How much does the USDA really buy?

There has been confusion about USDA fruit and vegetable purchases. How much f/v is purchased with Section 32 funds? How much is purchased with other agency money? How much good is Congress doing by upping the mandated levels of f/v purchases by Section 32 funds?

Here is a link to a spreadsheet sent to me by the USDA AMS spokesman Jimmie Turner about fruit and vegetable purchases at the agency during the past three years. As you can see, Section 32 purchases of fruits and vegetables for the past three years were $353 million in fiscal year 2004, $299 million in fiscal year 2005 and $246 million in fiscal year 2006.

Total (all forms) fruit and vegetable purchases for all USDA programs were rated at $497 in fiscal year 2004, $431 million in fiscal year 2005 and then $391 million in fiscal year 2006.

TK: This data warrants further review. Particularly, I would like to breakout the percentage of these dollars spent on fresh produce. It's not that big, I can tell you right now.

Section by section analysis

Released yesterday, here is a section by section analysis from the House Ag Committee on the draft mark of the subcommittee on horticulture and organic produce:


Beside the language on specialty crop block grants, the draft explicitly authorizes the use of USDA marketing orders for food safety purposes. The subcommittee also wants to move border inspectors back to the USDA from the CBP.



It was somewhat surprising to see amendments in the draft mark on commodity specific measures like clementine and avocado import standards and mushroom promotion order changes. One lobbyist said he expected amendments like those eventually, but he thought everyone was focused on the big picture priorities first. Do these amendments silence some would be critics of farm bill equity and fairness, to the detriment of the whole industry?


No official comment from the specialty crop farm bill alliance on today's markup and the draft mark, but I imagine the tone will be measured and even handed. Any success the industry can achieve with the farm bill on the House side still lies mainly with Rep. Cardoza.

Markup session of hort subcommittee

Just listened to the farm bill markup session by the House Agriculture subcommittee on horticulture and organic agriculture. There were some amendments offered, but nothing that would dip into mandatory funding. In fact, subcommittee chair Dennis Cardoza, D-Calif., was even asked about the expense to the agency of an amendment he offered that simply wanted an internal research report on Section 32 food purchases.

From a House Ag Committee press release, here are amendments adopted:
. Chairman Cardoza's amendment to provide an independent evaluation of the USDA commodity purchasing process, particularly considering Section 32 and the importance of increasing purchases of specialty crops.
. Congresswoman Virginia Foxx's amendment to redirect funds for USDA to collect organic production and market data.
Congressman Kevin McCarthy's amendment to establish a Fresh Produce Education Initiative to inform industry and the public aboutfood safety handling and practices.
Congressman Randy Kuhl's amendment to establish the National Clean Plant network to fund the distribution of healthy plant stocksin the specialty crops industry.
Congressman Randy Kuhl's amendment to increase the payment limitation cap for payments under the Tree Assistance Program from$75,000 per year to $150,000 per year

As you might expect, Cardoza and other members of the subcommittee lamented the scoring problem and the resulting paltry funding scenario for specialty crop priorities for the farm bill. But Cardoza said, as a Blue Dog Democrat, he believes in the pay-go principle.

"Sometimes those principles we believe in come into conflict with what we would like to do (with legislation)," he said.

TK: Building expectations only to crash them is done quite a bit in Congress, Cardoza observed today. But he said he would raise expectations if in the process the level of debate also is raised. Now the question is, can the debate continue in Congress when expectations have been lowered so far?

It ain't me

In the occassional wash of consumer and press criticism about farm subsidies, fresh produce growers suffer from the largess of their program crop brethren, notes Craig Regelbrugge, senior director of government relations for the American Nursery and Landscape Association, Washington, D.C., and spokesman for the Agriculture Coalition for Immigration Reform.
Regelbrugge said some in the public have misconceptions and misinformation about specialty crop growers. The myth is that specialty crop growers are receiving subsidies from the government at one moment and the next they are scheming for cheap imported labor.
“The public thinks at one moment (growers) are getting all the government subsidies and then getting all this agricultural labor to be released,” he said.
In truth, fruit and vegetable growers – representing the biggest segment of growers who need agricultural labor - don’t get any subsidies and they are hurting for labor, too.

As an aside, Regelbrugge told me earlier today he believes the Senate hold together its coalition to preserve comprehensive immigration reform. Too many people have too much invested in this issue to let it simply die, he said. We shall see.

On pests and diseases

Dr. Richard Dunkle, deputy administrator of Plant Protection and Quarantine at APHIS, addressed the Fruit and Vegetable Industry Advisory Committee on June 4. Here is a link to his audio remarks. He talks about citrus canker, potato cyst nematode, plum pox, citrus greening and the light brown apple moth.

Dunkle impresses, but he and the USDA have a tough and pressure packed job in running herd on issues like these, where industries literally hang in the balance and everyone has their own science.

Barely together

The Senate's comprehensive immigration legislation is hanging on by a thread, but survived a serious challenge yesterday that would have derailed it, notes this story from The Baltimore Sun.
From the story:

The defeated amendment, proposed by Sen. John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, would have permanently barred many convicted felons - including sex offenders, gang members and repeat drunk drivers - from qualifying to become legal permanent residents.Supporters of the bill said the amendment was written so loosely that it would also have barred those guilty of other felonies, such as violating deportation orders or using false identification documents, and they said that would have applied to a huge number of illegal immigrants.

TK: Meanwhile, John McCain of Arizona seems to have gotten some traction by calling out Republican opponents by saying their actions support a "silent amnesty," a never-ending state of status quo that perpetuates a broken system.