College visit and waiting emails

Just got back from a 30-hour trip to Kearney, Neb. , a high mileage excursion designed for the purposes of checking out the college with our 16 year old daughter. Kind of a nice small college town feel, I must say, plus it is close to grandma and grandpa.

Meanwhile, back to business. Tonight as I check my e-mail I see that it again has filled up with offers from online pharmacies(Just one bottle of HGH Life™ will completely change your life!), penny stock tips (Get IN Before the rush TOMORROW) and bogus messages from my nonexistent paypal account(In order to safeguard your account, we require that you confirm your banking details.)

It seemingly does no good to mark these email as spam. They just keep coming and coming.

So I was pleased to find some bona fide produce related emails among the offers for online meds. Amy Philpott send Jim Gorny's testimony at the March 20 FDA hearing. Find it here.

The statement of Joel Nelsen before the Senate Agriculture Committee on March 21 is published here.

Nelsen makes some key points about trade issues:
Here are some excerpts:


U.S. international trade policy is critically important to the U.S. specialty crop industry.
Unlike many of the other agricultural crops, fruits and vegetables face a significant trade imbalance with our trading partners. Between 1995 and 2005, imports of fruits and vegetables into the U.S. more than doubled, to $10.1 billion in 2005, while U.S. exports have increased much more modestly. As a result, the fruit and vegetable trade surplus in 1995 of over $600 million is now a trade deficit of nearly $2.3 billion (see Attachment 1). This trade deficit of $2.3 billion is a manifestation of the many difficulties that specialty crop growers now confront in their efforts to remain competitive in global markets:

Later...

One of the primary reasons for the $2.3 billion trade deficit in specialty crops, which of course contributes significantly to the total U.S. trade deficit, is that access to foreign markets for U.S. specialty crops has often been blocked due to phytosanitary trade barriers. In May of 2005, a report by USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service, which was mandated by the enactment of the Specialty Crop Competitiveness Act of 2004, identified 36 different phytosanitary barriers that serve as obstacles to specialty crop exports in various international markets. While some of these phytosanitary issues are of legitimate concern, many are not justified with sound science. It is imperative that the 2007 Farm Bill address the problem of phytosanitary trade barriers, which is a major problem of specialty crop growers.
CCM and the Specialty Crop Farm Bill Alliance believe that we should immediately accelerate efforts to increase exports through the removal of phytosanitary barriers by increasing TASC funding in the 2007 Farm Bill to meet demand. We recommend that the existing level of $2 million per year in mandatory funding be increased to $10 million per year (a phased increase of $2 million increments per year).

CCM and the SCFBA believe that increased coordination between all federal agencies that are responsible for agricultural trade matters would help increase the likelihood for success in removing phytosanitary trade barriers. We therefore recommend that language be included in the 2007 Farm Bill that will require or encourage key agencies, such as USDA and USTR, to work toward increased coordination of export trade objectives and greater transparency on phytosanitary issues.



TK: Nelsen finishes strong, with recommendations that the USDA develop a Threat Identification and Mitigation Program that "clearly identifies and prioritizes foreign invasive species threats to the domestic production of specialty crops." He also wants the next farm bill to contain language that directs the Secretary of Agriculture to access Commodity Credit Corporation funding for emergency response and eradication programs for invasive pests. Finally, he asks that border inspectors again be the responsibility of USDA APHIS and not Customs and Border Protection.