prompts a summons from Washington.

The Secretary spends a little time in the hot

seat.

And heavy rain stops harvest in its tracks.

Those stories and market analysis with Sue Martin,

next.

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This is the Friday, September 23 edition of

Market to Market, the Weekly Journal of Rural

America.

Hello, I'm Mike Pearson.

Harvest machinery has been temporarily sidelined in

some parts of the grain belt but financial

planning for next season has already begun.

Like predictions of record crops, rural America waits

for economic answers in a money lending season of

uncertainty.

-- With housing starts down 5.8 percent in August

- and the inflation rate languishing below 2

percent - the Federal Reserve Board declined to

raise lending rates.

The result leaves many speculating what the near

future holds.

No change was seen as good news by Wall Street as the

Dow Jones Industrial Average finished the week

on an up-tick.

Placing the anticipated shake-up over lending

rates on hold shifted attention to fallout from

agricultural mergers.

Recently, the Canadian companies Potash

Corporation and Agrium announced they were

combining forces to create the largest fertilizer

company in the world.

That marriage only amplified concerns over

consolidation and was among the reasons several

Titans of Agriculture were requested to appear before

the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Paul Yeager reports.

Representatives from five of the six biggest

agriculture companies appeared together on

Capitol Hill this week.

The leaders were asked about the big topics of

competition, jobs, and innovation.

The "Big Six" of biotech seed would become the "Big

4" if regulators approve Bayer's $66 billion buyout

of Monsanto, China National Chemical or Chem

China's $43 billion purchase of Syngenta and a

$59 billion deal between Dow and DuPont Pioneer.

James C.

Collins: "Bringing together the innovative

engines of DuPont and Dow into one company, fully

focused on agriculture, allows us to expand the

choices and the competitive price values

that farmers demand."

Robb Fraley: "We're witnessing a new era in

agriculture that's a result of the advances in

biology and data science.

Silicon Valley is digitizing farming around

the world, and breakthroughs like gene

editing are opening up a whole new world of

possibilities in plant biology."

Tim Hassinger: "Combing our R and D capabilities

will enhance our ability to innovate and create

values for farmers.

An innovation driven company creates

competition."

Jim Blome: "We expect to advance our digital

farming capabilities and strengthen our focus on

new product development across seeds, traits and

crop protection."

Critics contend the biggest three remaining

companies would control 80 percent of the corn seed

sales and 70 percent of the global pesticide

market.

Roger Johnson: "The damaging consolidation is

occurring at a time when farmers are struggling

with depressed profitability after seeing

an approximate 50% decline in most commodity prices

over the past three years.

Clearly the nation's anti-trust enforcement has

failed farmers and consumers."

Diana Moss: "Any claims that the deal will simply

package complimentary assets should be viewed

with some skepticism.

The companies own documents indicate their

own R and D pipelines compete head to head with

overlaps in R and D for traits, seeds and crop

protection.

Much like in pharmaceuticals,

maintaining competition in standalone parallel R and

D ensures strong incentives to continue to

innovate."

Sen.

Grassley: "To me, it looks like this consolidation

wave has become a tsunami."

Iowa Senator and committee chair Charles Grassley

cited data from Iowa State University revealing

collective cost of seed, chemicals and fertilizer

for an acre of soybeans has gone up 94 percent

over the last 20 years.

Grassley, also a farmer, said the collective

industry has produced greater innovations and

yields, but questioned the cost.

Sen.

Charles Grassley: "However, when does the

size of companies and concentration in the

market reach the tipping point, so much that a

market becomes anti-competitive?"

Cotton farmers also could be faced with steep price

increases on seed if a recent Texas A&M study

holds true.

The research revealed a possible 18 percent hike

if the mergers move forward while corn and

soybean seed prices would increase around 2 percent.

For Market to Market, I'm Paul Yeager.

Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack met with the

Senate Agriculture Committee this week for an

annual checkup of sorts.

The topics discussed ranged from budgets to

water quality.

Colleen Bradford Krantz explains.

Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, wrapping up

what is expected to be his final months of an 8-year

stretch on the Obama administration cabinet,

urged Senate leaders this week to do a better job of

studying the needs of the nation's shrinking pool of

farmers before fixating on budget cuts.

Tom Vilsack: "If you look at every hot spot in the

world today, I think most, if not all of them, do not

have a functioning agricultural economy and

have a lot of hungry people.

So if we are serious about protecting our own people,

if we are serious about making sure the world is a

safer and better place for our kids and grandkids,

then we have to understand the role agriculture in

this country and agriculture around the

world will play in providing that level of

security."

Several senators, while praising Vilsack's tenure,

said the nation's farmers are growing increasingly

leery of governmental involvement in their

lives, particularly when it comes to the

Environmental Protection Agency.

Sen.

Thom Tillis: "The issue that comes up every single

time I meet with these farmers is the uncertainty

created by regulation - either the burden by

existing regulations or the threat of other

regulations that could be very harmful to the

industry."

Senator Pat Roberts, the chair of the Senate

Agriculture Committee, said new EPA rules

defining the "waters of the U.S."

under the Clean Water Act had an exemption for

"common farming practices" but the sentence was

followed by 88 pages of exceptions, explanations

and definitions.

Sen.

Pat Roberts: "That's why a lot of folks that I

represent feel ruled not governed.

And they get really upset."

While Vilsack said he won't speak on behalf of

the EPA, he has encouraged the agency to meet the

farmers whose livelihoods may be affected by their

rules.

Tom Vilsack: "We don't define the problem before

we define the solution, and we don't educate