Agriculture News
Nafta Talks Left Reeling After Aggressive U.S. Proposals Land
Bloomberg | Posted on October 19, 2017U.S. negotiators in recent days put forth a string of bold proposals -- on auto rules of origin, a sunset clause, government procurement, and gutting dispute panels seen by the other nations as core to the pact. The moves were long-signaled, as was Canadian and Mexican opposition to them. The proposals have spurred public warnings from prominent U.S. lawmakers and the private sector about the perils of scuttling a deal that over more than two decades has broken down trade barriers, including tariffs, for industries like manufacturing and agriculture.Nafta’s fate may now hang on how flexible the U.S. is about its demands heading into the fifth round of talks, scheduled for Mexico City around the first week of November. While the parties had wanted to reach a deal by December, officials familiar with the negotiations say the talks are likely to drag on for months.
Farms, vineyards assessing damage from wine country fires
Capital Press | Posted on October 19, 2017Farms in California’s iconic wine country are either picking up the pieces or counting their blessings as crews gain an upper hand on wildfires that devastated the area.Among those operations is Oak Hill Farm in Glen Ellen, Calif., whose 700 acres of produce and flowers nestled against the western slope of the Mayacamas Mountains sustained damage. Wiig has been trying to get the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Department to allow farmer David Cooper and others access to the ranch to water the crops that weren’t burned, he said. Cooper lost his home and a barn to the blaze.Within the wine industry, several vintners — including Signorello Estates and White Rock Vineyards in Napa and Paradise Ridge in Santa Rosa — reported on social media that their wineries had been destroyed.And five vineyard properties totaling about 200 acres in the Potter Valley area of Mendocino County are known to have been damaged, according to the Wine Institute. But because of evacuations, some winery owners don’t have access to their properties to learn their status, the organization notes.
EPA, herbicide makers agree to new limits on dicamba use
Des Moines Register | Posted on October 19, 2017The Trump administration has reached a deal with three major agribusiness companies for new voluntary labeling requirements for a controversial herbicide blamed for damaging crops. The Environmental Protection Agency announced Friday its agreement with Monsanto, BASF and DuPont regarding the application of dicamba, which is used to control weeds in fields of genetically modified cotton and soybeans. Farmers who don't buy the special resistant seeds sold by the herbicide makers have complained that dicamba sprayed on neighboring properties drifts over and harms their crops, resulting in temporary bans issued last summer by state officials in Arkansas and Missouri."EPA carefully reviewed the available information and developed tangible changes to be implemented during the 2018 growing season," the agency said in a media release. "This is an example of cooperative federalism that leads to workable national-level solutions."Under the deal, dicamba products will be labeled as "restricted use" beginning with the 2018 growing season. New rules will limit when and how the herbicide can be sprayed, such as time of day and when maximum winds are blowing below 10 mph. Farmers will be required to maintain specific records showing their compliance with the new restrictions.
Immigrants are backbone of Wisconsin's dairy operations
The Chippewa Herald | Posted on October 19, 2017Immigration as a top line issue for dairy farmers would have been unthinkable just a generation ago when Wisconsin’s agricultural landscape was dominated by small and medium-sized dairy farms run by the families that owned them.Now, the nation’s No. 2 milk producing state is home to a growing number of large concentrated animal feeding operations. These businesses, which operate 24/7, year-round, require work that farmers insist most Americans will not do.Nationally, more than half of dairy workers are immigrants, according to a 2015 industry-sponsored study, with farms that employ immigrant labor producing 79 percent of the nation’s milk.The Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism asked farmers, academics, a union activist and the state’s recently retired agriculture secretary how Wisconsin’s dairy industry came to rely on immigrants to keep it afloat — and what could be done to put it on a more sustainable and legal path.The answers include raising wages and benefits paid to dairy employees, increasing automation so jobs are less physically demanding and farmers need fewer workers, and changing federal law so immigrants can work here legally.
Ohio hands out fines over fish kills caused by farm manure
ABC News | Posted on October 19, 2017The operators of three agriculture businesses have been told to pay more than $30,000 for three large fish kills that Ohio's natural resources department says were caused by livestock manure spread on fields. Investigators think ammonia-laden manure put onto the fields in northwestern Ohioahead of rainstorms in August washed into creeks and caused the fish kills.An Ohio law put in place to combat algae in Lake Erie prohibits farmers from putting manure on fields before heavy rains because the manure also contains phosphorous that feeds algae.
Syngenta CEO wants debate on ‘sustainable agriculture’
The County Press | Posted on October 19, 2017Syngenta’s CEO is calling for “honest and open” discussions between NGOs and the industry, instead of debates that were politicized and unscientific. Syngenta CEO Eryk Fyrwald thinks there should be a wide-scale debate on what constitutes “sustainable agriculture” in face of a number of current controversies over pesticides.“We have a lot of discussions about specific products. I think it’s really important to step back and have a real discussion with the government, and with NGOs and academics about what is a sustainable agriculture,” Fyrwald told AFP (a global news agency based in France) in an interview.Fyrwald said he agrees with the definition of sustainable agriculture recently put forward by French minister Stephane Travert: “The objective is to have affordable food with tools that are safe for the farmers, for consumers, and good for environment.”In a recent debate with environment minister Nicolas Hulot, Travert had said he was open to the use of neonicotinoid pesticides—one of which is manufactured by Syngenta—to protect crops where there are currently no alternatives in order to maximise yields.
