News Update
March 15, 2018
Angus Regional Managers
Receive Respective State Honors
American Angus Association Director of Field Services David Gazda and Regional Manager Jeff Mafi were recently awarded honors by the Georgia Angus Association and Oklahoma Angus Associations, respectively.
Gazda was inducted into the Georgia Angus Hall of Fame March 3 in Athens, Ga., during the Georgia Angus Association’s Annual Meeting and Banquet. The Georgia Angus Association board of directors selected Gazda to receive the honor due to his longstanding commitment to advancing the Angus breed in his home state of Georgia.
“I’m very humbled and appreciative of the Georgia Angus Association board of directors and membership for this recognition,” Gazda said. “Having personally known many of the previous inductees and their contributions to the Angus breed in the state, some of whom served as mentors early in my career, makes this honor that much more meaningful.”
A week later, fellow Association Regional Manager Jeff Mafi received the Mr. Angus award from the Oklahoma Angus Association March 9 in Oklahoma City, Okla.
Mafi was selected because he goes above and beyond to initiate programs and promote Oklahoma Angus, according to Gaye Pfeiffer, Oklahoma Angus Association secretary and treasurer.
Read the full Angus news release online.
No Such Thing as ‘Uncured’ Corned Beef,
Penn State Meat Expert Says
Millions of Americans will celebrate the St. Patrick’s Day holiday this month with a “traditional” meal of corned beef and cabbage — but most won’t pause to consider what makes the meat so distinctive or how it ended up being a tradition.
Of those relatively few who do ponder the pink color and salty tang of their brisket, many will be misled by the label on their corned beef into thinking the meat has not been cured, according to Ed Mills, associate professor of meat science in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences, but it’s not a big deal, he believes.
“Many of the corned beef products you see in grocery stores these days have labels that say ‘uncured,’ but that’s not really accurate,” Mills said. “They have been cured, but the curing has occurred with nitrates and nitrites in added celery juice powder, sea salt or unrefined sugar — and not by the customary large grains of salt, accompanied by a small amount of sodium nitrite.”
Mills explained that meat processors use celery juice powder, sea salt or unrefined sugar to cure the meat and make corned beef because consumers are uneasy about nitrite being linked to cancer.
For more information, view the full Penn State news release online.
Statement of Under Secretary Greg Ibach
on Section 199A Tax Code Fix Agreement
The USDA’s Under Secretary for Marketing and Regulatory Programs Greg Ibach March 14 issued the following statement regarding an agreement among Congressional leaders to address concerns with recent changes to Section 199A of the federal tax code. Some agriculture stakeholders had raised questions about potential market effects on cooperatives and independent grain-related businesses.
Ibach said regarding the issue:
“The sweeping tax cuts and reform package championed by President Trump and passed by Congress is already working as designed, empowering growth across all economic sectors, including agriculture. An unintended consequence of the new law caused disparate treatment among independent operators and cooperatives in the same industry. Federal tax policy should not be picking winners and losers in the marketplace. We applaud Congress and stakeholders for coming together and agreeing to a solution for the good of all agriculture. At USDA, we will provide whatever information is necessary to support Congress in their efforts to have the proposal included in the Omnibus appropriations bill.”
ACRE Act Stops Unintended Regulation of Farms
The newly introduced and bipartisan H.R. 5275, Agricultural Certainty for Reporting Emissions (ACRE) Act would avoid unnecessary environmental reporting, which has been opposed by Republican and Democratic administrations alike. Reps. Billy Long (R-Mo.) and Jim Costa (D-Calif.) introduced the bill together with 85 original, bipartisan cosponsors.
“This legislation is critical,” American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) President Zippy Duvall said. “Without it, farmers and ranchers must comply with a law that was never supposed to affect them — the Superfund program (CERCLA). Congress never meant to include agriculture under these reporting obligations, but because of a misguided court ruling, farmers and ranchers are vulnerable. We support swift passage of the ACRE Act and applaud Reps. Long and Costa for their work on this issue.”
Under current regulations, approximately 200,000 farms and ranches could be legally obliged to report emissions from animal agricultural operations, even though those rules were written to cover industrial emergencies, rather than routine, low-level emissions from farms and ranches.
The EPA under both the Bush and Obama administrations supported exempting these agricultural producers, but a federal court found the law did not clearly exclude farms and ranches.
Read more in the full Farm Bureau news release online.
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