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March 22, 2010
· Antitrust probe: Dog and pony show or history
· USDA plans spot testing of organic products
· Ag groups oppose EPA greenhouse gas plan
· Calif. growers battle low process tomato prices
· Florida nurseries hope weather sparks rebound
Antitrust probe: Dog and pony show or history
(Yankton
Press & Dakotan)
“There has been a lot of attention to this workshop of late. A lot of people showed up today to see if this USDA and this Justice Department are serious about ensuring that farmers and ranchers have access to markets, both for inputs and for selling their crops and livestock, that are competitive and treat them fairly and equitably,” said John Crabtree with the Center for Rural Affairs. “There were a lot of so-called experts here today — economists, antitrust attorneys, corporate spokespeople and the like — providing testimony. And there were a lot of family farmers, ranchers and other concerned citizens hoping to see a sign from USDA and Justice that more aggressive enforcement of the nation’s antitrust and competition laws is in the offing.”
The USDA’s and Justice Department's stated intent of these
workshops was to “...promote dialogue among interested parties and foster
learning with respect to the appropriate legal and economic analyses of these
issues, as well as listen to and learn from parties with experience in the
agricultural sector.” (http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2010/February/10-at-182.html) In
According to Crabtree, fully 89 percent of hogs are now owned outright by packers or tightly controlled through various contracting devices. And increased concentration and control of biotechnology traits and germplasm in the seed industry has led to dramatically decreased choices for farmers in purchasing seed with many farmers feeling fortunate to have as many as two seed companies to choose from.
“It is almost impossible to believe that USDA and Justice
cannot see that facts and stats such as these, not to mention the real life
stories of what family farmers and ranchers endure in their dealings with the
likes of Monsanto and
“Certainly every family farmer and rancher in that room today knows it.”
“Whether today was a dog and pony show or history in the making won’t be determined by what was said here today, but by whether the Secretary of Agriculture, the Attorney General and the White House choose to stand with family farmers, ranchers and rural communities and enforce our antitrust and competition laws, or, just maintain the status quo,” Crabtree concluded.
Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack and Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust Christine Varney began the proceedings with their comments on behalf of the administration and their respective departments.
“I want to hear more than the usual rhetoric here today, I want to hear what we can do more of, what we can do differently, to reverse the trends in our rural communities where we are losing population, the population is aging and opportunities are declining,” Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack urged the panelists.
Representative Leonard Boswell, Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller and Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey participated in the opening roundtable discussion and presentation of issues.
Additional updates and information will be posted on the Antitrust Division’s agriculture workshop Web site at http://www.justice.gov/atr/public/workshops/ag2010/index.htm. While no streaming Web cast is available, transcripts will be available for review on the Antitrust Division’s Web site. Individuals seeking more information on the workshops should contact: agriculturalworkshops@usdoj.gov
USDA plans spot testing of organic products
(The New York Times) – The Department of Agriculture said on Friday that it would begin enforcing rules requiring the spot testing of organically grown foods for traces of pesticides, after an auditor exposed major gaps in federal oversight of the organic food industry.
Spot testing is required by a 1990 law that established the basis for national organic standards, but in a report released on Thursday by the office of Phyllis K. Fong, the inspector general of agriculture, investigators wrote that regulators never made sure the testing was being carried out.
The report pointed to numerous shortcomings at the agriculture department’s National Organic Program, which regulates the industry, including poor oversight of some organic operations overseas and a lack of urgency in cracking down on marketers of bogus organic products.
The audit did not name growers or processors that marketed products falsely labeled organic or say where any such products had been sold.
The head of the National Organic Program, Miles McEvoy, said on Friday that enforcing testing rules was one of several steps the agency was taking to improve oversight of the industry. It will also require unannounced inspections of organic producers and processors and start regular reviews of organic products in stores to make sure they are correctly labeled and meet federal regulations, he said.
“There’s a real commitment from this administration to improve the integrity of this program,” Mr. McEvoy said.
The testing for pesticide residues is expected to begin in September. It will be done by the network of independent certifying agents that are already accredited by the department to inspect and certify organic growers, processors and handlers.
As of last July, 98 independent agents were licensed to inspect and certify about 28,000 organic operations worldwide, the inspector general’s report said.
Mr. McEvoy said that details of the pesticide inspections were still being worked out but that they would probably focus on growers whose risk of pesticide contamination might be highest, like those whose organic fields are cultivated next to nonorganic fields or those that raise both organic and conventional crops.
Some certifiers already do spot tests, he said, but many do not, testing only if they suspect a problem. The inspector general’s report said a review of four large certifiers, which were collectively responsible for inspecting almost a third of the organic operations nationwide, found that none did regular spot testing.
