Monday February 9 Ag News

Dodge county cattlemen membership meeting

The Dodge County Cattlemen will be meeting on Tuesday, February 17th for their annual membership meeting.  The meeting will be held at Z's Bar in Scribner, NE. The social hour begins at 6:30 with the meal at 7:30.  The sponsors include Zoetis, Elanco and CVA.  The meal is free for paid-up members and those interested in joining the organization.  Spouses are considered members with one vote per couple.



Nebraska No-till Conferences Feb. 23, 24

The Nebraska No-till Conferences, focusing this year on using no-till and building soil health, will be held in Beatrice on Monday, Feb. 23 and in Holdrege on Tuesday, Feb. 24. No-till production practices have been shown to improve profitability while conserving soil and water. Building soil health further improves productivity and reduces inputs by increasing the biological activity and organic matter in the soil.  With a healthier soil, crops are healthier and better able to withstand stresses and weather variability.

Speakers from UNL Extension, NRCS, and production agriculture will share information on the five principles of soil health:
-    Keep the soil covered.
-    Minimize soil disturbance.
-    Increase plant diversity.
-    Keep living roots in the soil year-round.
-    Integrate livestock grazing.

Local producers will share their experiences on a farmer panel, reflecting on what the speakers presented.

The Feb. 23 conference will be in the 4-H Building on the Gage County Fairgrounds in Beatrice, beginning with registration and refreshments at 9:30 a.m. followed by the program at 10 a.m. Host Paul Hay, extension educator in Gage County, says attendees do not have to pre-register for this free conference. Jay Fuhrer of the USDA Natural Resource Conservation Service's Bismarck, N.D. office and Dan Forgey of Gettysburg, S.D. will be featured speakers at this location, sharing tips and ideas on the importance of soil health and diversifying farming operations.

The farmer panel at the Beatrice conference will include Tyler Burkey, Dorchester, Dave Endorf, Daykin, Ben Steffen, Humboldt, and Russell Moss, Burr.

The Feb. 24  conference will be held at the Ag Center in Holdrege, beginning with registration and refreshments at 9 a.m. and the program at 9:30 a.m. Host Chuck Burr, extension educator at the West Central Research and Extension Center in North Platte, says attendees do need to pre-register for lunch at this free conference. To register call the Phelps County Extension Office at 308-995-4222. Among the speakers will be Dan Forgey of Gettysburg, S.D., who will discuss the benefits of diversifying farming operations, and producer and educator Mark Watson of Alliance, who will discuss water and irrigation management. A panel of farmers will share their experience at the Holdrege conference as well.

Other speakers at both conferences will include:
-    No-till producer Dan Gillespie of Norfolk, on no-till corn and soybeans, cover crops, and practical observations
-    Nebraska Extension Engineer Paul Jasa on seeding and management of cover crops.

These conferences are supported by several local sponsors, a grant from the Nebraska Environment Trust Fund, Nebraska Extension, Nebraska NRCS, and others.  For more information on these conferences or any aspect of no-till, cover crops, or soil health, contact Nebraska Extension Engineer Paul Jasa at pjasa1@unl.edu.



Domina Law Group to Present Update on Water Law Issues & Syngenta Corn Litigation

Dave Domina and Brian Jorde, agricultural lawyers representing farmers and ranchers across Nebraska, will host a series of free informational meetings providing updates on issues critical to agricultural producers and our state s economy.  Domina will discuss important water issues and what all corn sellers need to know about lawsuits related to Syngenta's MIR 162 and who is affected.

It is important those concerned about water issues and access to competitive markets stay informed on the latest legal challenges and opportunities. There has also been an influx of out of state law firms chasing after Nebraska farmers recently and we want to let folks here know the facts, not the hype, about their potential financial recovery against Syngenta and what to do.

This informational meeting will be held on Thursday, February 12th at 7:00pm at the Plainview Social Center in Plainview. Domina is known for his decades of legal work successfully representing farmers, ranchers, and small businesses predominately with agricultural related issues and challenges.

