Archives for June, 2010
House Markups Ag Spending Bill
Wednesday, June 30th, 2010
On Wednesday, June 30, the House Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee marked up and approved the annual spending bill for USDA and FDA for FY 2011. The bill was adopted after a series of ten Republican amendments were defeated on party line votes.
The bill as a whole came in at $23.1 billion, about $200 million less than FY 2010 and just a hair under the amount requested by the Administration. The Food and Drug Administration funding was $2.6 billion, with most of the rest going to USDA.
In a huge victory for sustainable agriculture, the Subcommittee bill adopts the USDA-requested level of $30 million for the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) competitive grants program, a 50 percent increase over current year funding. The new funding includes $10 million to launch the SARE Federal-State Matching program that was authorized in 1990 but has never before received funding.
Other important victories included a restoration of the $5 million funding level for Organic Transitions research, a program proposed for termination by the Obama Administration.
For the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI), the Subcommittee increased funding by $50 million over current year levels to $312 million. This was considerably less than the $429 million requested by the Administration, though still a very sizable increase.
With respect to 2008 Farm Bill programs with mandatory spending, Chairwoman Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) held true to form and to promises and limited cuts to the customary $270 million cut in the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP), bringing it to $1.32 billion, and the zeroing out of the small watersheds dam rehabilitation program. A GOP amendment brought by Representative Rodney Alexander (R-LA) to kill the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) failed on a party line vote. The Obama Administration had proposed significant cuts to multiple farm bill conservation programs, but most of those were rejected by the Subcommittee.
No limitations were placed on farm bill programs with mandatory funding for beginning farmers, minority farmers, farmers markets, organic research, rural microenterprise, renewable energy, biomass crop assistance, or specialty crops.
The bill matches the USDA request for $3 million for the new Office of Advocacy and Outreach (which deals with small, beginning and minority farmer issues and farmworker issues) and $4 million for a farm labor grant program to be administered by the new Office.
The National Organic Program would also receive the requested level of $10.1 million, a $3.1 million increase over current levels.
The new Healthy Food Financing Initiative to support loans and grants to build grocery stores and other types of markets in food deserts, an initiative backed by the First Lady, gets $40 million in the bill. An amendment offered by Ranking Member Jack Kingston (R-GA) to scale it back to $5 million was defeated on a party-line vote. The bill also provides $2 million to USDA to help staff its Farm to School Tactical Teams to help school districts purchase more local food from local farms.
The regional rural innovation initiative proposed by USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack to set-aside funds from within existing programs to support regionally-based rural development efforts, including for development of local and regional food systems, was scaled back in the Subcommittee bill relative to the USDA request, but survived. It too was the subject an amendment to remove it from the bill, sponsored by Representative JoAnn Emerson (R-MO). Like the other amendments, this one failed on a party-line vote.
We are still awaiting details on a variety of other priority programs for the sustainable agriculture community and will hopefully report on those in a follow-up posting soon.
It is not yet clear what happens next to this bill. Normally, it heads to another markup in full committee within a week or two, but it is uncertain this year whether there will be a full committee markup or not. Senate subcommittee markup is expected at some point in July. Many observers then think the bill will be put on hold until after the November elections, though nothing is certain at this point in time.
Chairwoman DeLauro’s press release on the bill can be read here and a one page, big picture funding summary here.
To read more about NSAC’s appropriations campaign, look here.
USDA/Department of Justice Hear from Dairy Farmers
Wednesday, June 30th, 2010
On June 25, USDA and the Department of Justice held the third in a series of workshops to hear about the impacts of market concentration and consolidation on farmers and ranchers around the country. The third workshop, held in Madison WI, focused on dairy farmers. In addition to USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack and U.S. Assistant Attorney General for Anti-Trust Christine Varney, officials participating included Wisconsin Senators Herb Kohl and Russell Feingold, and the Wisconsin Governor and Secretary of Agriculture.
