AG OFFICIAL EYES OUTCOME OF GATT TALKS

Bruce Gardner is keeping watch on the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) talks at the London Economic Conference that began this week .

"The GATT negotiations could represent a turning point for the agriculture exports market," said Gardner Wednesday. "President Bush is facing the leaders of the European Community whose farm subsidies are a threat to U.S. farm exports."

Gardner, U.S. assistant secretary of agriculture for economics, discussed the GATT talks, new uses of agricultural products, and the new trends of agriculture for the 1990s during an address Monday at the New Trends in Agriculture noon luncheon. The event was held at the Show Me Center on the Southeast Missouri State University campus.

The two-day agricultural extravaganza continues today, with seminars scheduled from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Today's noon luncheon speaker will be Thomas J. Hoogheem, manager of Environmental Issues for Monsanto Agriculture Company at St. Louis. Hoogheem will discuss major issues facing agriculture today regarding the use of pesticides.

Two major agriculture awards including "Farmer of the Year" will be presented during today's luncheon. Awards presented Wednesday included "Stockman of the Year" honors to Glen Birk, of Jackson, and Agri-Business Award honors to Freddie Ristig of the SEMO Dairymen Association.

Today's seminars at the New Trends show will highlight crops. Wednesday seminars focused on beef and dairy production.

"We had a good turnout for day one of the show," said Dr. Taylor Bahn, events chairman for the two-day program. "Most of the seminars have been well attended, and we had more than 450 people for the noon luncheon."

Gardner stressed the need for freer trade policies, which is one of the issues being discussed at the GATT negotiations.

"American agriculture would benefit from free-trade policies," he said. "And trade is essential to U.S. agriculture. One dollar out of every five dollars realized in agriculture is from exports.

"We have seen a lot of barriers for our exports. U.S. farmers can out-produce any area in the world, but the problem is that we're battling against too many barriers. We're hoping for an easing of that situation."

Gardner, who has served as assistant secretary of agriculture for economics since October 1989, oversees the USDA's economics and statistics agencies while serving as the department's chief economist.

He said high tariffs and other restraints imposed by foreign nations have hindered efforts to sell American agricultural products abroad.

He added that the U.S. had been assured of some reforms in the European community by Ray McSherry, European Community Commissioner of Agriculture.

"McSherry has proposed some reforms of price supports for the European communities," said Gardner. "These reforms will make that area similar to the U.S., and this will be a good chance to open new trends on exports."

Another means of increasing farm markets is to research new uses of agriculture products, Gardner said.

"The big story now is ethanol," he said. "More than 325 million bushels of corn was used for production of ethanol in 1989."

Ethanol is a fuel comprised of 90 percent gasoline and 10 percent corn-based alcohol.

"Ethanol serves us in two ways," Gardner said. "It provides another use for a farm product, and it is one of the cleanest fuels produced.

"Now we need to find a way to make it cheaper. The conversion process needs some fine tuning which will cut the costs of manufacturing ethanol."

He said that research projects are being conducted by the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Energy.

"As we look to the future, we have to look for new trends in many areas," he said. "That includes new trends in international export competition, adjusting the budget, and environmental responsibilities."

He noted that the U.S. budget did effect the Agriculture Department.

"We had to make some cuts in agriculture commodity programs," Gardner said. "Now we have to depend even more heavily on foreign markets."

But U.S. corn farmers did receive some good news late Wednesday. The Soviet Union bought 39.4 million bushels of corn and sizable amounts of soybeans and soybean meal. The $156 million sale came just one day after the Kremlin bought 17.7 million bushels of corn and 350,000 metric tons of soybean meal.