Thursday October 20 Ag News

The Real Story Behind World Food Day
Willow Holoubek, Organizational Director, the Alliance for the Future of Agriculture in Nebraska

The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) has launched a campaign called “Food Day,” slated for this coming Monday, October 24, 2011.  According to CSPI, Food Day is a nationwide campaign to change the way Americans eat and think about food.  CSPI states the six main goals of the campaign are:
1.  Reduce obesity and diet-related disease by promoting healthy foods
2.  Support sustainable family farms and cut subsidies to large farms
3.  Eliminate food deserts by providing access to healthy and affordable food
4.  Protect the environment and farm animals by reforming factory farms
5.  Promote children’s health by curbing junk-food marketing aimed at kids
6.  Obtain fair pay for food and farmworkers

The primary goal of Food Day is to gather signatures to send to Congress to support CSPI’s agenda.  As you can tell by the above goals this agenda is taking aim at conventional farms and our current food system.  In CSPI’s materials, it claims:  “The foods we eat should be delicious and promote our good health.  But too many Americans base their diet on fatty factory-farmed animal products that cause everything from obesity and heart disease to strokes and cancer.  Moreover, the way our food is produced is all too often harmful to farm workers, destructive to the environment, and cruel to farm animals.  To find more unsettling misinformation go to www.foodday.org  Click on any of the six goals and you will quickly learn this is not a campaign to celebrate food, but an anti-agricultural agenda. 

AFAN shares the goals of abundant, healthy, affordable food choices and alleviating hunger.  However, CSPI’s anti-agriculture agenda will try to damage today’s food system.  It is important that those involved with raising food make their voices heard.  We need to help everyone know that every day is food day, and we need to celebrate choice!

1.  We should each be free to buy the food that best fits our values.
2.  Whether we choose food that is organic or vegan, prepackaged or fresh, locally grown or conventionally raised, from the supermarket or from the farmer’s market, we all want food that is safe, wholesome, raised in a responsible way, and meets our family’s needs.
3.  The best food choices for one family may not be right for another.  We should support the right to choose the food that fits our lifestyle and our family budget. 
4.  Supporting a diverse food supply, raised using a variety of farming methods, is vital to ensuring that we all have access to affordable food.  If we limit our ability to produce the food we need, we will increase hunger and food insecurity.

Please support Nebraska agriculture by raising your voice and telling your story!  Check out the website www.realfarmersrealfood.com and watch a great video featuring Nebraska native Miss America, Teresa Scanlan.  Please share this important message via social media and any way possible.   AFAN, with funding partner  Nebraska Soybean Board will be airing Teresa’s message on radio stations in Lincoln and Omaha.  Together we can remind all of Nebraska that… every day is food day in Nebraska!  Let people know that if they have a question, just ask a farmer/rancher and visit www.becomeafan.org . 



Grains Breeder Baenziger Featured in Second IANR Heuermann Lecture Nov. 10

"Setting the Stage: Why Agriculture" is the topic of the second Heuermann Lecture when Dr. P. Stephen Baenziger speaks Thursday, Nov. 10, at 4 p.m. in the Great Plains Room of the Nebraska East Union on the University of Nebraska-Lincoln East Campus.

Baenziger, small grains breeder in the Department of Agronomy and Horticulture in the Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources at UNL, is the first UNL scientist to hold the Nebraska Wheat Growers Presidential Chair, an endowed professorship through a licensing agreement between NUtech Ventures and Bayer CropScience.

IANR's new Heuermann Lectures focus on the world's growing food needs. Open to the public, they are made possible through a gift from B. Keith and Norma Heuermann of Phillips, long-time university supporters with a strong commitment to Nebraska's production agriculture, natural resources, rural areas and people.

"Agriculture has gone from being a nearly forgotten, taken-for-granted field to one of critical importance nationally and globally," said Baenziger, who University of Nebraska President James. B. Milliken has named recipient of the 2011 Outstanding Research and Creative Activity Award, NU's top award for research.

"The Green Revolution gave us 40 years of food surpluses, but we've used up those surpluses and once again live in a period of rising food prices and food scarcity," Baenziger said. "Agriculture is vital both to Nebraska and the world. In 'Setting the Stage: Why Agriculture,' I'll look at where we've been, where we are, and a direction for the future."

Baenziger joined UNL in 1986 and has been working ever since to help Nebraska wheat growers improve their crops and help feed the world.

In the last five years he has released six new wheat cultivars. He is quick to note the work of those who have gone before him and those he works with now are key in accounting for the Nebraska-developed cultivars grown on 65 percent of Nebraska's wheat acres.

Recognized internationally for his work, Baenziger is one of only two Americans serving on the board of trustees of the prestigious International Rice Research Institute. The Institute's Director General is the other.