Who: Dave Domina and Brian Jorde of Domina Law Group
What: Informational Meeting on Syngenta Corn Litigation & Water Update
Where: Plainview Social Center (108 S. Maple), Plainview, NE
When: Thursday, February 12th at 7:00pm - 8:30pm



Study:  Climate change cost American soybean farmers an estimated $11 billion

The study’s researchers included UNL's James Specht, emeritus professor of agronomy and horticulture. Specht assisted lead researchers Spyridon Mourtzinis and Shawn Conley of the University of Wisconsin in developing and reviewing the study.

U.S. farmers have increased soybean yields in the past 20 years by about a third of a bushel per acre per year, Specht said. Those gains, of about 0.8 percent a year, resulted from adoption of higher-yielding soybean varieties and improved farming methods.

But the gains would have been 30 percent higher if it weren’t for the higher temperatures and changing rainfall patterns resulting from climate change, the author-researchers concluded in their paper, which was published in Nature Plants. That works out to $11 billion in lost opportunity cost, they said.

“We’re doing OK, but we could have done a heck of a lot better without climate change,” Specht said.

The United States experienced a warming trend during the May-September growing season during the study period of 1994 to 2003. Rainfall patterns have changed as well, increasing in spring and fall but declining in June, July and August.

Mourtzinis and Conley compared soybean yields in 12 soybean-producing states to month-by-month temperature and rainfall changes. They found soybean yields declined by about 4.3 percent for every degree Fahrenheit rise in average growing season temperatures.

They also found that changing rainfall patterns cut into soybean yields. They dropped when May, July and September were wetter than normal. They also dropped if June and August were drier.

The researchers appear to be the first to look at climate change’s state-by-state impact on agriculture during each month of the growing season. Previous studies have calculated global temperature changes and yield impacts by country.

“We were able to leverage decades of measured — not estimated — yield data from across the country, to account for agronomic and genetic yield advances and to isolate the impact of climate change on soybean yield and yield gain,” Conley said.

Successfully adapting to climate change depends upon where and when the crop is grown, Specht and the other researchers said. They found that some states saw improved soybean yields as a result of climate change, though not enough to offset the reduced yields seen in bigger producing states.

Specht said soybean production has recently increased in northern states and Canada because of warmer temperatures and changing rainfall patterns.

“This shift is a reflection of the impact of global warming,” he said. “Due to warmer springs and falls that allow for longer growing seasons in the Dakotas and southern Canada, soybeans now are being grown in places where in the past they could not be grown.”

The study’s authors estimated, for example, that Minnesota farmers saw an economic gain of about $1.7 billion over the past 20 years because of increased soybean yields resulting from climate change. However, Missouri farmers experienced smaller yields, reflecting a $5 billion opportunity cost.

“Our data highlight the importance of developing location-specific adaptation strategies for climate change based on early-, mid- and late-growing season climate trends,” the researchers concluded.

States studied were North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Missouri, Kentucky, Arkansas and Mississippi.

The study was limited to non-irrigated soybean yields. Though Specht assisted with the study, Nebraska data was not included because a significant proportion of Nebraska’s crop is irrigated and the non-irrigated production data was not readily available.



Cattlemen's Beef Board Elects 2015 Leadership

Cattle producers Jimmy Maxey of Fresno, California, Anne Anderson of Austin, Texas and Brett Morris of Ninnekah, Oklahoma are the new leadership team for the Cattlemen’s Beef Board, elected unanimously by fellow Beef Board members during the 2015 Cattle Industry Convention in San Antonio, Texas Feb. 7. Maxey will serve as chairman, Anderson as vice chairman and Morris as secretary/treasurer of the Cattlemen’s Beef Board to lead the national Beef Checkoff Program for the coming year.