The organic program’s budget increased to $6.9 million for the current fiscal year, from $3.9 million the previous year, Mr. McEvoy said, while its staff is slated to nearly double, to 31 from 16. The Obama administration is seeking to increase the budget to $10 million in the next fiscal year and allow the program to expand to about 40 employees.
Christine M. Bushway, executive director of the Organic Trade Association, an industry group, said improved oversight, and more money to make it possible, were needed to ensure that consumers had faith in the United States Department of Agriculture’s organic seal. “Compliance and enforcement are critical to the seal and the long-term health of the industry,” she said.
Sales of organic products reached $26 billion last year and, until the recession hit, had been growing by double-digit percentages each year.
Ms. Bushway said the organic program never had the resources to keep up with the industry’s growth. “They were underfunded and understaffed,” she said.
The inspector general’s report focused largely on conditions at the organic program at the end of the Bush administration, from 2006 through 2008.
It said that in several cases officials had taken up to 32 months to act against producers or processors that had sold conventional products claiming they were organic — even as those products remained on the market. In one case, the report said, officials failed entirely to take action against an operator that, for two years, sold nonorganic mint under an organic label.
The report also said that the organic program had failed to adequately vet several of the independent certifying agents it allowed to approve organic operations in foreign countries.
Under normal circumstances, the program gives preliminary accreditation to certifying agents based on a review of paperwork they submit. That allows them to begin certifying and inspecting organic producers and processors. But the program is supposed to follow up with a site visit to inspect a certifier’s operations before making accreditation permanent.
In five cases, the inspector general found, officials failed to make the follow-up visits, allowing the certifiers to operate for as long as seven years with only preliminary accreditation.
Officials at the program said that in three cases, involving
certifiers operating in
In two other cases, involving certifying agents in Australia and Canada, officials said that scheduling problems blocked them from arranging visits — in one instance for as long as five years.
The Department of Agriculture said in its response to the audit that it had now visited and completed its review of four of the five foreign certifiers cited in the report and had scheduled a visit to the remaining certifier. It did not say if the reviews had found compliance problems.
The audit also highlighted numerous inconsistencies in the
way that certifiers operating in the
The report warned that officials must tighten oversight of the industry to give consumers the assurance “that products labeled as organic are meeting a uniform standard.”
Ag groups oppose EPA greenhouse gas plan
(High Planes Journal) – The National Cotton Council coordinated a letter, signed by 175 agricultural organizations, to Reps. Joe Barton (R-TX) and Ike Skelton (D-MO) acknowledging support of the legislators' actions against a greenhouse gas regulation plan.
The two legislators have introduced resolutions of disapproval under the Congressional Review Act regarding the EPA's decision to move forward on regulating carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act.
"Such regulatory actions will carry severe consequences
for the
It also noted that both the current and past administrations have acknowledged that the CAA is not the appropriate vehicle for establishing greenhouse gas policy. However, the EPA finding that greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare will trigger CAA regulatory actions such as application of National Ambient Air Quality Standards, New Source Performance Standards, and provisions of the Prevention of Significant Deterioration and Title V programs, essentially establishing greenhouse gas policy through the CAA by default.
"The compliance costs for these CAA programs would be overwhelming, as millions of entities, including farms and ranches, would be subject to burdensome CAA regulations," the organizations emphasized. "While EPA has attempted to craft a 'tailoring rule' to ease such a burden, our experience in these matters is that attempts to administratively relax environmental requirements are routinely challenged in court."
The letter also urged House approval of the legislators' resolution as introduced.
Their resolution follows a similar resolution introduced in January by Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK). In a NCC-coordinated letter to Sen. Murkowski, 137 other commodity and agricultural organizations declared their support for her effort. The breadth of support from agriculture encouraged several Democratic senators to cosponsor the resolution.
Like the Murkowski resolution, Barton and Skelton's resolutions
also point out that the EPA rule itself claims to establish only a weak,
indirect link between greenhouse gases and public health and welfare, going so
far as to admit that there are uncertainties over the net, direct health
impacts of the greenhouse gases it is attempting to regulate. The resolutions
note that EPA Administrator Jackson recently acknowledged that unilateral
actions by the
If the resolution were to make it through Congress, President Obama would still have the authority to veto it.
Calif.
(Daily Democrat)
–
Following a record year in both raw material delivered to producers and price per ton paid to farmers, many were expecting 2010 to be another profitable venture for those involved in the tomato industry.
However, recent drops in production costs, as well as a
surplus stock from last year's harvest, might result in
"This type of pricing makes tomatoes a pretty undesirable crop for local farmers to take on," said Bruce Rominger, a local tomato grower with Rominger Brothers Farms in Winters. "It could definitely lessen the acreage dedicated to processing tomatoes in the future."
