Erik Younggren
KISSIMMEE, Fla. — The National Association of Wheat Growers is “open” to options to get a farm bill passed in 2013, Erik Younggren, the outgoing NAWG president, said in an interview here.

The NAWG supported the Agricultural Risk Coverage program during the 2012 farm bill but also found that its members in Oklahoma and some other states wanted the option of the price loss program that House Agriculture Committee Chairman Frank Lucas, R-Okla., and ranking member Collin Peterson, D-Minn., proposed.

“We realize that different parts of the country need different things,” Younggren said. “There are so many uncertainties right now — the sequester, the continuing resolution. Some puzzle pieces need to line up.”

Younggreen also said he believes that the shift in Republican ranking member from Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., to Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss., “will change the dynamic” in the committee, but that it is impossible to tell just how because he is “just getting staffed up.”

“We will educate him on how wheat works,” Younggren said with a smile.

Younggren has personally supported ARC even though his congressman is Peterson, who is no fan of it. Peterson “recognizes my point of view. He doesn’t have to agree with it,” he said.

NAWG is participating in the farm bill debate without top staff leadership since CEO Dana Peterson left in February. Incoming President Bing Von Bergen, a Montana farmer, is acting CEO, but a search has started with the goal of having a new CEO on the job by June, a spokeswoman said.