The Beef Board also elected members to serve on the CBB Executive Committee and others to fill the CBB seats on the Beef Promotion Operating Committee.

New Beef Board Officers
Newly elected Beef Board Chairman Jimmy Maxey has been highly active in beef industry organizations, including service as vice chairman and secretary/treasurer of the Beef Board, as well as president and chairman of the former National Meat Association and chairman of the California Beef Council. Jimmy grew up on his family's small cattle ranch and was also very involved in its meat-processing plant. After attending Fresno State University, he returned to the family business, including the packing and processing plant and the cattle-feeding business. Since selling Beef Packers, Inc./Fresno Meat Co. in 2006, he has remained active in cattle feeding and meat processing by working for his sons at Certified Meat Products.

This year’s Beef Board Vice Chairman Anne Anderson is a cow-calf and stocker operator from Austin Texas and the first executive director of the Texas Beef Council. She and her husband, Jim, own a small cattle ranch in Colorado County and a larger one, which Anne manages, in Menard and MuCulloch counties. In addition to ranching, she has spent more than 15 years providing assistance to individuals and groups trying to build new companies – mostly in the beef industry, and all in the food industry. Anne also is a co-founder and former CEO of AgInfoLink Global, one of the largest food-tracking companies in the U.S., with additional international offices in Australia, Canada, Mexico and Argentina.

Newly appointed CBB Secretary/Treasurer Brett Morris is a third-generation dairy farmer and runs a dairy, cow/calf and stocker operation, as well as the Washita Fertilizer Company, in partnership with his father. Theirs is a diversified farm operation, including about 1,000 acres of alfalfa, wheat and grassland, 65 registered Holstein cows for milking, 100-125 beef cows, and 200 stocker calves. Morris served as chairman of the Oklahoma Dairy Commission, vice chairman of the Oklahoma Johne's Advisory Committee, as a district voting delegate to DFA, a director of the Federation of State Beef Councils, and as vice chairman of the Oklahoma Beef Council.

CBB Executive Committee
The 12-member CBB Executive Committee includes the Board’s three officers and eight members elected at large. The CBB elected the following members to its 2015 Executive committee: Vice Chairman Anne Anderson, who will serve as chairman of the Executive Committee; and members Jimmy Maxey (CBB chairman); Brett Morris (CBB secretary/ treasurer); Laurie Bryant, an importer representative; Sarah Childs of Florida; Dave Edmiston of Texas; Robert Fountain of Georgia; Barbara Jackson of Arizona; Laurie Munns of Utah; Kent Pruismann of Iowa; and Gary Sharp of South Dakota.

The Executive Committee operates under the direction of and within the policies established by the full Board and is responsible for carrying out Beef Board policies and conducting business and making decisions necessary to administer the terms and provisions of the Act and Order between meetings of the full Board.

Beef Promotion Operating Committee
The Beef Promotion Operating Committee was created by the Beef Promotion Research Act to help coordinate state and national beef checkoff programs. The 20-person committee includes 10 members of the Cattlemen’s Beef Board, among them the Board’s three officers and seven others elected directly by Beef Board members. The other 10 members are appointed from the Federation of State Beef Councils.

CBB members elected to the 2015 Beef Promotion Operating Committee during the annual meeting in San Antonio include: Chairman Jimmy Maxey; Vice Chairman Anne Anderson; Secretary/Treasurer Brett Morris; Marty Andersen, Wisconsin; Jeanne Harland, Illinois; Brittany Howell, Kansas; Joe Guthrie, Virginia; Chuck Kiker, Texas; Stacy McClintock, Kansas; and Joan Ruskamp, Nebraska.



Lawrence Reappointed As Associate Dean and Agriculture and Natural Resources Extension Director

John Lawrence has been reappointed to a second five-year term as associate dean for extension in Iowa State University’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and director for agriculture and natural resources for Iowa State University Extension and Outreach.

