Odds and ends

Congratulations to all associations and lobbyists working with the Specialty Crop Farm Bill Alliance, with a special nod to United Fresh. While the larger farm bill has some pork and "airdropped earmarks" - what a great phrase, by the way - the specialty crop coalition may have set the model for federal support designed to boost competitiveness and improve public health with nary a worry for adjusted gross income limits of growers.

I just "rejected" an anonymous comment about Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer. It didn't really offer much of reasoned critique, merely a unrestrained slam. Let's keep the criticism intelligent and issue and policy based, please.

The USDA's 196 page pdf of the Vegetable and Melon report is now available.

Check out the summary below:


U.S. production of all vegetables, potatoes, melons, and pulse crops increased 5 percent in calendar year 2007. In addition, fresh and processed imports for these crops were above a year earlier plus inventories of processed vegetables coming into the year were greater. As a result, total vegetable and melon supplies available for domestic use and export were up 5 percent to about 181 billion pounds in 2007. Buoyed by larger supplies, per capita net domestic use (disappearance) of all vegetables, potatoes, melons, and pulse crops increased 2 percent to 444 pounds (fresh-weight basis) in 2007. Potatoes (including potato products) remained the top vegetable crop in the United States (28 percent of total use), followed by tomatoes and products (20 percent), all lettuce (8 percent), sweet corn and products (6 percent), and onions (5 percent). Retail prices for fresh market vegetables increased 3 percent in 2007—the second smallest increase this decade. So far in the 2000s, fresh vegetable retail prices have increased an average of 4 percent annually, about the same as during the 1990s when prices were more variable. Consumer prices for processed fruit and vegetables increased 4 percent in 2007—the largest year-over-year gain since 2002. Although prices for frozen vegetables were little changed from a year earlier, for the second consecutive year, retail prices for canned and dried vegetables rose 3 percent. The farm value share of the retail cost of all fresh vegetables increased 4 percent in 2007 to an estimated 19.6 percent. The farm value share increased for fresh tomatoes and lettuce but declined for broccoli and potatoes. Although it has been relatively steady over the past 5 years, the share of retail value accounted for by the shipping-point price of fresh tomatoes has averaged about 28 percent this decade—down from 31 percent in the 1990s and 37 percent during the 1980s. The vegetable and melon trade deficit widened in 2007 as the value of imports increased more than the value of vegetable and melon exports. In 2007, nearly 17 percent of all the vegetables and melons consumed domestically was imported, with 32 percent of frozen vegetables being sourced from other nations, compared with 18 percent a decade earlier.

United: unprecedented vote

From United Fresh Produce Association:

By an unprecedented vote of 81-15, the United States Senate approved the Farm Bill Conference Report today. The Bill will now be sent to the White House, where the President is expected to veto it. If President Bush vetoes the Bill, Congress will have to vote again in order to override the presidential veto. Based on yesterdays vote in the House and todays vote in the Senate, it is expected that Congress has enough support to override the veto and make the conference report law without the Presidents signature.

Yesterday we provided you with some of the major accomplishments in the Bill. Below are some of the other important priorities that were included in the Farm Bill Conference Report that has now been passed by both the House and the Senate:

$23 million for Food Safety Research: As part of the Specialty Crop Research Initiative, 10 percent of the annual funding would go directly to fresh produce food safety to address production and processing practices.

Country of Origin Labeling Reforms: The Bill amends the Country of Origin Labeling law of 2002 by reducing penalties for mistakes in labeling at point of purchase, including a "good faith" standard that reduces the liability for retailers, unless shown to be disregarding or willfully violating the law. It includes self attestation of origin so that retailers can rely upon what suppliers tell them. Normal records kept in the regular course of doing business are sufficient to comply with the statute. It ialso includes a specific provision to allow labeling of a U.S. State, region or locality in which a product is produced to meet label standards as product of U.S.

$20 million for Pilot Food Stamp Pilot Project: This pilot project will be used to test how incentives at the point of purchase encourage individuals who participate in the Food Stamp Program to purchase fruits, vegetables and other healthy foods.

As the Senate process unfolded, we would not have gotten to where we are without the leadership of Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-MI). Senator Stabenow is to be commended for her leadership in the Senate Farm Bill process and for her support of the fruits and vegetable policy priorities that are included in the final agreement.

FFVA: Finding a place in farm policy

From the FFVA:

The Florida Fruit & Vegetable Association today strongly applauded Congress for passing a landmark farm bill that for the first time addresses the needs and priorities of the U.S. specialty crop industry.

“This bill reflects the tremendous contributions specialty crops make to U.S. agriculture and the health of all Americans,” said FFVA President Mike Stuart. “It’s been a long and sometimes difficult process, but we are especially pleased that the House and Senate conferees were able to work out funding issues that had slowed the bill’s progress. We commend the leadership in both houses as well as members of the committees who worked so hard to bring this to a successful conclusion.”