Several dairy farmers testified about their rapidly decreasing profit margins. In 2008, milk prices tumbled and since then thousands of farmers have faced bankruptcy and foreclosure. Farmers at the workshop criticized the methods for price setting in the dairy market, pointing to the Chicago Mercantile Exchange process for pricing milk as a source of unfair pricing. The price for milk at the farm gate is determined on the Exchange by a small amount of trade in cheddar cheese blocks, which is open to manipulation by a few traders.
U.S. Assistant Attorney General Christine Varney indicated that the Department of Justice will likely meet with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and USDA to discuss how well the Exchange is working in light of the thin market on the Exchange.
Farmers also emphasized that the prices they receive have decreased dramatically in comparison to milk’s retail price. Milk processing has become much more concentrated in the last few decades, with the Dean Foods company and the Dairy Farmers Cooperative of America taking large control of much of the processing of fluid milk in many regions. Dairy farmers received historically low prices in 2009. At the same time Dean Foods profits increased by 254% over 2008, reaching $76.2 million.
Earlier this year, the Department of Justice filed an anti-trust action against Dean Foods alleging that the company bought out two Wisconsin milk bottling plants in order to stifle competition in the Wisconsin, Michigan, and Illinois school milk programs. Senators Russell Feingold (D-WI), Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) have pushed for antitrust probes into activities of the Dairy Farmers Cooperative and Dean Foods, asserting that Dean Foods controls up to 80 percent of the fluid milk market in some regions.
The next workshop will be held August 27, 2010 in Fort Collins, Colorado. This workshop will address beef, hog and other livestock sectors. Issues will include the concentration in livestock markets, buyer power, and enforcement of the Packers and Stockyards Act.
FDA Calls for Comments on Antibiotics Use Guidance
Tuesday, June 29th, 2010
On Monday June 28th, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) published a draft guidance entitled “The Judicious Use of Medically Important Antimicrobial Drugs in Food-Producing Animals,” calling for public comment during the next 60 days.
The use of antimicrobials, including antibiotics, whether in people or animals, hastens the development of resistant microbes, including bacteria. Public health leaders call for caution in the use of medically important antibiotics (those antibiotics used in human medicine), in order to preserve the drugs’ effectiveness for future use.
Antimicrobials are used in animal agriculture for three purposes:
1) to treat diagnosed disease in an animal or a limited group of animals;
2) to promote growth; and
3) to prevent disease prophylatically.
The Union of Concerned Scientists estimates that 70 percent of all antimicrobials in the US are used as feed or water additives for pigs, poultry and cattle for the non-therapeutic purposes of growth promotion and prophylactic disease prevention.
Leading public health organizations around the country and around the world, including American Medical Association, American Public Health Association, American Academy of Pediatrics, Infectious Diseases Society of America, and World Health Organization have spoken out against the routine use of medically important antibiotics in animal agriculture for these non-therapeucitic purposes.
The FDA’s draft guidance states that growth promotion is not a judicious use of medically important antibiotics. It argues, however, that some feed and water administration of medically important antibiotics for disease prevention is “necessary for assuring the health of food-producing animals.” The agency observes correctly that “some may have concerns” with this conclusion.
Critics contend that whether the subjective intent is growth promotion or routine disease prevention, routinely providing medically important antibiotics to animals through feed or water is the very same practice. Moreover, critics note that non-therapeutic use of antibiotics offsets for overcrowded, stressful, and unsanitary conditions at large confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs). By contrast, animals raised in more appropriate conditions, such as those on pasture-based systems, rarely, if ever, require antibiotics.
The FDA seeks to address the potential for abuse by recommending greater veterinary involvement. It notes, however, that there is a shortage of large animal veterinarians, which can make consultation and oversight challenging. The agency therefore proposes a phased-in approach to including increased veterinary oversight, and asks for public comments on how such as phase-in would work. The agency states that it does not want to “disrupt the animal agriculture industry.”
Comments on Docket No. FDA2010D0094 can be submitted during the next 60 days through regulations.gov.
Press coverage of the guidance included the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and the New York Times.
Rural Coop Development Grants Available
Friday, June 25th, 2010
On Friday, June 25, USDA announced the availability of almost $8 million in competitive grant funds through the Rural Cooperative Development Grant Program (RCDG). The RCDG program is designed to improve the economic conditions in rural areas by funding the establishment or operation of Coop Development Centers that can help start up, expand or improve rural coops and mutually-owned businesses.
