By any honest measure, the election of Barack Obama as the next President is an epic in the American experience, but the tale is just beginning, and farmers around the world have no idea how it will end.
Will his Administration derail the trade deals so necessary for agricultural exports?
Will new environmental regulations prove so burdensome that US farmers will look across our borders for new lands?
Will Obama prove to be the left-leaning liberal his opponents portrayed?
- US farm groups congratulate Obama
- But fears about trade, environmental policies
- Ethanol to be a problem policy area
There is a chance that he will veer toward the centre and build an action-based coalition in Congress, with moderates of both parties working to actually solve problems. Legislative stalemates could end under that scenario, empowering Obama's mantra: Yes we can.
One clue may be Obama's appointment of Rahm Emanuel as his chief of staff. Emanuel, the House Democratic Caucus chair and top fund-raiser, was known as a free trader in his previous role as White House aide in the Clinton Administration.
His current role in Congress makes him aware of the dynamics that will play out in the new Democratic majority between the party's liberals and the moderates, such as the Blue Dog Democrats, a powerful group that is fiscally conservative and pragmatic on policy issues.
Before the election, the Blue Dogs - which include many with interests in agriculture, like House Agriculture Committee chairman Collin Peterson - were a major voting block of 47 members, about 20pc of House Democrats.
It's not yet clear if they have increased their power base, but the Blue Dogs will certainly be a factor neither the Obama White House nor House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will want to ignore.
National Farmers Union president Tom Buis, an Obama supporter and one of Washington's most influential on farm policy, shied away from attempts to label Obama as a liberal, which he called "campaign rhetoric".
On a teleconference the morning following the election, Buis said: "If you look at the election results, Barack Obama won by addressing the forgotten middle."
He noted that in every campaign, charges are made that a candidate is liberal "and will put me out of business".
Buis said he has had no hint from Obama that he intends to put any farmer out of business. Quite the contrary: "He has a rural vision."
Yet another Washington insider, Tom Hebert, a former Clinton appointee at the U.S. Department of Agriculture and now senior vice president of Ogilvie Group, pointed to the language Obama used on election night.
"To those Americans whose support I have yet to earn, I may not have won your vote, but I hear your voices," Obama said in Chicago.
"I need your help, and I will be your President. I will listen to you, especially when we disagree."
The nation's two major general farm organisations were quick to support Obama's victory.
Buis said the time is ripe to call a national agricultural summit. Recalling a similar event in the late 1990s that created a national conversation for production agriculture, Buis said he planned to seek support for another such event in the prelude to the Obama Administration.
Buis, who has been mentioned as a possible choice for agriculture secretary along with others, including Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sibelius and former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack, said he was not seeking the post but would be open to giving it consideration if asked by the President.
On the key issue of trade, Buis supports Obama's call to include labor and environmental standards in US trade agreements.
Buis said he believes recent problems with food imports also make an argument for including health and safety standards.
"I don't know what melamine looks like, but I don't want it in my food," he said.
Obama's first priorities will be "the economy, the economy, the economy", Buis told reporters, predicting that the new Administration will quickly address the continuation of farm bill implementation - "as intended by Congress" - in the face of rising input costs and falling commodity prices.
Reforming commodity futures market regulation will also be an early goal for the new Administration, Buis said, and Obama will continue to support renewable energy, including a commitment to ethanol, wind and solar energy.
American Farm Bureau Federation president Bob Stallman immediately issued a statement congratulating Obama and the members who will serve in the 111th Congress on a "decisive and historic election".
He said the Farm Bureau's issues included the economy, energy, immigration, trade, implementation of the farm bill and many others.
"We know there are many points of view on these issues, but we also know that our elected leaders have one thing in common: Each person elected to office ran for office to improve this country," Stallman said.
"We look forward to working with the new Administration and Congress to create those opportunities that will improve agriculture and rural America."
National Cattlemen's Beef Assn. (NCBA) president Andy Groseta, whose organisation endorsed President George Bush in the 2004 election but did not endorse a candidate this year, immediately congratulated Obama.
NCBA said it looks forward "to working with the Obama transition team and providing information, advice and counsel, as needed, on the many challenges the next Administration will face in regards to food and fuel policies".
"We have been assured a seat at the table," Groseta said, noting that NCBA appreciates Obama's commitment to basing decisions on sound economic and scientific evidence.
NCBA said it is eager to "share the stories of cattle producers and discuss the challenges they face today, from estate taxes that cause families to lose century-old ranches to the high corn prices resulting from ethanol subsidies that create unfair competition in the marketplace."
Policy on government support for ethanol subsidies may be one of the thorniest for Obama, who hails from Illinois, a major Corn Belt state. The Renewable Fuels Assn. and National Corn Growers Assn. praised his election.
In a USA Today interview, American Feed Industry Assn. Joel Newman noted that his organisation disagrees with government support for ethanol and seeks "a more comprehensive energy policy".
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