"Food, and how we produce food, and if there is enough food to keep the world's population free from threat of hunger and starvation, affect all of us," said Ronnie Green, IANR Harlan Vice Chancellor who serves as moderator for the Heuermann Lectures.

"We need to find ways to sustain our natural resources as we produce food to feed the world and provide renewable energy, even as we contemplate climate change's effect on crop production," Green continued. "Steve Baenziger is a thoughtful, internationally respected scientist who has both research and insight to provide well-reasoned and compelling answers to the question, 'why agriculture'."

Among Baenziger's awards and honors are being an honoree in the Nebraska Hall of Agricultural Achievement, and being the recipient of the Nebraska Agribusiness Club Public Service Award, the Crop Science Society of America Crop Science Research Award, the American Society of Agronomy Agronomic Achievement Award -- Crops, and other awards, as well.

A 3:30 p.m. reception precedes the lecture.



Strong Demand for All Meats in Past Year

The meat export data released last week by USDA completes the information needed to compute demand indexes through August and the story, at least based on the trailing 12-month period, remains positive for all three major species, write Steve Meyer with Paragon Economics. The last observation (for 2011) represents the twelve month period from September 2010 through August 2011 compared to the same period one year earlier.

Pork demand leads the three major species for the September-August period gaining 4.4 per cent on one year earlier. That number is slightly lower than the +4.8 per cent change for August-July but is solidly positive none the less.

Chicken demand is also strong based on the 12-month lagging period, gaining 3.6 per cent. That compares to +3.4 per cent in July.

Beef demand is still positive for the twelve month lagging period. The September-August figure of +0.9 per cent is barely larger than the +0.8 per cent for August-July.

It appears likely that the demand indexes for all three species will end the year higher than one year ago for the first time since 2004 at the height of popularity of the Atkins Diet. It would also mark the reversal of downward trends in all three species.

While the pork demand index has enjoyed two positive years during the 2005-2010 downtrend, chicken demand declined every year and beef demand increased just fractionally in 2007.



Sen. Shelves Blender Pump Amendment

An amendment to prevent funding for ethanol blender pumps proposed Tuesday was pulled from consideration Wednesday by U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.  The amendment would have prevented government funding from subsidizing pumps that allow consumers to choose different blends of ethanol in their vehicles.  "The timing wasn't right so the amendment was pulled," said Brian Rogers, a spokesman for McCain's office. 

This was McCain's second attempt at such an amendment after the first attempt in June was voted down 41-59.

McCain's amendment 741 to H.R. 2112, the 2012 Agriculture Appropriations bill, "would prohibit the use of funds appropriated in this act for the Department of Agriculture's Rural Energy for America Program to be used to construct ethanol blender pumps or ethanol storage facilities," according to the summary of the amendment.

On Wednesday, Rogers cited the sluggish economy as the reason for banning the blender pump funding, although he said it was time for the ethanol industry to prove it can prosper on its own.

The new amendment was criticized Tuesday by the Renewable Fuels Association, an ethanol trade association, as an "OPEC" jobs bill. At the same time, it was praised by the Taxpayers for Common Sense, a watchdog group that called blender pump funding "wasteful."



Legislation Introduced to Stop Extremist Agendas Derailing Superfund Law
— S. 1729 Prevents Ranches from Being Regulated as Toxic Waste Dumps

Senators Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) and Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) this week introduced the “Superfund Common-Sense Act of 2011” (S. 1729), which would prevent the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the courts from imposing what the policymakers called another “needless and burdensome” regulation on U.S. agriculture.

National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) Deputy Environmental Counsel Ashley Lyon said the legislation would restore the original intent of Congress under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA), more commonly called the Superfund Law, and the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA).

She said the Superfund Law was originally passed by Congress in 1980 to prevent toxic waste from polluting U.S. waters and was never intended to elevate extreme agendas by imposing liability on U.S. farmers and ranchers in the same fashion as toxic waste polluters. The legislation would exempt cattle manure from regulations under these laws.

“Congress never intended manure to fall under the jurisdiction of CERCLA. However, some activists groups and attorneys in Texas and Oklahoma have worked to increase the law’s reach by attempting to convince courts that livestock producers should be subject to CERCLA liability,” said Lyon. “Subjecting farmers and ranchers to CERCLA liability could place the financial burden of nutrient reduction for an entire watershed on a single producer. This kind of liability could easily reach into the many millions of dollars and bankrupt family farmers and ranchers.”

This legislation is identical to a bill introduced Sept. 21, 2011, in the U.S. House of Representatives by Congressman Billy Long (R-Mo.). Lyon said both bills would amend CERCLA to provide that naturally occurring, organic manure and its nutrient components are not considered a hazardous substance, pollutant or contaminant. She said NCBA strongly supports the legislation, which would prevent EPA and the courts from imposing more regulations, liability and reporting requirements on livestock producers and bring much needed economic certainty.