This year USDA is specifically interested in projects that help create wealth in rural communities through strategies that stimulate economies and create jobs through:
- Local and regional food systems
- Renewable energy generation, energy conservation, and climate change adaptation/mitigation
- Broadband and other critical infrastructure
- Access to capital, or
- Innovative uses of natural resources
USDA expects to award about 35, one-year grants with an average grant size of $225,000. Paper applications must be postmarked by August 9, 2010 and electronic applications must be received by August 9, 2010. Visit the Rural Development website for more information or contact your local Rural Development office.
June ERS Reports: Opportunities & Constraints to Local and Alternative Production Systems
Friday, June 25th, 2010
This June the USDA’s Economic Research Service (ERS) published reports identifying the opportunities and constraints facing both local food supply chains and grass-fed livestock production systems.
In response to the exploding demand for local foods the ERS published, “Comparing the Size, Structure and Performance of Local and Mainstream Food Supply Chains.” The report looks at the determinants of structure and size for local food supply chains and compares the social, environmental and economic performance of local vs. mainstream supply chains.
The report is one of the outcomes of a 2008 Farm Bill effort by Senators Feingold, Menendez, and Harkin, supported by NSAC, to foster greater research into local and regional food systems.
Using case study analysis, the report focuses on 5 products from 5 urban areas; blueberries in Portland, Oregon; leafy greens in Sacramento, California; apples in Syracuse, New York; beef in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and fluid milk in Washington D.C. Click here to read about the case studies in detail.
The case studies followed each product along 3 supply chains; local, inter-mediated and mainstream. Local supply chains relied on direct marketing from producer to consumer, defining “local” as produced within a 400 mile radius or within the state, a definition that NSAC helped develop for use in the Farm Bill. Inter-mediated supply chains refers to producers who grow/ raise food locally but then employ a marketing intermediary to reach consumers.
Key findings from the report include:
- Direct marketing comprises a very small portion of the total sales for each product but producers using local food supply chains receive higher revenues per unit and receive a larger share of the retail dollar. Farmers selling into inter-mediated supply chains also receive a larger share relative to the mainstream supply chains.
- Economic benefits from local supply chains accrue locally, but mainstream supply chains can also contribute to local economies.
- Local food systems generate greater social capital and civic engagement.
- Local food supply chains often rely on a more diversified portfolio of market outlets such as farmers markets, CSAs, buying clubs, restaurants, Internet sales, etc.
- Costs associated with mainstream processing and distribution often block small to mid- sized producers from opportunities to scale-up.
In their monthly publication, “Livestock, Poultry and Dairy Outlook,” the ERS published another report in response to growing consumer demand for grass-fed meat.
Most cattle spend the first half of their lives grazing on pasture. However, in conventional production systems, cattle are confined into concentrated into feedlots and finished on grain feed. In addition to providing a large market for abundant gran supplies, the grain feed also results in more tender meat with a shorter production time.
Alternatively, many ranchers are returning to production systems that finish the livestock on high-quality grasses and forages. The resulting meat is leaner and also provides a healthier fat profile with more Omega-3 fatty acids. Producers can also differentiate their products as “grass-fed” or “grass-finished” as a marketing niche. According to this ERS report, grass-fed or finished cattle comprise about 3% of the industry, growing at about 20% per year.
This ERS report explains that although grass-fed beef is a commercially viable alternative to conventional systems, as demand for grass-fed meat expands, foraged based production systems will face increasing constraints. Specifically, the ERS cites the higher costs associated with relying on feeds that are in shorter supply (particularly in winter months), potential land shortages, and the greater production time required to fatten cattle on forages. The report also addressed the need for more processing facilities in local areas to handle the increasing demand.
Click here to read this report.
Farmers Fly to Washington D.C. to Have Their Voices Heard
Friday, June 25th, 2010
On June 23rd, 11 farmers from around the country flew to Washington D.C. to have their voices heard.