During his first term, Lawrence promoted university extension and outreach as the science-based authority on water quality issues and was a leader in the collaborative efforts to develop Iowa’s Nutrient Reduction Strategy. He also currently serves as director of the Iowa Nutrient Research Center.

“John has shown a great understanding of the mission of Extension and the ability to bring together key players to deal with current issues such as water quality,” said Cathann Kress, ISU Vice President for Extension and Outreach. “Under his leadership, ISU Extension and Outreach is positioned to extend conservation and water management science and recommended best management practices around volatile nutrient reduction issues.”

Lawrence’s ability to work with government regulatory agencies, diverse agricultural organizations and the agricultural value chain ranging from farmers to business and industry is an asset to Iowa and Iowa State University, said Wendy Wintersteen, Endowed Dean of ISU College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. “He is to be commended for how well he has steered agriculture and natural resources extension, retaining Iowa State visibility and credibility with diverse audiences,” she said.

Lawrence, as director for Agriculture and Natural Resources, leads the largest ISU Extension and Outreach program area. An Iowa State alumnus, he is recognized by peers and administrators for his ability to represent the interests of agriculture, the college and Extension and Outreach to those within academia and others outside the university system. Lawrence was an Iowa State professor of economics, an extension livestock specialist and director of the Iowa Beef Center prior to his appointment to the position of associate dean and agriculture and natural resources extension director in 2010.



Seven Growers to Compete for NCGA Corn Board

Seven corn grower volunteers will compete for one of five seats on the National Corn Growers Association's Corn Board in Fiscal Year 2016, the organization's nominating committee announced.  New board members will be elected by state delegates at the Corn Congress this July in Washington, and take office on Oct. 1.

"We've once again got a terrific slate of candidates for the Corn Board, seven growers who have distinguished themselves in leadership at the national and state level," said NCGA Chairman Martin Barbre, who chairs the nominating committee. "Seeking leadership at this level requires a lot of commitment and time, and we know each of these candidates brings deep passion and extensive experience. They will lead NCGA with excellence."

The seven candidates, in alphabetical order, are Keith Alverson, of Chester, South Dakota; Anthony Bush, of Mt. Gilead, Ohio; Gary Hudson, of Hindsboro, Illinois; Jim Reed, of Monticello, Illinois; Bruce Rohwer, of Paulina, Iowa; Jeff Sandborn, of Portland, Michigan; and Roger Zylstra, of Lynnville, Iowa.

More information about these candidates will be released in the Nominating Committee Report at the upcoming NCGA Corn Congress, which starts Feb. 26 at Commodity Classic in Phoenix, Arizona.



American Farm Bureau Federation Appeals, Secures Stay in EPA Privacy Suit

A federal district court in Minnesota ordered EPA late Friday not to release farmers’ and ranchers’ personal information while AFBF and co-plaintiff National Pork Producers Council appeal the court’s decision dismissing their lawsuit. By dismissing the suit, the court ruled that farmers are not harmed when the government compiles and releases a storehouse of personal information, so long as individual bits of that information are somehow publicly accessible, such as through an Internet search or on a Facebook page.

“We are pleased that farmers’ and ranchers’ personal information will be protected while we appeal the court’s decision,” AFBF President Bob Stallman said. “We disagree that the Internet age has diminished the individual’s right to protect personal information. Now, more than ever, citizens need their government to help protect their information—not gather it, tie a bow on it, and send it out to anyone who asks.”

The suit concerns personal information (such as names, home addresses, telephone numbers and GPS locations) of tens of thousands of livestock and poultry farmers compiled by EPA and requested by environmental groups through Freedom of Information Act requests. AFBF and NPPC appealed the dismissal on January 29.



Bipartisan Group of Senators Call for Strong Biodiesel RFS

A bipartisan group of 32 U.S. senators wrote to the EPA Monday calling for the agency to quickly approve strong biodiesel volumes under the RFS for 2014, 2015 and 2016.