The Conservation and Energy Act of 2008 (H.R. 2419) passed in the House on Wednesday by a 318-106 vote, and the Senate approved the bill 81-15 on Thursday. President Bush has threatened a veto, although the votes in both houses signal that an override is possible.

Specialty crops – fruits, vegetables, tree nuts and other crops – account for nearly half of all cash crop receipts in the United States. Florida ranks second in the nation in production of fruits, vegetables and nuts.

The bill targets nearly $3 billion to support specialty crop producers by:

Expanding the USDA Fruit & Vegetable Snack Program to all 50 states. This program develops lifelong healthy eating habits for children through consumption of fruits and vegetables.

Establishing a specialty crop research initiative to develop and disseminate science-based tools to address the industry’s needs.

Increasing funding for state-level specialty crop grants that focus on local, regional and statewide programs to enhance producers’ ability to compete in the marketplace and provide consumers with safe, abundant food.

Enhancing critical trade assistance and market promotion tools that will grow international markets.

Investing in prevention and mitigation programs and tools to combat invasive pest and diseases, which cost the U.S. economy billions of dollars per year.

Facilitating producers’ access to and participation in conservation programs.

Stuart serves as a co-chair of the Specialty Crop Farm Bill Alliance, a group of more than 120 organizations representing growers of fruits, vegetables, dried fruit, tree nuts, nursery plants and other products. The alliance has worked for more than two years to broaden the scope and efficiency of U.S. agricultural public policy by including these crops in the 2008 Farm Bill.

“Our industry does not receive direct payments, nor has it advocated for them in this farm bill,” Stuart said. “Rather, we have worked with Congress to provide the resources necessary for us to remain competitive and grow in a global marketplace.”

Stuart also commended members of Florida’s legislative delegation who voted for the bill. “We appreciate their support for a bill that will put more fruits and vegetables in schools, enhance our industry’s efforts to fight invasive pests and diseases, and help us to market our crops domestically and globally,” he said.

The Florida Fruit & Vegetable Association (www.ffva.com) is an agricultural trade organization representing Florida's producers of fruits, vegetables and other crops.

Harkin to Bush: look at farm bill with fresh eyes

From the office of Sen. Tom Harkin:

Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA), Chairman of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry and of the Senate-House conference committee on the farm bill, today announced that with a vote of 81-15, the Senate had overwhelmingly approved the Food, Conservation and Energy Act of 2008, the farm bill conference agreement. The bill will now be sent to the White House.

Earlier this week, a coalition of more than 500 farm, conservation, nutrition, consumer and religious groups who sent a letter urging Congress to pass this bill. “The conference report makes significant farm policy reforms, protects the safety net for all of America's food producers, addresses important infrastructure needs for specialty crops, increases funding to feed our nation's poor, and enhances support for important conservation initiatives,” they wrote.

“Senate passage of the farm bill conference report on a strong, bipartisan basis demonstrates support for core farm bill initiatives – conservation, energy, nutrition and rural development – while continuing and strengthening farm income protection. This bill benefits every American, from our smallest towns to our biggest cities, urban and rural residents, farmers and non-farmers,” said Chairman Harkin.

“Today, I urge the President to look at this farm bill with fresh eyes and an objective mind. To date, he has focused on a handful of elements in this vast bill that he disagrees with. I urge him to look at the bill as a whole, and to see the many critical investments and reforms in this bill that have won support from both parties, from every region of the country, and from rural and urban members of Congress alike. If he does, I am confident he will conclude that this is a good bill that he can and should sign.”

Highlights of the conference report include:

Commodities Title:

The bill includes a newly named Producer Income Protection title that continues basic features of the 2002 bill, which farmers have thought worked well, and it gives producers a new option, beginning with the 2010 crop year, to choose to participate in a state-level revenue protection system. The Average Crop Revenue program, modeled after legislation proposed by farmers and introduced by Senators Durbin and Brown, offers producers better options for managing risk of both yield and price declines on their farms in today’s uncertain, rapidly changing farm environment.

Conservation Title:

The new CSP, renamed Conservation Stewardship Program provides incentives for adopting, improving and maintaining sound conservation practices on land in agricultural production. The program will enroll just under 13 million acres each year (starting in 2009) through 2017, for a total of nearly 115 million acres. An additional $1.1 billion was provided for CSP for a total of $12 billion over 10 years.

The bill funds and strengthens a range of conservation programs including the Wetlands Reserve, Grassland Reserve and Environmental Quality Incentives Programs. In total, the farm bill provides 5.2 billion in new budget authority for conservation.