NSAC hosted the Budget and Appropriations “Fly-In” at a critical juncture as the USDA prepares it’s budget proposals for the Fiscal Year 2012 and Congress starts work to finalize 2011 agricultural appropriations. The farmers and NSAC staff spent the morning with officials from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the afternoon in individual meetings with their Congressional representatives as they expressed funding requests for indispensable sustainable agriculture programs. Click here to read a direct account from Steve Warshawer from Mesa Top Farm in New Mexico.
These top officials from the USDA carved out their morning to meet with farmers:
- Kathleen Merrigan, USDA Deputy Secretary,
- Erroll Bragg, Director of the Marketing Services Division of the Agriculture Marketing Service,
- Cheryl Cook, Deputy Undersecretary for Rural Development,
- David White, Chief of the Natural Resource Conservation Service, and
- Meryl Broussard, Interim Deputy Director of the National Institute of Food and Agriculture.
Participating farmers expressed their needs for conservation technical assistance and investment in research for transitioning to organic production in addition to their appreciation for ongoing funding opportunities such as the Sustainable Agriculture Research & Education (SARE) grant program and Value-Added Producer Grants and hoped-for new opportunities via the Beginning Farmer and Rancher Individual Development Account program. They also spoke to the utility of the Conservation Stewardship Program and other mandatory farm bill conservation programs.
“These programs offer more than capital or incentives, they are a vote of confidence in your farm,” said Amy Courtney a fruit & vegetable farmer from Santa Cruz County, California.
Although authorized in the 2008 Farm Bill, funding for most rural development, marketing, and research programs require annual appropriations to get started and to remain available. Click here to read more about the appropriations process. This “fly-in” allowed farmers to tell USDA officials and their Congressional representatives what programs to prioritize and to give specific budget recommendations. To read NSAC’s 2011 appropriations priorities, click here.
In the afternoon meetings on the Hill, farmers emphasized funding for the same programs in the context of the upcoming appropriations bill for 2011. For instance, Margaret Smith, an organic crop and livestock farmer from Ash Grove Farm in Iowa, explained to Senator Harkin’s (D-IA) staff how cost-share CSP funding helped her purchase fencing to transition to a more sustainable rotational grazing livestock system. She also emphasized the importance of investment in organic production research systems, for sustainable and conventional agriculture alike.
Farmers in this year’s budget and appropriations fly-in hailed from GA, PA, CT, WI, IA, KS, and CA. Co-sponsors of the event included Michael Fields Agricultural Institute, Organic Farming Research Foundation, Center for Rural Affairs, Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation, Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture, Fay-Penn Economic Development Council, and California Farmlink.
House and Senate Agricultural Appropriations Subcommittees may be working on their funding bills for FY 2011 in the near future. You can stay on top of agricultural funding issues by signing up for NSAC action alerts.
Food Safety Talks: An Interview with NSAC’s Ferd Hoefner
Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010
By Patty Cantrell, Senior Policy Specialist at Michigan Land Institute, a consultant for the National Good Food Food Network & Co-Chair of NSAC’s Marketing, Food Systems and Rural Development Issue Committee
As the U.S. Senate prepares to vote on new food safety regulations, the National Good Food Network (NGFN) has posted a series of interviews with leading participants in the process. Patty Cantrell interviewed four policy insiders about the pending legislation and related issues. Posted below is the series’ final interview with Ferd Hoefner, policy director for the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.
Click here to read other interviews with Robert Guenther of the United Fresh Produce Association, Tony Corbo of Food and Water Watch, and Brian Snyder of the Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture. See additional information at the NGFN’s Food Safety Working Group page.
Food Safety Interview with NSAC’s Ferd Hoefner
Why has NSAC been so engaged in food safety deliberations in Washington? What have been your key priorities?
Fundamentally farmers are worried, with good reason, about what a new Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulatory regime is going to look like on the farm, and that has percolated up through our membership organizations to make this a very high priority.
It’s not from a position of being against food safety legislation but from trying to make sure that whatever comes out is not top-down, command-and-control regulation that does not fit farming realities.
Our top priority is to make sure we don’t wind up with one-size-fits-all regulation written for mega, industrial-style, specialized farming that assume the same rules could apply to the vast majority of farms, which are smaller and more diverse.
