News Update
March 1, 2010

USDA Launches Trade Adjustment Assistance for Farmers Program

Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack launched the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) for Farmers Program March 1 to help American agricultural producers adjust to the current, challenging economic environment.

“As we work to help rural America recover from the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, the Trade Adjustment Assistance for Farmers Program will create new opportunities for producers hurt by import competition,” Vilsack said. “Eligible producers will receive much-needed technical assistance and cash benefits to help them adjust to the current economic environment.”

In August, USDA requested public comments on a proposed rule for establishing the procedures and eligibility criteria for receiving assistance. Comments focused on payment limitations and adjusted gross income, specialty crops, and length of intensive training. The interim rule, published in the Federal Register March 1, immediately implements the TAA for Farmers Program and provides for an additional 30-day public comment period.

Re-authorized by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, the TAA for Farmers Program applies to producers of raw ag commodities and fishermen who show a greater than 15% decrease — contributed importantly by an increase in imports — in the national average price; the quantity of production; the value of production; or in cash receipts compared to the average of the three preceding marketing years. The assistance includes help in developing business adjustment plans that can serve as a guide for adjusting a producer’s business operation to prevailing economic conditions.

USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service administers the TAA for Farmers Program with assistance from the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, the Farm Service Agency and the Agricultural Marketing Service.

For more information, visit www.fas.usda.gov/itp/taa or contact the TAA for Farmers Program staff, Office of Trade Programs, at 202-720-0638, or 202-690-0633, or by e-mail at tradeadjustment@fas.usda.gov.

— Release by USDA.

U.S. Beef Draws Strong Interest at Gulfood 2010

Gulfood 2010, the Middle East’s largest food and beverage industry tradeshow was billed as the largest exhibition in the event’s 23-year history, with more than 45,000 industry professionals expected to be in attendance Feb. 21-24. This year’s theme of “Bigger, Better, Business” was particularly applicable to U.S. beef, as a record 18 suppliers exhibited products.

The Middle East has long been a mainstay for U.S. beef variety meat, but interest in U.S. muscle cuts is exploding — especially in Egypt. In 2009, beef muscle cut exports to Egypt increased by more than 600% in volume [to 31.48 million pounds (lb.)] and nearly 500% in value (to $23.5 million) over the previous year. For the region as a whole, muscle cut exports doubled in volume and increased by nearly one-third in value over 2008. Despite a sluggish global market for variety meat, combined U.S. beef/beef variety meat exports to the Middle East achieved 7% growth in volume in 2009 while remaining steady in value.

“Beef supplies from South America are becoming more restricted and their prices — especially Brazil’s — have recently been on the rise,” says John Brook, U.S. Meat Export Federation (USMEF) regional director for Europe, Russia and the Middle East. “So we’re seeing increasing opportunities for U.S. rounds and even a growing demand for forequarter cuts.”

Brook adds that in the United Arab Emirates, the food industry does not appear to be overly shaken by recent concerns raised about the financial condition of Dubai World, the country’s enormous construction consortium.

“Retailers and restaurants are very optimistic that this year will bring significant growth when compared to 2009,” he says. “Some individual suppliers are predicting that their business in the region could grow by as much as 20%.”

For more information about the beef checkoff’s foreign marketing efforts, visit www.MyBeefCheckoff.com.

Take Steps to Avoid Employee Burnout, K-State Animal Scientist Recommends

Winter in Kansas can mean rest, rejuvenation, and relaxation — unless you’re in agriculture. In that case, winter can mean exhaustion, cold, endless mud and broken equipment.

If livestock owners and managers are exhausted, Kansas State University (K-State) animal scientist Chris Reinhardt encourages them to consider how their employees feel.

“If work hours have been abnormally taxing to all involved, consider providing your employees some extra time off,” said Reinhardt, a feedlot specialist with Kansas State University Research and Extension. “This may be especially essential if the hectic schedule of spring planting time will not allow for extra breaks.”

Reinhardt suggested that if the workload does not allow for additional time off, livestock owners and managers might consider deferring or outsourcing some jobs.