Seed Giants See Fresh Start in Gene Editing
Wall Street Journal | Posted on October 19, 2017The agriculture industry is betting that new technology for editing the genes of plants will yield enhanced crops—and potentially reset a long-running debate over genetically engineered seeds. Seed developers including Monsanto Co. and DowDuPont Inc. have invested in gene-editing technology, which enables scientists to make precise changes to plants’ existing DNA. Executives say they’re also strategizing on how to introduce it to consumers without arousing the same fears and suspicion that followed the development of GMOs.
The state of Trump’s USDA: what you need to know
Civil eats | Posted on October 19, 2017Shortly after being confirmed in March, Perdue announced he’d be leading the USDA’s first major reorganization since the mid-1990s. The first stage of the reorganization created a new Farm Production and Conservation mission area, and an under secretary role to support it. The mission area encompasses a wide scope of the agency’s work, including risk management, crop insurance, commodity programs, and conservation. Perdue’s reorganization also pioneered the new role of under secretary for trade and foreign Agricultural Affairs, one designed to “ensure USDA speaks with a unified voice on international agriculture issues” and promote U.S. agricultural products.Several trade associations cheered the addition. For instance, the American Soybean Association said in a statement that it and other groups had “long advocated” for an under secretary who would allow the USDA to become an important player in developing Trump’s “big ideas on trade.”The changes that most riled advocates for rural communities—who are credited with giving Trump the support he needed to win—are Perdue’s many changes to the Department’s rural development efforts. He created a new assistant to the secretary in rural development role after receiving vocal pushback from 570 advocacy groups when moving to eliminate the role of under secretary in the department and defunding the USDA’s Rural Development mission area altogether.Anna Johnson, policy programs associate at the Center for Rural Affairs, says that the new assistant secretary role doesn’t appropriately replace a Senate-confirmed under secretary for rural development. If rural development doesn’t get the same treatment as other mission areas in this regard, she says, “we don’t get that chance to get a sense for who the new leader of that enormous portfolio is going to be.” And if rural development doesn’t remain a USDA mission area, Johnson wonders how rural leadership will retain its place at the table.Secretary Perdue announced the second stage of the USDA’s reorganization in September, including moving a program of the Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS) under the newly-created Trade and Foreign Agricultural Affairs mission area, and creating a new Innovation Center within the Rural Development mission area.Perhaps most controversially, the reorganization moves the Grain Inspection, Packers, and Stockyards Administration (GIPSA), formerly housed across several programs, to the Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS).
How a group of Florida tomato growers could help derail NAFTA
Chicago Tribune | Posted on October 19, 2017Tony DiMare, a third-generation Florida tomato grower, has spent two decades contending with cheap Mexican imports, watching his neighbors abandon crops in their fields and sell off their farms when they couldn't match the price of incoming produce. But emboldened by the Trump administration's hostility toward foreign trade, DiMare and a group of Southeast growers are pushing for tough new protectionist measures against their Mexican rivals - so tough, in fact, that their demands threaten to wreck the negotiations."I'm all about free trade, but it has to be fair," DiMare said."It's Americans first now, right?" he added.As the United States, Canada and Mexico prepare to wrap up a fourth round of talks Tuesday about revisions to the North American Free Trade Agreement, there is growing fear that the talks could collapse around one of several "poison pill" provisions.Those include the Florida tomato growers' demands, which are supported by some berry, melon and pepper producers, for stronger anti-dumping measures - an idea that has been soundly rejected by the Mexicans.The Florida growers' high-stakes campaign for special anti-dumping measures for seasonal produce has also exposed sharp divisions with the rest of America's farmers, who are generally strongly pro-NAFTA and whose livelihoods are on the line if the negotiations falter. "There's a lot of political power resting with a small group of individuals who have a lot to gain," said Joseph Glauber, a senior research fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute and the former chief economist at the Agriculture Department. "Unfortunately, the special provision you carve out for one interest groups can really backfire for others."
Indiana Dept. of Agriculture launches conservation ‘one-stop’
Indiana State Government | Posted on October 18, 2017Improving water quality and soil health continues to be a priority for farmers statewide, and while data has always been available to support this claim, it hasn’t been accessible in one, easily navigable location. To address this issue, the Indiana State Department of Agriculture, using information compiled by the Indiana Conservation Partnership (ICP), launched today an online story map, a one-stop shop for Indiana’s conservation efforts. "All across the state, farmers, organizations and agencies are stepping up their efforts to conserve our soil and water resources, and it’s important that we not only tell that story, but also highlight where it's working in Indiana,” said Melissa Rekeweg, ISDA interim director. "This new resource will allow us to do that more effectively.”Located on the ISDA website, the interactive conservation story map organizes information by Indiana’s 10 main river and lake basins, which are then broken down by watershed. Each basin includes sections on water quality and soil health that encompass everything from total acres of cover crops planted to sediments prevented from entering Indiana’s waterways.