Energy Title:

Increases Biofuels Production: The farm bill will accelerate commercialization of advanced biofuels, like cellulosic ethanol, by helping farmers produce biomass crops, by providing grants and loan guarantees to support these new biorefineries, and by increasing bioenergy research to guarantee that we have a continuing flow of more productive and resource-conservative technologies in the decades to come.

It also expands the very successful renewable energy and energy efficiency program that has been helping our farmers and ranchers and rural small businesses since it was adopted in the 2002 farm bill.

Livestock Title:

The new farm bill includes the first-ever Livestock Title to provide basic protections for producers in livestock and poultry markets. Among the highlights:
Provides producers the ability to decline to be bound by an arbitration clause in a livestock or poultry contract.
Enables a producer to settle a dispute in the Federal judicial district where he or she lives rather than where the company headquarters is located.
Provides the compromise for country of origin labeling of meat, fruits and vegetables, peanuts, pecans and macadamia nuts
Improves oversight of USDA’s enforcement of the Packers and Stockyards Act be requiring the Department to provide an annual compliance report detailing the number and length of time spent on investigations of potential violations of the Act.
Assist hog producers by authorizing a program for trichinae certification to promote trade and marketing of pork.

Nutrition Title:

Federal Food Assistance: historic investments in fighting hunger and inadequate nutrition, including:

ending benefit erosion caused by inflation

providing food assistance without requiring recipients to exhaust savings and retirement accounts

increasing food assistance to households with high child care costs

$1.25 billion dollars in commodity purchases for food banks

Child Nutrition: $1 billion to improve child nutrition by expanding the Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Snack Program nationally.

Research Title:

Organic Research and Extension Initiative: The Research Title provides $78 million in mandatory funds for the program, which enhances the ability of organic producers and processors to grow and market organic food, feed and fiber.

Specialty Crop Research Initiative: The bill provides $230 million in mandatory funds for this new grants program to help meet the needs of producers and processors of specialty crops in the areas of mechanization, plant breeding, genetics, genomics, pests and diseases, and food safety.

Rural Development Title:

Rural Water and Wastewater: $120 million in mandatory funds for the pending rural development loan and grant applications for rural water and wastewater assistance.

Value-Added Producer Grant Program: $15 million for the program, which encourages independent producers of agricultural commodities to process their raw commodities into marketable goods.

Rural Microenterprise Assistance Program: $15 million in mandatory funds for the program, which provides technical assistance and small loans to beginning entrepreneurs to help start businesses in rural areas.

Fresh Fruits and Vegetables:

Organics: Funding for The National Organic Certification Cost-Share Program has been increased from $5 million in the last farm bill, to $22 million. The farm bill also supports the Organic Data Collection Initiative, which provides USDA and organic producers with national production and market data to effectively market their products.

Pest and Disease Detection: Over $400 million over the next ten years for a new program to improve our pest and disease detection capabilities. The bill also provides $20 million for the National Clean Plant Network, which will strengthen our research to improve plant health and eradicate plant viruses.

Farmers’ Markets: expansion of the Farmers’ Market Promotion Program, first created in the 2002 farm bill, by providing $33 million over the next five years to continue our investment in promoting fresh, local food.

Senate Vote: 81 to 15

Veto proof in the Senate as well. Harkin expected to have a press conference soon.

Sen. Harkin: "Evidently he is right and everyone else is wrong."

In the final address to the Senate before the expected landslide vote for the farm bill, Sen. Tom Harkin noted that even former Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns, now back in Nebraska and running for a Senate seat - has indicated he would vote for the farm bill. Harkin then poked at President Bush's threat of a veto, stating "Evident he is right and everyone else is wrong."

Not a good day to be President Bush.

Schafer: Farm bill is bloated and earmark laden

Agriculture Secretary Schafer said in a statement yesterday the farm bill will "balance subsidy payments to the wealthy on the backs of the middle class taxpayer." President Bush will evidently veto this bill with gusto, though a majority of Republicans in the House voted for the bill. From the USDA:

Statement by Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer on House Passage of the Farm Bill Conference Report

Washington, D.C. - May 14, 2008 "For over a year, Congress has had the opportunity to work with the Administration to craft a farm bill that delivers reform to outdated, costly farm programs while strengthening the safety net and adhering to fiscal discipline in a time of nationwide economic challenge. Instead, Congress chose a different path, and today they passed a bloated, earmark laden bill that spends nearly $20 billion over its original cost and continues to balance subsidy payments to the wealthy on the backs of the middle class taxpayer.

"The bill passed today is a farm bill in name only. It does not target help for the farmers who really need it, and it increases the size and cost of government while jeopardizing the future of legitimate farm programs by damaging the credibility of farm bills in general. At a time of record setting income for farmers, it sends the wrong message to the rest of the country who are not experiencing the boom of the agriculture sector. This bill is loaded with taxpayer funded pet projects at a time when Americans are struggling to buy groceries and afford gas to get to work.