“On the one hand you can’t afford to increase short-term cost outlays by outsourcing equipment repair or maintenance. But burnout, frustration and dissatisfaction are inevitable if we don’t actively prepare for and prevent it. And the natural product of that burnout is turnover,” he said. “The costly part may be that the turnover could happen when we can least afford to be short-handed: calving time, spring planting, harvest, weaning, the fall run.”

He likened workplace burnout to “a huge boulder rolling downhill, gathering steam, directly towards your place of business at the bottom of the hill. The boulder has inertia, which could be defined as its ‘unwillingness to change direction’ and the ‘unwillingness’ is increasing. The only way to intervene is to invest energy and resources to stop or turn the boulder away from your workplace.”

The longer a manager waits, the more resources he or she will need to turn the boulder, Reinhardt said.

“Your intentionality overcomes inertia. Things will stay on the same course until you decide to actively change their course. Keeping your workplace satisfying and rewarding in order to keep your good people engaged and working hard will require that you are an active participant in determining the course your work environment is headed.”

— Release by K-State Research and Extension.

Farm Bureau President Urges Farmers to Tell Story, Engage on Issues

American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) President Bob Stallman told Louisiana farmers that American agriculture has a great story to tell, and farmers and ranchers in Louisiana and across the country must tell their stories, or be drowned out by critics “who are more than happy to tell the story of agriculture for us.”

Speaking Friday at the Louisiana Farmer of the Year Banquet, Stallman said farmers and ranchers continue to face many new threats. The challenges include federal regulations that go beyond the scope of law, taxes that threaten the future of family-based farming and extremists who oppose modern farms and ranches on every front.

Stallman said one such challenge is federal cap-and-trade, climate-change legislation. A bill approved by the House would sharply cut the number of U.S. acres devoted to food production, replacing them with forest acres, at a time when experts say the world should be focused on feeding a growing world population.

“USDA suggests we could easily be talking about 59 million acres leaving food and crop production under cap and trade,” Stallman told the Louisiana farmers. “That would mean roughly the equivalent of every one of Louisiana’s 8.1 million acres of farmland, times seven.”

While the climate change policy battle rages on in Congress, the Obama administration is using a heavy-handed regulatory scheme that could deal a harsh economic penalty to agriculture. In the case of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) determining that greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide endanger public health and welfare, Stallman said the agency overreached its legal authority.

“In its quest to ensure environmental quality, we believe the regulatory reach of the Environmental Protection Agency has simply gone too far,” Stallman said. “EPA issued a finding in December that determined greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare. EPA’s action constitutes the first step toward economy-wide regulation of greenhouse gases through the Clean Air Act. The agency is trying to achieve through regulation what has failed to pass Congress and failed as well at the recent international talks in Copenhagen.

AFBF is one of several groups that have filed a legal challenge to the EPA’s greenhouse gas “endangerment finding.” The organization also is backing bipartisan legislative efforts to disapprove of the EPA action.

Stallman also told the Louisiana farmers about efforts by AFBF to lessen the impact of federal estate taxes on agriculture. The tax is totally repealed for 2010, but comes roaring back with a vengeance in 2011.

“At Farm Bureau, we believe the estate tax should be repealed; it is an unfair, immoral tax,” Stallman said. “One should not have to deal with the undertaker and the tax man on the same day. But until the tax is repealed, we are urging Congress to work for meaningful estate tax reform by enacting an exemption of $10 million, indexed for inflation.

“As all of you know, our farms and ranches are capital-intensive businesses with a high concentration of assets tied up in land, building and equipment. We are always land-rich and cash-poor. That’s why the estate tax hits our families so hard. That’s why we are calling on Congress to do all it can to help us preserve agriculture’s family connection and pass legislation to fix this problem.”

Stallman also took the Louisiana speech as an opportunity to repeat a call for unity, empowerment and inclusiveness among farmers and ranchers, against the many “external forces tugging at agriculture’s seams.”

“American agriculture is a big tent, and it takes each and every one of us to put a meal on America’s dinner table,” Stallman said. “We must not let words used by critics drive a wedge between us. As we are attacked by the activists and critics of our great agriculture production system … and burdened with costly regulations put in place by our political leaders, we must not give in. We will not give up.”

— Release by AFBF.

— Compiled by Mathew Elliott, assistant editor, Angus Productions Inc.