Highlighting biodiesel’s track record as the only EPA-designated advanced biofuel under the RFS to reach commercial scale production nationwide, the senators expressed concern about ongoing delays in implementing the program and called on the Obama administration to get the RFS back on track. The letter can be found here.

The EPA delays have created “tremendous uncertainty and hardship for the U.S. biodiesel industry and its thousands of employees. Plants have reduced production and some have been forced to shut down, resulting in layoffs and lost economic productivity,” the senators wrote. ”We urge you to get biodiesel back on schedule under the statutorily prescribed Renewable Volume Obligations (RVO) process and quickly issue volumes for 2014 at the actual 2014 production numbers. We also hope you move forward on the 2015 and 2016 biodiesel volumes in a timely manner.”

The senators also pointed to a recent decision by the EPA to effectively streamline biodiesel imports from Argentina under the RFS. They said the EPA should take into account the anticipated increase in Argentinian imports in setting biodiesel volumes to prevent the displacement of domestic production.

Sens. Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND), Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Patty Murray (D-Wash.) led the letter.

“On behalf of biodiesel producers across the country I want to thank Sens. Heitkamp, Blunt, Grassley and Murray, as well as all of the other senators who signed the letter, for their leadership on this issue,” said Anne Steckel, vice president of federal affairs at the National Biodiesel Board, the industry trade association. “These senators understand that we need clear, stable policy to break our dangerous dependence on petroleum and diversify our fuel supplies with cleaner alternatives that create jobs and economic activity in the U.S.”

“There is absolutely no reason for continued delays in the biodiesel volumes in the RFS. This could be done tomorrow,” Steckel added.



A closer look at the flawed studies behind policies used to promote 'low-carbon' biofuels

Nearly all of the studies used to promote biofuels as climate-friendly alternatives to petroleum fuels are flawed and need to be redone, according to a University of Michigan researcher who reviewed more than 100 papers published over more than two decades.

Once the erroneous methodology is corrected, the results will likely show that policies used to promote biofuels—such as the U.S. Renewable Fuel Standard and California's Low-Carbon Fuel Standard—actually make matters worse when it comes to limiting net emissions of climate-warming carbon dioxide gas.

The main problem with existing studies is that they fail to correctly account for the carbon dioxide absorbed from the atmosphere when corn, soybeans and sugarcane are grown to make biofuels, said John DeCicco, a research professor at U-M's Energy Institute.

"Almost all of the fields used to produce biofuels were already being used to produce crops for food, so there is no significant increase in the amount of carbon dioxide being removed from the atmosphere. Therefore, there's no climate benefit," said DeCicco, the author of an advanced review of the topic in the current issue of Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Energy and Environment.

"The real challenge is to develop ways of removing carbon dioxide at faster rates and larger scales than is accomplished by established agricultural and forestry activities. By focusing more on increasing net carbon dioxide uptake, we can shape more effective climate policies that counterbalance emissions from the combustion of gasoline and other liquid fuels."

In his article, DeCicco examines the four main approaches that have been used to evaluate the carbon dioxide impacts of liquid transportation fuels, both petroleum-based fuels and plant-based biofuels. His prime focus is "carbon footprinting," a type of lifecycle analysis proposed in the late 1980s as a way to evaluate the total emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases associated with the production and use of transportation fuels.

Numerous fuel-related carbon footprinting analyses have been published since that time and have led to widespread disagreement over the results.

Even so, these methods were advocated by environmental groups and were subsequently mandated by Congress as part of the 2007 federal energy bill's provisions to promote biofuels through the U.S. Renewable Fuel Standard. Shortly thereafter, parallel efforts in California led to that state's adoption of its Low-Carbon Fuel Standard based on the carbon footprinting model.

In his analysis, DeCicco shows that these carbon footprint comparisons fail to properly reflect the dynamics of the terrestrial carbon cycle, miscounting carbon dioxide uptake during plant growth. That process occurs on all productive lands, whether or not the land is harvested for biofuel, he said.