Close behind in priority is making sure the rules mesh with conservation and environmental policy, and with organic certification rules and other labeling and certification programs out there.
Lurking behind these specific issues is the very real concern that the new regulatory regime could have the effect of further consolidating the industry and putting more farms out of business, as we’ve seen in other areas of agriculture and the larger economy when widespread regulation kicks in.
How that happens is partly how regulations are generally written in a one-size-fits-all way. It’s partly the increased cost of complying with expensive regulations, which can make the difference in staying in business or not for those running on very tight margins. Then there’s the very real political effect as many of these rules become detailed and complicated. The big economic actors employ lobbyists from the best K Street firms to keep track and influence the process; they are at every meeting and know every player. Small and mid-scale players simply cannot afford to do that.
What is your opinion on the current state of the legislation, both the House-passed Food Safety Enhancement Act 2009 and the Senate bill on its way to the floor, S510?
In the Senate bill we feel we have made significant headway. The language in the produce section makes it clear that regulators should concentrate on the highest risk situations and the highest risk crops and processes. That’s incredibly important. There’s also very strong language related to conservation and environmental regulations and how they relate to food safety, as well as the interplay between food safety and organic standards. And importantly, when the bill passes, it will include language that requires FDA to go through a risk analysis and rule making, subject to public comment, to determine which farms fall under the legislation’s new requirements.
The House bill passed a whole year earlier, and we were not as organized to influence it. The House bill includes very few of the protections present in the Senate bill. For example, the Senate bill states that if farms have to retain records for traceability purposes, they must do so only for the receipt for the point of first sale, for whoever buys it from the farm. We think that’s a very important principle. In the House bill, many farms would have to somehow know, and prove, what happens to their product all the way to the supermarket. We maintain the farmer should not be responsible for knowing what the wholesaler did with their product, what the distributor did, what the aggregator did, and what the final retailer did.
How to pay for FDA’s new inspection duties is a contentious question. What does NSAC think about provisions in the legislation for covering FDA’s costs?
Cost is a big issue and it’s hardly been mentioned in the House or the Senate. We know the price tag on this thing is high if FDA is really going to do everything involved, all the extra inspections and all the work on imports, for example. The FDA’s budget has been going up pretty steadily the past three to four years, but it’s nowhere near the $2 billion jump the agency is projected to need for this.
If the bill passes, there will be a lot of press releases about ensuring the American food supply is safe. But actually, other than some more purely policy components like mandatory recalls, which is a really important advance in the bill by the way, most of the other components will have to wait until FDA has implementation money appropriated by Congress in future funding legislation.
The House bill applies a flat $500 registration fee to all food facilities, whether you’re a Kraft cheese whiz plant or you are Grandma Jones who makes apple butter and sells it at the farmers market. It’s the most regressive flat tax proposal to come out of the Pelosi-Waxman-Dingell, democratic liberal leadership in quite a long time. They normally wouldn’t dream of a regressive flat tax regime, but that’s exactly what they did under heavy pressure from the Grocery Manufacturers Association and others.
The Senate bill does not have fees, which is part of an agreement from a bipartisan team of Senators working on it in committee. It will be a big issue between the Obama Administration, with Health and Human Services and FDA supporting fees, and the Senate saying the only way it will pass is if it has no fees. We will support no fees or progressive fees, but adamantly oppose the House-passed regressive flat tax.
What do you think of the concept of “identity preserved” foods as a category separate from products that contain food commingled from many sources? Local food and sustainable agriculture advocates have brought this concept forward as a way to differentiate food that comes to market through face-to-face or very short supply chains.
The concept is fairly new, even though its been growing as a trend over the last five years. More and more consumers want to know who the farmer is behind their food, and farmers are finding that that is a valuable value-added marketing strategy.
Our argument relates to the fact that, under current FDA rules, if you’re direct marketing more than 50 percent of your processed farm product, then you don’t fall under the regulatory regime. We ask what the difference is between that and farms that preserve their identity in the market through labeling. Preserving a farm’s identity should get the same treatment as direct marketing. But that’s not the case yet in the legislation.
