Agriculture News
GMO mosquitoes aren't 'drugs,' need EPA oversight
ABC news | Posted on October 5, 2017U.S. Food and Drug Administration officials say genetically modified mosquitoes are not "drugs" and should be regulated by environmental authorities. According to guidelines posted online Wednesday, federal officials have decided that mosquitoes engineered by the biotech firm Oxitec will be regulated from now on by the Environmental Protection Agency.The guidelines clarify that products intended to function as pesticides to control mosquito populations should fall under the EPA. The FDA has authority over mosquito-related products intended to prevent or treat diseases.Oxitec releases nonbiting male mosquitoes modified with synthetic DNA to produce offspring that die before maturing. The method aims to reduce mosquito populations that spread Zika and other viruses.
MD:Wanted: proposals for a small processing facility
Meatingplace (free registration required) | Posted on October 5, 2017The Southern Maryland Agricultural Development Commission has issued a request for proposals for an entity to develop, manage and operate a meat processing facility for the region's farming community. The facility is planned to be a public-private partnership with minimum processing capability of 500 bovines and 2,000 sheep/goats/hogs and an optional ability to process additional livestock species including poultry. The ideal capacity is 3,000 animals per year, the group said. The contract will be awarded for a term of up to 9 years.
Concentration and Consolidation in the U.S. Food Supply Chain
Kansas City Fed | Posted on October 5, 2017Today’s global food system faces the challenge of feeding a population of 7.4 billion that is expected to grow to 11.2 billion by 2100 while supplying an important and perhaps increasing proportion of our fuel needs. Further, modern agriculture is being asked to provide an increasingly complex suite of differentiated products that address issues rarely considered not long ago, such as the nature of inputs into the production process (for example, whether to use genetic engineering), the location of production, the environmental implications of production, the treatment of livestock used in production, and the “fairness” of marketing arrangements to farmers and farm workers. Despite the seeming potential for today’s multicharacteristic agriculture to create profitable niches for small-scale food marketers, food manufacturers in many industries are highly concentrated. This is especially true for farm-product procurement, joined more recently by significant consolidation among grocers and high concentration in local retail markets. These structural conditions are concerning because of their possible implications for market power abuses, the viability of small farms, and overall system performance.
Hurricane Maria drowns agriculture, once a bright spot in Puerto Rico’s struggling economy
Akron Beacon Journal | Posted on October 5, 2017For 21 years Hector Alejandro Santiago spread joy throughout Puerto Rico with the poinsettias, orchids and other ornamental plants he raised and sold to major retailers including Costco, Walmart and Home Depot. In a matter of hours Hurricane Maria wiped it away. The greenhouses and other buildings on the 40 acres where he grew the plants and prepared them for customers lie in tatters, ripped to shreds by 155 mph winds and driving rain. Trees are flattened. “I will need to begin from zero,” said Santiago, 43, whose Cali Nurseries is in Barranquitas, a small mountain city 34 miles southwest of San Juan. He’s determined to rebuild and get back into business despite the losses he estimates at $1.5 million.Hurricane Maria struck Puerto Rico on Sept. 20 as a Category 4 storm, the strongest to hit the island in a century. At least 16 people died and nearly all 3.4 million people on the island were left without power and most without water.The hurricane devastated agriculture, a small bright spot of economic growth in a U.S. territory mired in a decadelong recession and crushing debt.
Clueless consumers motivate agriculture educators to reach more students
MPR | Posted on October 5, 2017"There are a lot of misconceptions out there about agriculture and the work that happens on farms every day," said Valerie Earley, who grew up on a farm near Wycoff, Minn., and is finishing up a term as a national officer for FFA, an agriculture education organization with about 10,500 Minnesota members. "People just don't have experience on a farm and don't have a connection to a farmer," said Earley, who has traveled around the country for the past year to represent FFA.
New era for agricultural transport in the U.S.
Freightwaves | Posted on October 5, 2017Big changes abound for shippers of agricultural products in the U.S. In September of 2016, large agricultural production and shipping companies of more than 500 employees had to begin to abide by the Food Safety Modernization Act.All agricultural carriers must now be in compliance with the Sanitary Transportation of Human and Animal Food rule, commonly called the “Sanitary Transportation Rule.” This rule puts in place new regulations on vehicles and transportation equipment, transportation operations, training, and records maintenance for agricultural product carriers. For smaller companies these new regulations are going into effect just before the mandatory implementation of electronic logging devicesstarting in December of this year.Though the rule introduces the potential for increased carrier liability, it also opens the door to prospective innovation and necessitates smarter solutions in the agriculture and trucking industries. Blockchain technology will allow agricultural producers and shippers the transparency to easily prove that they operate in accordance with the new Sanitary Transportation Rule and other parts of FSMA. In addition, blockchain will allow agricultural producers and shippers a chance to gain efficiencies in their supply chain, especially in the areas of operations, accounts settlement, and finance.