"These modeling errors help explain why the results of such studies have remained in dispute for so long," DeCicco said. "The disagreements have been especially sharp when comparing biofuels, such as ethanol and biodiesel, to conventional fuels such as gasoline and diesel derived from petroleum."



Survey Suggests US Producers to Plant 9.4 Million Acres of Upland/ELS Cotton in '15

U.S. cotton producers intend to plant 9.4 million acres of cotton this spring, down 14.6 percent from 2014, according to the National Cotton Council's 32nd Annual Early Season Planting Intentions Survey. (see table attached)

Upland cotton intentions are 9.2 million acres, down 15.2 percent from 2014, while extra-long staple (ELS) intentions of 236,000 acres represent a 22.8 percent increase. The survey results were announced today at the NCC's 2015 Annual Meeting in Memphis.

Dr. Gary Adams, the NCC's vice president Economics & Policy Analysis, said, "Planted acreage is just one of the factors that will determine supplies of cotton and cottonseed. Ultimately, weather, insect pressures and agronomic conditions play a significant role in determining crop size."

He said that with average abandonment for the United States at 12.8 percent, Cotton Belt harvested area totals 8.2 million acres. Weighting individual state yields by 2015 area generates a U.S. average yield per harvested acre of 817 pounds. Applying each state's yield to its 2015 projected harvested acres generates a cotton crop of 14.0 million bales, with 13.3 million bales of upland and 694,000 bales of ELS.

The NCC questionnaire, mailed in mid-December 2014 to producers across the 17-state Cotton Belt, asked producers for the number of acres devoted to cotton and other crops in 2014 and the acres planned for the coming season. Survey responses were collected through mid-January.



AgRural Cuts Brazil Soy Estimate

AgRural slashed its forecast from 95.0 mmt after a hot, dry January cut yield potential across the top-producing Center-West region.

The delay in soybean planting across Mato Grosso, Goias and Mato Grosso do Sul proved vital as it meant a large part of the crop was filling pods amid high temperatures and sparse rain over the last month.

The state with the biggest losses is Goias, for which the average yield forecast was cut to 40 bushels per acre from 45 bpa. Rains returned to the No. 4 producing state last week but they came too late for some crops.

Crops in Mato Grosso do Sul were doing well until January, when the dry weather hit, cutting yield potential by 2.7 bpa to 43 bpa, said AgRural.

However, the biggest surprise is the losses in Mato Grosso, where dryness in the north and east has caused yield numbers to be cut 3 bpa to 4 bpa for those regions. Average yields in the state are now estimated at 44 bpa. Similarly, rain returned to the region last week, but too late to recuperate losses.

It raised yield estimates by half a bushel per acre to 48 bpa for Parana and by a bushel to 42 bpa in Rio Grande do Sul.

Harvest efforts continued to move forward over the last week, but the numbers are starting to reflect the delays in Mato Grosso planting.  As of Friday, some 9% of the Brazilian crop had been harvested, compared with 12% at the same point last year.



High Corn Yields to Offset Smaller Acreage in Argentina

Argentine farmers turned away from corn this season, cutting acreage by nearly a quarter amid low prices and uncertainty over how much the government will allow to be exported.  But the weather has been kind to farmers, and with early harvesting getting under way just as late planting is finishing, most expect a crop almost as large as last year.

The Rosario Cereals Exchange pegs 2014-15 production at 22.4 million metric tons, down from the 27 mmt produced last year. However, farm managers and analysts indicated the crop may be larger, closer to the USDA forecast of 25 mmt.

As with soybeans, the best yields will be registered by early-planted corn that benefitted most from heavy downpours in November and December. In the best parts of Buenos Aires, Santa Fe and Cordoba provinces, farms will routinely register average yields of 140 to 190 bushels per acre, said Rosario Cereals Exchange.



