Friday's meeting in Ankeny, Iowa, regarding agricultural competition issues was difficult to gauge in terms of defining real news. Administration officials said they were holding the workshops around the country to listen, and that these issues matter. The forum bounced between competition issues and patent laws involving seed to challenges in enforcing the Packers & Stockyards Act. Another reporter told me the complaints and issues raised by farmers doesn't change because she remembers hearing the same complaints more than 30 years ago. I thought that was an interesting perspective.

One of the major debates is how to handle seed patents when they expire and companies are allowed to use seed traits on a generic basis. Further, who keeps up the licensing requirements on the generic seeds, both domestic and overseas. While it's a question that has a few years to resolve, right some of the same companies in the seed industry already have a process that works in the chemical side of the business. Companies wanting to sell generic brands for pesticides still pay fees to the original patent holders largely to ensure the licensing and research on those chemicals remain current. A similar law is used in the pharmaceutical business. It would seem that a similar structure is needed in seeds to pay the original patent holder to maintain the regulatory requirements.

Driving up western Iowa on 1-29 and across South Dakota on I-90 on Sunday, I saw an amazing amount of standing water in fields. There were low spots along I-90 where it wouldn't take too much before sandbags would be needed to keep the water off the interstate. And it seemed to rain all day. I ended Sunday in Rapid City, S.D., for the National Farmers Union convention.

Oddly enough someone at the NFU meeting mentioned the chemical licensing issue to me as well, and stated that the American Farm Bureau highlighted the licensing situation in the group's comments to the Department of Justice. I actually could not find the AFBF comments on the Department of Justice website, but I did want to point out the DOJ posted more than 15,000 comments on its website about competition issues.

http://www.justice.gov/…

At the NFU dinner tonight President Roger Johnson highlighted some of the main topics that he expects members will be discussing in the coming days. Those include health care reform, energy policy and climate change (which tie-in together) and the continuing challenges facing the dairy industry. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack speaks here on Monday and some NFU members are likely to talk to Vilsack individually about the dairy problems.

I can be found on Twitter at chrisclaytonDTN