Pork Producing Countries Want Tariffs Out in TPP
WASHINGTON – The National Pork Producers Council stated Monday top pork producing nations want tariffs out of the Trans Pacific Partnership talks.
Sent to trade negotiators by organizations representing hog farmers in Australia, Chile, Mexico and the U.S., the open letter called for a comprehensive agreement that eliminates tariffs on nearly all products. The letter further stated that failure to do so would call question into the ?oft-stated pledge to make TPP the gold standard for future [free trade agreements].”
The pork organizations also expressed concern that the TPP market access objectives won?t be achieved if negotiators accept the current trade offer from Japan. That offer demands special treatment for its agricultural sector, including tariff elimination exemptions for certain ?sensitive? products, like pork and beef. The organizations called on their respective governments to increase their efforts to move Japan away from this position, and to wrap up negotiations without Japan if it does not revise its position.
The TPP is a regional negotiation that includes the United States, Australia, Chile, Japan, Mexico, and others which account for nearly 40 percent of global GDP.
NFU Board Votes to Withdraw from Beef Checkoff Working Group
WASHINGTON – The National Farmers Union Board of Directors voted to withdraw from the Beef Checkoff Working Group over the weekend. The vote comes after a recommendation regarding what the National Farmers Union calls a “lack of willingness from key players” for needed reform to the Beef Checkoff.
NFU President Roger Johnson stated ?NFU has decided that the process has become a bridge to nowhere and a waste of time and resources,? further stating that NFU is willing to work with others who are interested in reforming the Beef Checkoff to operate like other checkoff programs.
NFU also called on USDA to react to farmers’ demands for reforms to the Beef Checkoff, including giving the Cattlemen’s Beef Board authority to carry out checkoff projects on its own, be allowed to enter checkoff contracts and that the Beef Checkoff be completely refundable. Further, NFU wants a continuation vote to occur every five years. NFU is asking for USDA to consider rewriting the program under the 1996 Generic Research and Promotion Act.
State Farm Bureau President Testifies on ESA Overreach.
WASHINGTON – Testifying to a House Committee this week on the overreach of the Endangered Species Act, Pennsylvania Farm Bureau President Jim Brubaker told the House Committee on Natural Resources that overreach could seriously disrupt farm and business operations without addressing the syndrome widely labeled as the chief threat to the Northern Long Eared Bat.
U.S. Fish and Wildlife proposed protecting the bat in response to a fungal infection that experts say has killed approximately six million bats in the United States over the past few years. Brubaker told the committee the listing under the Endangered Species Act would create an undue financial burden; he argues the bats make their homes in trees, barns, cabins, bridges and sheds, meaning the listing would adversely impact a broad range of industries and activities including natural gas and wind energy development, the application of pesticides, insecticides and herbicides, highway construction and timber harvesting.
A violation of the ESA carries civil penalties of up to $25,000 per violation and criminal penalties of up to $50,000 plus one year imprisonment per violation. Brubaker told the committee that agriculture would step up and do its part, stating “[Pennsylvania Farm Bureau wants] practical solutions that work for agriculture ? and the environment. . . Let?s make sure we?re solving problems, not creating new ones.?
The Northern Long Eared bat can be found in 38 states and is more common than other species of bats.
USDA Providing Funding for Wetland and Farmland Conservation
WASHINGTON – USDA will provide more than $328 million for conservation funding in an effort to protect and restore key farmlands, grasslands and wetlands across the nation.
Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack says the initiative will benefit wildlife and promote outdoor recreation; the funding is provided through the Agricultural Conservation Easement Program, which was created in the 2014 Farm Bill to protect critical wetlands and encourage producers to keep lands in farming and ranching. According to the National Fish and Wildlife Service, the funding will produce $93.2 billion of economic output throughout the economy.
USDA claims the program will improve water quality and wetland storage capacity in the California Bay Delta region, reduce flooding along the Mississippi and Red rivers, provide and protect habitat for threatened, endangered and at-risk species including sage grouse, bog turtles, Florida panthers, the Louisiana black bear, and whooping cranes to recover populations and reduce regulatory burdens and protect prime agricultural land under high risk of development in urban areas to help secure the nation’s food supply and jobs in the agricultural sector.
EPA Channels Funding to Two New Drinking Water Centers
WASHINGTON (EPA) – Today the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) provided over $8 million to create two national centers for research and innovation in small to medium sized drinking water systems.
?These centers will help to develop innovative and practical solutions for challenges faced by smaller drinking water systems, which make up the majority of public water systems in the United States,? said Lek Kadeli, Acting Assistant Administrator for EPA?s Office of Research and Development. ?Providing cost effective solutions to help these systems deliver safe, high quality drinking water will help improve the health, economy and security of our nation?s communities.?
The recipients are the University of Colorado Boulder?s Design of Risk Reducing, Innovative Implementable Small System Knowledge (DeRISK) Center, and the University of Massachusetts Amherst?s Water Innovation Network for Sustainable Small Systems (WINSSS) Center. These two EPA funded centers will develop and test advanced, low cost methods to reduce, control, and eliminate groups of water contaminants that present challenges to communities worldwide.
Fully 97 percent of the nation?s roughly 160,000 public water systems serve fewer than 10,000 people each. These drinking water systems face many obstacles including limited resources, aging infrastructure, and complying with a variety of regulations These centers will help strengthen the technical, managerial, and financial capacities of drinking water providers throughout the country. Both centers will collaborate with a range of stakeholders to support problem-oriented research on groups of water contaminants and their origins. This research marks a move towards developing transdisciplinary results that will be nationally acceptable and applicable.
The grants are part of EPA?s research on safe and sustainable drinking water, and will support the development of water clusters; networks of businesses, researchers, and others involved in water technology. Colorado and Massachusetts are both home to water cluster organizations, which EPA says are leading the way in developing cutting-edge technologies and bringing them to the market, where they can solve water challenges that threaten health and daily activities while promoting technological innovation and economic growth.
1 in 5 households with children were food-insecure at some point in 2013
WASHINGTON (ERS) – In 2013, 19.5 percent of U.S. households with children were food insecure at some time during the year.
Parents often are able to maintain normal or near-normal diets and meal patterns for their children, even when the parents themselves are food insecure. In about half of food-insecure households with children in 2013, only adults were food insecure. But in 9.9 percent of households with children (3.8 million households), both children and adults experienced food insecurity.
In 0.9 percent of households with children (360,000 households), food insecurity among children was so severe that caregivers reported that children were hungry, skipped a meal, or did not eat for a whole day because there was not enough money for food. The subset of households with children experiencing these difficult conditions was down from 1.2 percent in 2012.
The above stories are provided courtesy of the National Association of Farm Broadcasters New Service, powered by the American Farm Bureau Federation.