Traceability is the watchword in food safety negotiations. How do you believe traceability can be achieved in the commingled commodity food stream?
Figuring out which processing plant a food product came out of is probably do-able, and we already do some of that. It’s really different when you’re trying to tell which of thousands of farms supplied products to a processing or packing plant. That’s where it becomes much more difficult, and that’s the reality of massively commingled products in our current food system.
However, when the traceability system does succeed, as it did recently with romaine lettuce from a farm in Arizona, it didn’t make any difference. The industry is concerned with indiscriminate shutdowns, but in this case of knowing exactly which farm was the source, FDA still shut down farms on an area-wide basis. You have to ask what is actually the purpose of a tracing system when, after tracing an outbreak to a specific farm, it makes no difference in the reaction of regulators.
This example raises another question relating to causation; once you know where it came from, if you don’t know how it got there, maybe the traceability information required isn’t that important. Yet the legislation calls for producers to employ potentially costly technology to capture all of this information, technology that hasn’t been developed yet.
That’s another thing that’s kind of crazy, and this is a criticism of the House bill: It’s very unusual to pass legislation saying this is the way it’s going to be, and to get there we have to invent a new technology, and once it’s there you will have to use it. That is getting the cart way before the horse.
What is your perspective on exemption proposals for certain farms?
From the very beginning of this debate, a huge concern has been with how smaller, more diversified farms with shorter supply chains, causing few problems, could get caught up in regulations written for industrial-size operations.
One controversial exemption amendment from Senator Jon Tester (D-Montana) takes a somewhat meat axe approach to it, saying here’s the gross income threshold and everybody under it goes a different direction. We support the intent, and if a substantive, more nuanced agreement can’t be reached before the bill goes to the floor, we’re going to support it on the floor because the principle is incredibly important.
The gross sales threshold in the Tester amendment is actually far more practical than existing rules to exempt all farms that direct market more than 50 percent of their product. Either way there is a significant exemption, and the question becomes which is the better, more practical, verifiable and effective exemption. Hands down that is the Tester approach.
That said, we will continue to urge Sen. Tester to adopt a more refined position. A more refined position would take on a variety of things that have not really been addressed yet.
For instance, farm facilities that market with their identity preserved on the product could be made exempt. The HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points) section of the bill currently includes a variety of agricultural exemptions, but not one for small farms determined to be adequately regulated at the state level. The performance standards section is not open to public comment, and we think it should be; that’s where the rubber hits the road of how to apply standards and what rules apply to highly diversified operations. Also in the inspection section, there is language that, even if you’re considered a very low risk, FDA will inspect you every four years. Again, that’s hundreds of thousands of farms that will have to go through inspection even after FDA has determined they’re low risk. We think that’s kind of ridiculous; it’s one of the things that drives up the cost of the bill unnecessarily and ultimately reduces positive food safety outcomes.
What about food safety activity outside of this legislative process (i.e. California Leafy Greens Agreement)? What’s your position?
FDA and USDA both currently have leafy greens regulatory or quasi-regulatory proceedings going on, prompted in part by calls for nationalizing the California agreement.
We wonder why two different agencies are running two parallel processes and what their plan for resolving differences is. We also think, in some respects, it’s putting the cart before the horse. Our presumption is that if FDA promulgates new regulations, they will have to rewrite them after the legislation passes to comply with its provisions.
Our position, and the position of the National Organic Coalition, which we’ve worked with very closely, is that if there’s going to be a regulation then FDA should write it because FDA is the regulator. USDA has a different role.
USDA is working on a leafy greens marketing agreement. Marketing agreements have their purpose (marketing) and food safety regulations have their purpose (food safety). Confusing the marketing purpose with the food safety purpose kind of muddies the water.
If you could write your own food safety bill from scratch, what would be your top three provisions?
Our top provision is to focus on how we create a food system that promotes healthy nutrition and safe food, which is not the system we have now. Our number one priority is proactively working towards that improved food system rather than trying to retrofit food safety rules around a very broken food system.
More germane to the current bill itself would have been to start off by having a separate section for operations like ConAgra, Kraft, Cargill, and Peanut Corporation of America and a separate section for farms, dealing with them in all of the unique characteristics that make farms very different from a Kraft plant. But as written, the legislation tries to apply the same rules across the board.