"Eight months behind schedule, Congress will send a bill to the President that is trade distorting and fails to provide meaningful reform to the adjusted gross income limit, beneficial interest or the international food aid program. However it is better late than never for the beneficiaries of the massive earmarks in this bill, like the $170 million for the salmon fishermen on the West Coast, or $500 million for a single entity land buy in Montana, just to name a few.

"Reckless spending like this is not what farm bills should be about. Congress had a real chance to implement reform and strengthen farm programs for the next decade. This reform could have allowed for savings to be reinvested in future agriculture needs, such as energy and research. Instead, they decided to spend billions upon billions of taxpayer dollars to grow government and invest in the tired status quo.

"The President will veto this bill, and I encourage Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle to support his stand for fiscal discipline and the best interests of America's farmers and ranchers."

Putnam: "I am proud to support it."

A key Republican leader in the House, Rep. Adam Putnam of Florida is also a strong backer of the specialty crop industry. He followed his constituency rather than President Bush on the farm bill. From his office yesterday:

Congressman Adam H. Putnam (R-Fla.) today announced his strong support for the Farm Bill (HR 2419, The Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008). As a Farm Bill Conferee, Putnam worked with his colleagues to craft the five-year farm policy measure.

“Ensuring the American people have a safe and secure supply of food is one of the most important priorities of this Congress,” said Putnam. “This legislation does that while making historic investments in fruit and vegetable production, conservation, nutrition and renewable energy of importance to Florida and our nation.

“Especially important to Florida is this legislation’s recognition of the importance of specialty crops, such as fruits and vegetables and plant nurseries, for which Florida ranks second in the nation in production,” said Putnam. “For the first time in a Farm Bill, resources are directed toward controlling the diseases and pests that threaten Florida agriculture.”

The measure also enhances conservation and it provides increased funding to protect water quality and wildlife habitats. Putnam helped to write the provision for the Cooperative Conservation Program Initiative to coordinate conservation activities between USDA and state and local entities.

“This is by no means a perfect bill. For instance there continues to be too much emphasis on corn-based ethanol,” Putnam said. “But it includes important reforms and it encourages additional alternatives, such as cellulosic-based bio fuels.”

In addition to bringing more equity for Florida in agricultural policy, the Bill also includes unprecedented reforms in program eligibility requirements, eliminating payments to wealthy non-farm interests, while preserving conservation and disaster eligibility to farmers and ranchers most in need of assistance.

“Taken as a whole this is important legislation to improve the nation’s agriculture policy and I am proud to support it.”

Since 2001, Putnam has represented Florida’s 12th Congressional District, which includes most of Polk County and portions of Hillsborough and Osceola counties. As chairman of the Republican Conference, he is the third ranking member of his party’s leadership in the House of Representatives.

Goodlatte: "most reform-minded farm bill the House has ever considered "

From the office of Rep. Goodlatte:

Today, Ranking Member Goodlatte issued the following statement the House’s overwhelming approval of the farm bill conference report with a vote of 316 to 106:

“I am very pleased that both parties cast a majority of votes in favor of this farm bill. As a result, we don’t just have a 2 to 1 vote on this bill, but we have a 3 to 1 vote on the bill and that is a significant achievement. This bill was crafted in a bipartisan fashion and it was only in working in a bipartisan fashion that we were able to accomplish many of the provisions that are included in the bill.

“This farm bill contains numerous reforms and is the most reform-minded farm bill that the House has considered. We eliminated the often abused three-entity rule that allowed producers, as multiple “entities”, to collect more than one payment. Now, all program payments will be directly attributed to the individual receiving the benefit. This farm bill reduces the current AGI soft-cap of $2.5 million down to a hard-cap of $500,000 for off-farm income which represents an 80 percent reduction. Additionally, we imposed an AGI hard-cap of $750,000 for on-farm income which has been unlimited since the program was created. These reforms, along with numerous others, are part of the historic shift in the evolution of our farm policy.

“When we talk about the farm bill, many believe that the Congress is voting on a $288 billion bill that goes directly to farmers. The truth is that only 17 percent of the farm bill spending is devoted to farm programs while nearly 70 percent goes to the nutrition title alone. In fact, there is very little “farm” in a farm bill anymore. In 2002, farm program funding comprised just ¾ of 1 percent of the federal budget. Today, farm program funding accounts for just ¼ of 1 percent of the federal budget—a two-fold reduction.

“The farm bill programs we have in place provide Americans with safe, affordable food and fiber even as many places in the world are experiencing significant food shortages. This is because we’ve established a food production system that is consistent and produces enough to meet growing demand domestically and abroad. Now, more than ever, the benefits of this system, and the programs necessary to make it work, are evident.”