News Update

News Update
December 17, 2007

Senate passes farm bill, moves to conference under veto threat

The Senate on Friday voted 79-14 to pass a version of the 2007 Farm Bill the White House has already threatened to veto, sending the legislation to the House-Senate conference committee to hash out differences and agree on a bill that the White House will sign.

“This legislation is fundamentally flawed. Unless the House and Senate can come together and craft a measure that contains real reform, we are no closer to a good farm bill than we were before today’s passage,” Acting Secretary of Agriculture Chuck Conner said in a statement.

Conner acknowledged he was disappointed the Senate approved the bill by such a wide margin. Broadly, the Administration opposes the cost of the $286 billion farm bill, which it says includes $22 billion in unfunded commitments and includes $15 billion in new taxes, as well as the fact that it did not limit subsidies to wealthier farm owners as much as the Administration sought.

Packer livestock ownership. The Senate version of the bill includes a livestock title (Title X) that contains a provision that would allow meatpackers to own livestock only 14 days before slaughter.

“We’re going to be working very closely with the conferees in both the House and Senate to address this issue very directly as we go into the conference,” Mark Keenum, undersecretary for farm and foreign agricultural services told reporters, adding that the provision is, “impeding commerce and trade with a specific commodity, in this situation livestock, and that's a slippery slope.”

COOL and state-inspected meat. Both House and Senate versions of the bill contain mandatory country-of-origin labeling (sometimes referred to as COOL or COL) provisions that meat industry groups have agreed they can live with.

The House version of the bill includes a provision that would allow some state-inspected meat to cross state lines.

— Release courtesy of Meatingplace.com

Prevention is the Key

Scours is the leading cause of sickness in newborn calves. If producers are not careful, scours can take a toll on their calves and their bottom lines.

Scours is a disease caused by a variety of infectious and noninfectious pathogens, making it difficult to treat or control. Calves usually become sick within the first 24 hours of birth. While some calves can recover through treatment, scours treatments are costly and time consuming. Thus, prevention before birth is the key to protecting calves from this disease. The following tips from John Rodgers, senior veterinarian with Pfizer Animal Health, may help keep your calves healthy and help protect them from the leading cause of sickness.

Scours prevention tips. Cows and first-calf heifers should be vaccinated with two doses of a reputable vaccine prior to calving. It is important to always follow label directions to accurately vaccinate at the correct time for both doses.

It is important to meet the pregnant cow’s or heifer’s nutrient requirements.
Reduce stress as much as possible during delivery.
Pens or pasture should be kept clean and dry during calving and afterward.
If an operation has scouring calves, they should be isolated from the healthy animals to avoid contaminating the rest of the herd.
Work with a local veterinarian in designing a scours management program that fits in with the overall health protocols of the operation.

— Release courtesy of Pfizer Animal Health

U.S. Beef Shipped to Russia

Russia has purchased about 125,000 pounds of U.S. whole-muscle beef, the first such purchase since it banned U.S. beef in 2003 due to bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) concerns, a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) spokeswoman confirmed.

“There have been requests for four shipments (container loads) of beef items to Russia,” USDA spokeswoman Angela Harless told Meatingplace.com, adding the sale was made by a single company.

USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) posted a list of 18 facilities approved for export to Russia Oct. 19. Of these, 13 are harvest or processing plants and five are cold storage facilities. The approvals followed audits by Russian officials to verify compliance with all Russian requirements.

The United States has been basically shut out of the Russian market since 2003. Russia eased its rules enough in November 2006 to make U.S. beef imports legal, but onerous restrictions remain.

U.S. officials said last week that after months of negotiating, the United States and Russia are near a deal on opening that market more broadly to U.S. beef products.

— Release courtesy of Meatingplace.com

BSE in Japan Reported to be Linked to Milk

Some of the animals in Japan infected with BSE may have contracted the disease from alternative milk containing Dutch-made fat, according to an investigation by Japan’s Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Kyodo News Service reported.

The investigations examined 32 of the 33 animals in Japan confirmed to be infected with BSE. The ministry said the disease found in 13 of those animals was highly attributed to alternative milk made from powdered animal fat produced by a feed plant in the Netherlands, according to Kyodo. The 13 cows were born in the Hokkaido or Kanto regions between 1995 and 1996.

Alternative milk, which uses mostly skim milk as its basic ingredient, is fed to baby calves up to seven weeks after they’re born.

The ministry added that the results of the investigations are not definite, as Dutch and other reports have denied animal fat as a cause of BSE, Kyodo reported.

— Release courtesy of Meatingplace.com

— compiled by Mathew Elliott, assistant editor, Angus Productions Inc. (API)