If we had had a separate agricultural section, we would now be dealing with robust provisions for certification and training, things that can very quickly improve the food safety reality on the ground. Education and training and certification can address problems much more quickly than command-and-control provisions that, at best, will take a long time before they’re funded and then enforced. Granted, those provisions are not appropriate for the Peanut Corporation of America type operations, but that’s exactly the point; these are two different kettles of fish and should be treated that way.
Third, and we’ve made some headway on this, is the need for food safety rules that are supportive of and coordinated with conservation rules. We need to turn back as quickly as possible from what has happened in California with the industry-led leafy greens agreement. Outcomes of that agreement are contrary to everything we know about soil and wildlife biology. There’s no reason why we can’t have better conservation and food safety; they go together. The notion that they are in opposition should be put to rest.
U.S. Supreme Court Ruling in GE Alfalfa Case
Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010
On Monday, June 20, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its ruling in Monsanto Co. v. Geertson Seed Farm. The ruling involved a challenge by the USDA and Monsanto to a federal court decision to impose a permanent and nationwide injunction on the commercial planting of “Roundup Ready” alfalfa, genetically engineered to resist the herbicide glyphosate (RR alfalfa), pending completion of a full environmental impact statement (EIS).
The case began when alfalfa farmers and sustainable agriculture and environmental organizations challenged the decision of USDA’s Animal & Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) to deregulate the RR alfalfa, which would allow commercial planting. A federal court found that in making this decision, APHIS failed in its legal duty under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) by issuing an environmental assessment and finding of no significant impact rather than a full EIS. The judge vacated the determination of APHIS that the RR alfalfa was deregulated and imposed the injunction, with one exception to allow farmers to harvest and sell RR alfalfa planted before March 30, 2007. The federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal upheld the judgment of the lower court.
Monsanto and USDA then appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court contending that the plaintiffs would suffer no injury if RR alfalfa continued to be planted pending completion of the EIS. They also argued that a permanent nationwide injunction on RR commercial planting was too broad a legal remedy. They wanted the lower court to impose a limited restriction which would have allowed continued commercial planting of RR alfalfa subject to requirements for distances from fields with non-GE alfalfa, cleaning of equipment used to harvest GE seed, requirements for identifying and handling GE seed and other measures.
The good news is that the Supreme Court ruling does not lift the current prohibition on the commercial planting of RR alfalfa because there was no challenge to the lower court’s order which vacated the APHIS determination to deregulate RR alfalfa. The Court also agreed with the plaintiff alfalfa farmers and sustainable agriculture and environmental organizations that contamination of conventional and organic alfalfa crops by the commercial planting of the RR alfalfa seed and pollen had a reasonable probability of causing an injury that could be recognized by federal courts. Even if conventional and organic alfalfa were not actually contaminated by gene flow from RR alfalfa, farmers would have to bear increased costs to protect and test their crops or find sources of non-GE alfalfa seed from areas with no GE alfalfa. This injury is sufficient to give the plaintiffs the opportunity to seek a legal remedy that would restrict gene flow from RR alfalfa to their crops.
The bad news is that the U.S. Supreme Court agreed with USDA that the lower court should not have issued an injunction that would prevent USDA from proposing a partial deregulation of RR alfalfa, with limited geographic scope and restrictions, before preparing the full EIS. Under this ruling, if plaintiffs prevail in a NEPA challenge to a federal agency action, the agency could adjust the scope of its action and issue a more limited regulation to try to avoid preparing an EIS. The burden would be on those challenging the action to launch another lawsuit against that limited action.
The Court’s ruling is also, unfortunately, an invitation to federal agencies to indulge in “project chopping.” This is the shorthand term for an agency trying to avoid comprehensive analysis of the cumulative impacts of major federal action on the human environment required by NEPA, simply by segmenting the action into partial actions to avoid full environmental review. With enough of these limited actions, a federal agency could take major federal action that in total imposes a significant impact on the environment without preparing an EIS. This flies in the face of well-established NEPA policy that requires that a federal agency responsible for environmental review must group together and evaluate as a single project all individual activities that are related on either a geographical or a functional basis, or are logical parts of a composite of contemplated actions.
