college graduate may earn. The Work Keys focus on applied math, graphic literacy, and workplace documents. But the genuine credentials are welding certificates and other real-life skill documents that are awarded by professions after high school. The generic Work Keys National Career Readiness Certificate is no substitute for the ACT.

But by far, the real benefit of adopting the ACT for every student lies in discontinuing the state assessments. In December 2016, the KSBE received a study that demonstrated the Kansas assessments and the ACT were essentially equivalent.

In addition, the ESSA that replaces No Child Left Behind specifically allows states to use the ACT in place of the high school assessments.

Providing the ACT to all Kansas seniors and ditching the redundant state assessments not only saves money, but begins a long overdue journey back to teacher professionalism, where teachers use unique teaching to educate unique students. Standards and standardized testing may work for quality control on a factory assembly line where raw materials are uniform. But students come to our classes unique and they should graduate out unique.

That was the strength of the American education system and it is time for teacher professional judgement to return to the American classroom. But adding the ACT without ending state assessments just adds more testing to our test-overloaded schools.

And any Kansas farmer knows, the more time you spend weighing them, the less time you have to feed them.