Canada not a dumping ground for U.S. dairy
edairynews | Posted on October 5, 2017It tells us of a massive trade ratio imbalance of five-to-one in favour of the American dairy producers exporting into Canada. I couldn’t help but laugh at Americans wanting to protect our consumers from needing to pay high prices on dairy products by eliminating our dairy marketing board.Two years ago, I saw a program called Northwest Profile on KSPS that featured a large dairy farmer along the Columbia River who has a herd of 10,000 dairy cows. The cattle live outside all year long and are milked automatically by just walking up to a machine that cleans them and milks them. Please explain how anyone in this country could compete with that?The same article mentioned that the great Stephen Harper was willing to allow a 3.25 per cent increase in imports of foreign dairy products. Harper was also willing to compensate our dairy industry for their loss of income by giving them billions of dollars. If a 3.25 per cent loss of our domestic market is worth billions, how much more will it cost if half or more is lost to imports?Where will this compensation money come from because someone has to pay for it?
Regulations, exports and death taxes, important issues all, but what about low farm prices?
Ag Policy | Posted on October 5, 2017Recently a friend of ours told us about the farm bill listening session he attended during the August Congressional break. He expected the bulk of the comments would focus on the problems farmers are facing as the result of nearly four years of low commodity prices. Instead, he said, the bulk of the discussion focused on three issues: decreasing regulations, increasing exports, and eliminating inheritance taxes. These three issues are a good place for us to start as we embark on a series of columns laying out our analysis of farm policy instruments that will help farmers weather extended periods of low prices and stay out of the way when prices are above the cost of production. From our perspective, these issues pale in comparison to the issue of low farm prices. Estate taxes affect fewer than 50 small farm families each year while low prices affect every crop farmer. In the 1998-2001 period, below-the-cost-of-production crop prices did not increase US exports, they hurt farmers in the US and around the world. And, while farmers grumble about environmental regulations, it is doubtful that they would want to trade their regulation regime for the environmental regulations imposed on off-farm businesses and municipal governments.
Cal-Maine adjusts cage-free production to fit demand
Watt Ag Net | Posted on October 5, 2017The demand for cage-free eggs has not kept up with the supply, so Cal-Maine Foods has adjusted its cage-free egg production accordingly.
US Agriculture Often Bears the Cost of Trade Disputes
Farm Doc Daily | Posted on October 5, 2017Potential trade disputes are approaching from all directions with significant implications for American agriculture. To the north and south, the US government is renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement [NAFTA] with Canada and Mexico. Just last week, the three countries met in Ottawa, with many thorny issues yet to be resolved. Also last week, the US imposed a tariff of almost 220 percent on certain models of aircraft produced in Canada. West, after withdrawing from Trans-Pacific Partnership [TPP] negotiations that would have affected trade across the pacific, the government has further threatened to pull out of the US-South Korea trade agreement. The US is also considering imposing tariffs on steel imports, a move aimed at China, but which also opens up disputes to the east, specifically with Germany, Turkey, and the UK. Many of these disputes are not about agriculture, but agriculture may be affected by the fallout. In particular, even non-agricultural disputes can generate retaliatory tariffs on our agricultural exports. History provides very clear examples as to how trade disputes impact agriculture. Retaliatory tariffs are how countries respond to other countries' policies that have been found to distort trade, and that harm their domestic industry. Whenever a country enacts a new policy that may affect trade, its trading partners who are affected the most may threaten to impose tariffs in retaliation. Trade-distorting policies may include a nation deciding to pull out or rescind trade agreements (often to avoid WTO sanctions). These retaliatory tariffs, or import taxes, are meant to coerce or convince the instigating nation to reverse their policy, plus the tariffs garner income for the retaliating country. Retaliating nations can put tariffs on any export product they import from the targeted country - the products do not need to bear any relation to the industries affected by the initial trade-distorting policy. The WTO states that retaliatory measures need to stay within the same sector, defined as: Services (Business, Financial, Distribution, Educational, Communications, etc.), Intellectual Property, and Goods (the main thing we think of when it comes to trade). When it comes to the goods sector-- if a tariff on automobiles distorts trade, the retaliating nation need not target automobiles specifically, and can target any good(s)--often those targets include agriculture.Unlike other tariffs, these retaliatory tariffs can be sanctioned by the World Trade Organization [WTO] as legal penalties for trade-distorting policies. These tariffs are the last and final step in any WTO trade dispute as tariffs harm consumers in the country that imposes them as well as the country imposing the trade-distorting policy. In short, this action is often harmful to all nations in the dispute and most disputes don't reach this stage for this reason. However, when they do reach the retaliation stage, the cost of retaliation can be in the billions of dollars. This money comes both directly and indirectly out of the consumer's pocket, as markets shrink for US products and the cost of the tariff is passed to the producer. Given US agriculture's reliance on international markets, and being an industry with political clout, agricultural products are often high on the list of products targeted in retaliatory tariffs.