USDA’s APHIS has not yet determined whether it will accept the invitation of the Court to prepare a regulation for a more restricted planting of RR alfalfa. The agency has announced its intention to complete the full EIS in time for the spring planting of alfalfa crops in 2011.
USDA Issues Assessment of Conservation Practices in Upper Mississippi River
Friday, June 18th, 2010
On Wednesday, June 16, USDA announced the release of the report Assessment of the Effects of Conservation Practices on Cultivated Cropland in the Upper Mississippi River Basin. The report is a comprehensive look at the effects of NRCS conservation practices on about 190,000 square miles, including the large portions of Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Wisconsin and small portions of Indiana, Michigan and South Dakota that are within the Basin.
Nearly one-half the acres in the Basin are planted to corn or soybeans, so the Report focuses on the effects of nutrients and sediment from agricultural land on water quality in the Basin. Key findings of the Report include:
• Suites of practices work better than single practices;
• Targeting critical acres improves effectiveness significantly; practices have the greatest effect on the most vulnerable acres, such as highly erodible land and soils prone to leaching;
• Uses of soil erosion control practices are widespread in the basin. Most acres receive some sort of conservation treatment, resulting in a 69 percent reduction in sediment loss. However, about 15 percent of the cultivated cropland acres still have excessive sediment losses and require additional treatment; and
• The most critical conservation concern in the region is the loss of nitrogen from farm fields through leaching, including nitrogen loss through tile drainage systems.
The Report emphasizes that conservation practices have resulted in reducing nitrogen losses from the surface by almost 46 percent but have reduced losses from leaching, including tile drainage, by only 5 percent. Moreover, measures to control soil erosion may result in increased loss of nitrogen below the surface, unless nutrient management practices are also implemented.
The Upper Mississippi River Basin report is the first of twelve regional reports on conservation practices on cropland that will be issued as part of the Conservation Effects Assessment Project (CEAP). The Project is intended to assess the effects of conservation practices on the nation’s cropland, grazing lands, wetlands, wildlife and watersheds. It is a multi-agency, multi-resource effort led by the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service. Additional information, including a powerpoint presentation on the Upper Mississippi River Basin report, is posted on the NRCS website for CEAP.
Controversial House Subcommittee Hearing on Crop Insurance
Friday, June 18th, 2010
On June 17, in preparation for the 2012 Farm Bill, the House Agriculture General Farm Commodities and Risk Management Subcommittee held a hearing on U.S. farm safety net programs. Jim Miller, Under Secretary for Farm and Foreign Agricultural Services testified along with Jonathan Coppess, Farm Service Agency, and Bill Murphy, Risk Management Agency. You can view the Under Secretary’s opening statement here.
Subcommittee ranking member Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) challenged the Risk Management Agency’s plan to cut funding to crop insurance companies by $6 billion. The agency proposed to allocate some of those freed-up funds to the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP). However, the CRP already receives mandatory funding in the 2008 Farm Bill legislation and concern was raised that the agency’s plan could jeopardize the 2012 Farm Bill baseline.
Representative Moran also raised concern about the timing for CRP sign-up. Miller said that the USDA would publish an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) in the Federal Register early next week, which would be followed by a 30 day “no action” period. For farmers with expiring CRP contracts, this timeline pushes re-enrollment back until August, at best. As Moran bemoaned, this leaves precious little time for farmers to tear up cover crops and plan for planting, if necessary, should they not be re-enrolled in CRP.
NSAC is extremely concerned about the Administration’s decision to pay for a new CRP sign-up through savings from the renegotiation with crop insurance companies. Congress already provided the funding for CRP in the farm bill. Having the Administration pay for it again via the crop insurance deal is, in essence, paying for the program twice. Were it to become a precedent, it would in essence mean USDA and the White House could ignore conservation (or other) funding decisions made by Congress and simply cut funding administratively. This is very bad policy, and our hope is the Agriculture Committees and congressional leadership will make it clear to the Administration it should not happen again.