BLOOMINGTON, Ill. — Members of the Illinois Farm Bureau (IFB) have had timely luck with the overseas trips they’ve made recently; in the past three years, a group of Illinois growers and ranchers have visited Panama, Columbia and South Korea just as officials with those countries and the United States were in the middle of negotiations that led to fair trade agreements (FTA) with two, and updated agreements with the third.

Last year, a group visited Cuba just as talk of easing travel and trade restrictions with the country began to heat up again. This year, a group of 11 growers and four IFB staff members toured 12 farms in six European countries over nine days to learn primarily about those nations’ policies regarding animal health care regulations.

The trip had timely significance – talks to develop a formal FTA between the United States and the European Union (EU) began shortly after President Obama’s State of the Union address, and the goal among both sides is to have something in place for approval within two years.

“I think we all have a golden opportunity in front of us and hopefully we can take advantage of it. Economically, the way things have gone in recent years, I think European consumers especially are starting to come around and realize that they need food at more reasonable prices,” said Tamara Nelsen, IFB’s senior director of commodities and a key organizer of its overseas trips.

 When it comes to agriculture, nations in the EU are regulated much more heavily than in the United States, in large part because growers and producers don’t have as much of a seat at the policy table as they do in the U.S., Nelsen said.

The top-heavy regulatory environment is largely set by consumer feedback and input and EU leaders; genetically modified organisms (GMO) still are largely banned from the EU food supply because of a longstanding belief they are unsafe, despite most studies that indicate otherwise, according to the USDA.

The Illinois group visited dairy, hog, sheep, poultry and cattle farms in England, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and Denmark, along with meeting with industry professionals and members of the USDA Foreign Agriculture Service.

Stacy Schutz, who raises corn, beans cattle and hogs on her family’s 2,500-acre farm in Greene County, said she came away not knowing how European farmers cope with a system of oversight that comes primarily from those without agriculture experience.

“We do as much as we can to raise our animals and take care of them, but it would be hard when you have people who aren’t experts” and set policies, she opined.

Schutz said one of the important aspects of the trip to Europe was for livestock farmers like herself to see firsthand how EU regulations impact how farmers there raise and care for their animals, and how it could change how farmers here raise their cattle.

“What happens in other countries can easily affect the way we raise our animals,” she said. “I believe that this trip will benefit our farm by expanding our knowledge of world issues in raising livestock and by giving me firsthand information to share with other farmers and ranchers.”

Nelsen said exchanges with EU farmers were positive, overall, and they are mostly hopeful their government regulations will allow for the more widespread introduction of GMO crops.

“At some point in the near future, most of them said they recognized that GMs have to be allowed, because the world’s food needs have to be met and consumers there want prices to be more reasonable than they are,” Nelsen said.

The group traveled through Europe from June 26-July 2.