In order to establish the price per ton, producers and processors exchange simultaneous offers until a final number is agreed upon by both sides. According to a recent bulletin published by the California Tomato Grower's Association (CTGA), a grower's collective responsible for negotiating prices with the state's processors, the most recent offer put forward by growers was $72 per ton, $8 short of the price growers and canneries agreed upon in 2009.
The state's seven processors, collectively represented by the California League of Food Processors, each made offers between $60 and $62.50 per ton.
"We made the offer of $72 per ton based on the idea that an average grower with average costs should be able to make a reasonable rate of return growing tomatoes," said Mike Montana, president of the CTGA.
"The price of production is down a little from last year, but not enough to account for up for those numbers."
"There's no question that, right now, the prices being offered by processors are well below the break-even numbers for most of the farmers in the state," Rominger said.
For the state's processors, however, the debate normally
boils down to a simple numbers game. Dick Ehrler,
vice president of Human Resources for Pacific Coast Producers in
Ed Yates, president of the CLFP, was unable to comment on prices during an on-going negotiation, however, noted that the amount of "stock on-hand" after the 2009 harvest was significantly higher than previous years.
According to a CLFP Tomato Statistic Report published in January, the inventory levels for the state's canneries were 16 percent higher than last year's. With these abnormally high inventory levels in mind, the CLFP intends to contract 12.6 million tons of processing tomatoes, 5 percent less than what was contracted in 2009.
While the situation for the state's growers may appear bleak, those engaged in the debate remain positive that some sort of compromise can be reached.
"The CTGA is going to continue negotiations with the
state's processors,"
Florida
(tampabay.com) – As sunshine coaxes us into our brittle yards this weekend, Florida nurseries see a break from a winter that has lasted not months, but years.
"The phone's been ringing off the hook," said Doug
Meyer, whose wholesale Meyer's Nurseries is the oldest in
He sells to garden centers, lawn maintenance operators and
landscapers. It has been a brutal business. The
Now freezes have left a mess across the South, giving growers who protected their plants a chance at brisk spring sales.
"It'll breathe some life into the industry, and give
them a little breathing room to cope until the economy starts picking up,"
said Hugh Gramling of Tampa Bay Wholesale Growers, an
association of 58 nursery growers in
It matters in the bay area: Hillsborough growers sold $180 million worth of ornamental plants in 2008, second only to strawberries. Other counties weren't nearly so prolific, with Hernando and Pasco next, and urban Pinellas not so much growing plants as buying them.
Big-box retailers buy many of the plants
Home improvement stores, which have taken their own hit in the recession, are ready.
"Spring is our holiday season, basically," said Craig Fishel, a Home Depot spokesman.
The retailer is pitching "Spring Black Friday" today, while Lowe's similarly offers days of deals such as 99-cents-a-bag mulch.
"This weekend's going to be insane, because of the
weather," said Frank Minuto, garden department
manager for the Home Depot on
Independent retail nurseries, such as Kerby's
Nursery in Seffner and Twigs & Leaves in
More than 150 people showed up at a workshop on cold-hardy plants at Kerby's on March 6, said Kim Kerby Bokor, who owns the nursery with her husband and brother. But an upswing in shoppers started just in the past week or so.
"It was a late start to the season for us," she said. "But the weather has just been gorgeous lately, and we're all eager to get outside again."
Greenhouses protected her plants, and she stocks perhaps 1,500 varieties on 12 acres. Delicate tropical plants may be harder to come by this year, but she's finding more demand for hardier varieties anyway.
Meanwhile, Twigs & Leaves has a new selling point for
its
Co-owner Michael Manlowe said coastal plants died because his two-fifths of an acre is on higher ground. But other ground cover, palms, flowers, vines, shrubs and trees came through — and he sees new opportunity for rebuilding habitat for birds and butterflies.
The spring binge will reach beyond homeowners to cities, country clubs and theme parks. But the pickup has its limits: It's unlikely to bring jobs.
Hillsborough and Pinellas counties were among the top 10 in
Jobs have dropped since then. It 2008 alone, industry employment fell 20 percent, according to the latest agriculture report co-authored by Hodges.
"Everything I'm hearing from people in the industry is
that demand for plants is still very, very weak," he said. "Until the
real estate market really turns around in
Doug Meyer of Meyer's Nurseries used to cultivate all of his 25 acres in Thonotosassa. Now, it's just 15 acres. He went from 15 employees to four, and this winter those four worked part time. Spring sales simply mean they'll work full-time again.
Pat Dugan of DLC Lawn & Landscape in
"It's going to be a hard month," he said. But he won't hire extra help. He'll just work weekends.
End Transmission