Research Shows Honey Bee Diseases Can Strike in All Seasons

U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientists in Maryland and their colleagues have found that two pathogens causing mysterious honey bee ailments are a problem not just in the spring, but they might pose a threat year-round. Ryan Schwarz and Jay Evans, entomologists with the Agricultural Research Service (ARS), have shown that two species of bacteria, Spiroplasma melliferum and S. apis, are more common than previously thought and infect honey bees in places as diverse as Brazil and Beltsville, Md.

ARS is USDA's principal intramural scientific research agency, and this research supports the USDA priority of promoting sustainable agriculture.

Both pathogens were discovered more than 30 years ago, but scientists are still unsure if they are factors in colony collapse disorder or major causes of other bee mortalities.

Schwarz and Evans, based at the ARS Bee Research Laboratory in Beltsville, and their colleagues at the Brazilian Honey Bee Laboratory in São Paulo analyzed the DNA of bees in Beltsville and Brazil between 2011 and 2013. Bees were collected from 11 states in Brazil and 2 areas in Beltsville. Schwarz had recently developed genetic markers that allow researchers to distinguish S. apis from other bacteria in bees. They used those markers and another recently developed set of S. melliferum markers to determine the year-round prevalence of the two pathogens.

As expected, the researchers found that both pathogens were prevalent in the spring. But they also found that they were common at other times of the year as well and that their prevalence rates varied depending on the location. In Beltsville, the pathogens were more prevalent in the spring, while in Brazil they were more prevalent in the fall. The results also showed that S. melliferum was the more prevalent of the two and that the presence of one pathogen made bees more susceptible to the other.

Schwarz says the results should help beekeepers and scientists monitor the health of honey bees by raising awareness about the year-round nature of the threat the pathogens might pose. Equipped with the new genetic markers developed for the pathogens, scientists also will be better able to screen bee colonies for the pathogens.

Read more about this research in the February 2015 issue of Agricultural Research magazine.



NFU Urges Canadian Agriculture Minister to Review Recent COOL Study; Allow WTO Process on COOL to Run Its Course

National Farmers Union (NFU) President Roger Johnson urged the Canadian Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food Gerry Ritz, to review the results of a recent econometric study showing that “COOL did not have a negative impact on Canadian cattle exports,” in a letter sent today.

The letter comes on the heels of a trip by Minister Ritz and members of the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association, the Canadian Pork Council and the Canadian Meat Council to Washington, D.C. to meet with American lawmakers. Johnson pointed out that the study, conducted by C. Robert Taylor, Ph.D., of Auburn University, points out that previous studies conducted on behalf of Canadian interests and submitted to the World Trade Organization (WTO) were flawed. 

“Dr. Taylor’s study addressed issues such as confounding factors and omitted variable bias present” in several previous studies, the letter notes. Unlike those studies, which relied largely on proprietary data that was provided to the researchers by the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association – a staunch opponent of COOL – Taylor’s study instead relied upon Mandatory Price Reporting data, which is publicly available.

“Dr. Taylor’s recent study on COOL discredits claims made by Canada to the WTO,” said Johnson. “I strongly encourage Minister Ritz to study the COOL report, use it to inform his assessments of COOL, and allow the WTO process to run its course.”

Johnson also noted that the recent study on COOL found that fed cattle price basis actually declined after COOL went into effect; that COOL also had no negative impact on imports of slaughter cattle; and COOL did not significantly affect those of feeder cattle.

“American lawmakers should not be listening to the overblown rhetoric and retaliatory threats made by foreign government officials and the multinational meatpacking industry,” said Johnson. “Farmers and ranchers in this country are proud of the products they produce, and consumers have a strong and growing desire to know where their food comes from.”

The WTO has stated multiple times that countries have a right to label products with their country of origin and remain in compliance with WTO,” said Johnson. “The Canadian government needs to allow the WTO process to run its course.”



