From the notebook while running around D.C.:

Members of the House Agriculture Subcommittee on Livestock, Dairy and Poultry examined USDA's animal identification program during a Hill hearing. There were several ways to consider what happened during that hearing. One, there was some good information provided from USDA's point of view about the lack of effectiveness signing up livestock producers in a voluntary program, particularly the beef cattle industry. Two, groups pretty much have their claims staked in terms of where they stand on this topic. It isn't changing. Three, the subcommittee spread debate over three panels and the one with USDA's representative, John Clifford, deputy administrator for Veterinary Services at USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection System, took nearly two hours alone. Many subcommittee members and most journalists left somewhere early in the second panel. There was too much to absorb and in reality, as one reporter put it, most of us effectively have to cutoff and limit our article lengths. So the hearing lost momentum, especially around noon when the American Soybean Association began serving a free lunch next door.

House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson, D-Minn., indicated livestock producers could face devastating financial losses if a disease hit and an animal ID program were not in place. Clifford said it could take four years to effectively create a "bookend" program that tracks an animal when it leaves a farm of origin and identifies when that animal has been slaughtered.

Talking to the Soybean Growers

Speaking to members of the American Soybean Association on Tuesday afternoon, Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack continued to build his case for "green payments" replacing direct payments for larger farmers. He had spoken at length on this topic Monday (see Monday's blog) but on Tuesday Vilsack actually put out potential numbers, suggesting that cap and trade payments could pay farmers anywhere from $25 billion to $100 billion, an interesting figure to say the least.

Vilsack also took questions from producers. Steve Wellman, a Nebraska farmer, asked Vilsack what he knew about the Average Crop Revenue Election program. Wellman said he and other farmers are getting conflicting information from the Farm Service Agency in Washington and their local county offices about what will be acceptable records to prove a five-year crop yield on a farm. Specifically, a local office had told Wellman that crop-insurance APH information would not be allowed, and that the county staff had gotten that information through conference calls with Washington. That counters information Wellman had received in Washington, and information DTN had received on the same topic. Vilsack replied the rules are still being written for ACRE so it's unclear how that will come out. Yet USDA has to make a call on this soon because ACRE sign up was expected to begin in mid-April, and expected to end June 1.

"We're still in the process of formulating those rules," Vilsack said. "So I am not quite sure how anybody could project anything about that program."

On Deck

On Thursday, Peterson's committee will draft a letter in response to President Barack Obama's budget proposal for agriculture. You know that's going to be a must-see meeting.