Legislation

SwineCast 0642

• Quick answer to a short question.  U.S. House voted to deny funding for the GIPSA portion of the USDA annual budget, effectively closing the door on implementation.  Both the National Pork Producers Council and the National Cattlemens Beef Association expressed support for the legislative action.

SwineCast 0635

• Congressional testimony opportunities push new perspectives past the Washington Beltway.  NPPC president Doug Wolf recently offered a 'state of the industry' overview to the House Committee on Agriculture Subcommittee on Livestock, Dairy, and Poultry.  I caught up with Doug as he was spraying corn on his Wisconsin farm. 

SwineCast 0627

• Jim Wiesemeyer, Washington Editor for Pro Farmer magazine, updated producers and delegates attending the National Pork Industry Forum in Phoenix during a special breakfast session.  Short carryouts and growing usage will require two good crop years in a row.

SwineCast 0623

• National Pork Producers Council CEO Neil Dierks and National Pork Board CEO Chris Novak took to the podium at the recent Pork Industry Forum to highlight cooperative efforts to impact popular opinion in addition to issue positioning and response through efforts such as the US Farmers and Ranchers Alliance.

With the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act moving forward to law, technology companies are lining up to help implement the details. Much of the legislation is all about collecting, tracking, and analysis of data and information on food. This includes putting in place systems to register food facilities, collect and monitor data from production farms, notify multiple parties about food related issues, and handle food recalls.

The Departments of Justice and Agriculture are holding their final workshop to discuss competition and regulatory issues in the agriculture industry. This final workshop will focus on margins.

According to the DOJ

This workshop will look at the discrepancies between the prices received by farmers and the prices paid by consumers. As a concluding event, discussions from previous workshops will be incorporated into the analysis of agriculture markets nationally.

This all day event wraps up a series of workshops that began in March of 2010. The four previous workshops covered Issues of Concern to Farmers, the Poultry Industry, the Dairy Industry, and the Livestock Industry.