Ranchers, Consumers Applaud Dismissal of COOL Lawsuit

In papers filed today in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, industry opponents to the U.S. country of origin labeling (COOL) law dropped their longstanding case against the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). This ends the lawsuit, American Meat Institute (AMI) et al. v. U.S. Department of Agriculture et al., originally filed in July 2013 by domestic and international meatpackers and trade groups that sought to strike-down the popular labeling law that informs consumers where the meat they purchase was born, raised, and slaughtered.

“South Dakota Stockgrower members are proud of their USA born and raised cattle and we’re happy the courts have ruled that consumers can continue identifying USA beef with the COOL label,” said SDSGA President Bob Fortune.

The challengers to the COOL law (including meatpacking and allied livestock commodity groups in the United States, Canada and Mexico) lost three rounds of court decisions. The initial request for immediate injunctive relief was rejected by the U.S. District Court in September 2013; a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit affirmed that ruling in March 2014, and the entire circuit appeals court overwhelmingly upheld the legitimacy of COOL labels in July. The meatpacker plaintiffs choose not to appeal these recurring defeats to the U.S. Supreme Court and agreed to have their case dismissed.

The meatpacker challengers alleged the COOL law violated their constitutional right to free speech by requiring meat processors to affix these sensible labels. They also alleged that USDA had overreached its statutory authority by requiring retailers to affix labels specifically denoting the country where each of three production steps — born, raised and slaughtered — had occurred.

R-CALF USA, Food & Water Watch, Western Organization for Resource Councils and the South Dakota Stockgrowers Association intervened on behalf of the USDA in the lawsuit along with other farm, commodity and consumer groups. This legal intervention is only part of a longstanding nationwide campaign to enact, implement and protect COOL.

“It is about time the meatpackers abandoned this anti-consumer lawsuit,” said Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food & Water Watch. “Three separate court rulings rejected the industry’s absurd contention that it has a constitutional right to deceive consumers about where food is produced,” said Hauter.

The courts not only upheld USDA’s authority to issue regulations to implement COOL under the 2008 Farm Bill but also affirmed that COOL was designed to satisfy a legitimate consumer disclosure objective as well as promote food safety and public health. The court further rejected the meatpacker-plaintiffs’ contention that labeling meat products with factual and uncontroversial information about livestock production steps would violate their First Amendment free speech rights.

R-CALF USA COOL Committee Chair and Kansas cattle rancher Mike Schultz also welcomed the dismissal of the COOL challenge stating, “COOL is necessary to support marketplace competition because only it can empower consumers to act on their choice of where they want their food produced.”

Efforts by consumer and producer groups to defend COOL in the courts have paralleled efforts to defend COOL from meatpacker-backed attacks to eliminate or weaken the integrity of the COOL labels in the U.S. Congress.

“Congress must abandon its efforts to meddle with meat labels, which are overwhelmingly popular with ranchers and consumers,” said WORC. “Even the meatpackers have given up now on their effort to stop COOL in the courts. It’s time for Congress to leave the commonsense labels alone.”  



CWT Assists with 1.3 Million Pounds of Cheese and Butter Export Sales

Cooperatives Working Together (CWT) has accepted 2 requests for export assistance to sell 220,462 pounds (100 metric tons) of Cheddar cheese and 1.102 million pounds (500 metric tons) of 82% butter to customers in the Middle East and Central America. The product will be delivered in February through August 2015.

Year-to-date, CWT has assisted member cooperatives in selling 4.641 million pounds of cheese and 15.510 million pounds of butter to fourteen countries on four continents. The sales are the equivalent of 391.798 million pounds of milk on a milkfat basis.

Assisting CWT members through the Export Assistance program, in the long-term, helps member cooperatives gain and maintain market share, thus expanding the demand for U.S. dairy products and the U.S. farm milk that produces them. This, in turn, positively impacts U.S. dairy farmers by strengthening and maintaining the value of dairy products that directly impact their milk price.