Iowa ag secretary seeks reelection

Iowa secretary of agriculture Bill Northey is running for reelection. 

Northey filed his petitions and paperwork this week to seek a second term.  He was first elected in 2006. Northey is a corn and soybean farmer from Spirit Lake.

Nebraska turkey plant announcement expected

An announcement on the future of the former Norbest turkey-processing plant at Gibbon, Nebraska, expected on Tuesday, has been delayed until at least Friday, according to Gibbon city officials.

Buffalo County documents indicate that a New York-based company, Midwest Meat Packing LLC, has purchased the shuttered plant.  Waverly, Nebraska turkey producer Bill Bevans told the Lincoln Journal-Star that he is waiting to see whether the sale will once again give him and others a marketing outlet in the state.  Bevans says he’s heard the new owners plan to process turkeys, but there’s been no indication of potential volume or from where the turkeys will be sourced.

Nebraska plant to become kosher operation

The shuttered Premium Protein Products meat plant in Hastings, Nebraska has been purchased by an out-of-state venture that intends to make it a kosher slaughter operation.

According to the Lincoln Journal-Star, Hastings Acquisitions LLC bought the plant at a bankruptcy auction this week.  That company is a joint venture of an Orthodox Jewish family from New York City and Lincoln Provision, Incorporated of Chicago, a food wholesaler. 

The Premium Protein plant in Lincoln was not part of the sale.  Officials say Hastings Acquisitions has 14 days to reach a deal to purchase that plant as well.

It’s the second sale of a closed meat plant in Hastings in the past week.  Jacksonville, Florida-based Bubba Foods announced last week that is buying the former Armour-Eckrich meat plan in Hastings and will producer frozen hamburger patties there.

UNL ag communications unit victim of budget cuts

The ag communications unit of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s (UNL) Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources has fallen victim to the budget-cutting knife.

Ag communications—officially called Communications and Information Technology (CIT)—will be eliminated as part of a three-point-six million dollar budget cut announced Tuesday by UNL chancellor Harvey Perlman.  The unit provides news releases, radio and TV programs, newsletters, web support and other information services for ag programs at UNL.

According to the Lincoln Journal-Star, eight of the 18 CIT employees will be laid off, with the others likely moved elsewhere within the university.  Some of the services provided by the ag communications unit will be picked up by the University Communications and Information Services departments.  Perlman says that the delivery of education information by UNL Extension and other ag programs will be preserved and reassigned to other divisions.

Jumping off point for pork industry

During the National Pork Industry Forum held March 4-6, 2010 in Kansas City, Missouri, Chris Novak, CEO of the National Pork Board told Brownfield this is the “jumping off point” for the pork industry.

“We have had two years where pork producers have struggled with losing more than $20 for every hog they sold on average as we looked where grain markets were, feed prices for feeding out hogs and what they were getting from the marketplace,” Novak explained.  “ We are starting to see recovery. We are seeing prices that are offering pork producers an opportunity to return a profit. That is an important step for this industry. More importantly for our organization though we are looking ahead to the future and looking ahead to how we can improve pork marketing. How we can focus and refine the research and investments we are making on behalf of the pork producers and we are very very excited about the future to come.”

As for the next step, Novak said, “One of the things we have done this past year is to reach out to consumers. We conducted a 12 to 18 month consumer research project to understand what consumers think about pork, what they think about The Other White Meat advertising, and the way that we have communicated to them about pork. We have found out unfortunately that many folks are still listening to grandma or mom when they say that pork should be overcooked. Today we have a product that is healthy and safe and if consumers would cook it to a medium rare or medium consistency as opposed to over cooking it they would be serving their family a much better product. That is a very important message going forward; how consumers can enjoy pork in more ways. It adds flavor to menus. It adds diversity to menus. That is something we have tried to communicate in the past, but we are truly getting around the table again and rethinking the way that we communicate to consumers.”

It is  also important to communicate with consumers the animal welfare practices that the pork industry is involved in everyday.

“The pork industry, three years ago, at this national meeting adopted a set of ethical principles,” said Novak. ”It wasn’t because this was the first time that they discovered ethics.   These were the values and the principles that pork producers have lived with for years. Yet, suddenly three years ago the industry realized that consumers who no longer have a connection to agriculture – people who not only their parents but their grandparents may not have been involved in food production - that we needed to be able to reach out to those consumers and explain to them what farmers stand for today.  How farmers are committed to protecting the environment, providing better, safer food for tomorrow, as well as providing better animal care. So, the ethical principles that our pork producers adopted became the launching pad for the “We Care” initiative. That initiative encompasses a number of programs that our industry has including the Pork Quality Assurance Plus Program, and the Transport Quality Assurance, a lot of acronyms. But the bottom line for consumers is that pork producers are voluntarily engaging in programs to learn better ways to handle animals, protect the environment, provide safer, better, and higher quality food products to our American consumers. Those steps are going to be important for us in assuring and reassuring consumers about the safety and quality of food.”

There has been a movement toward local where food is concerned. How is the pork industry embracing that?

Novak said, “The issue of local and organic and natural production is vital to this industry and we know that it should be there as a choice for consumer. And I think that is a very important message that we want to share. We do certainly want consumer to have a choice of food products based upon their individual beliefs. To the extent that we want to reassure consumers that the products coming from a modern farm operation are safe, are high quality, are grown or raised in a proper manner. That is an important message for all consumers to understand. At the end of the day for consumers the difference is price. We know that some of our natural systems, some of the systems that aren’t using animal health products regularly produce fewer pigs. They have fewer pigs that are born alive. They have more pigs that get sick from illness and aren’t able to get to market. To that extent, there is a higher cost of production. Those farmers have to pay more to produce the pork that goes on the table. So the expectation is that when consumers see those products in a grocery store they are going to come with a higher price tag. For consumers who can afford that choice it is a great thing. For consumers who are simply looking to feed their family and maximize their food dollar we know that the modern systems we have are better for the animals in many ways. We have moved animals indoors to keep them out of the Midwestern winters and out of the snow drifts to ensure better quality and safety for those animals as well. So, those are some things that I know are a part of consumer discussion and yet we also know that many consumers don’t necessarily understand the methods behind modern production. That is going to be part of the story that we do want to tell consumers going forward.”

Novak suggests that those who want to be involved in telling the story of agriculture should do so, starting in their local community.  “First, the “We Care” initiative, a part of that, one of the ethical principles is that pork producers will be involved and engaged in their community. So, one of the programs we have is Operation Main Street. We have trained 700 pork farmers who will travel thousands of miles each year to visit Kiwanis, Rotary, Optimist Clubs, local Chambers of Commerce, any type of community gathering in a fifty to 100 miles radius of where they are living. They are willing to take their time and provide those audiences with information about pork production and why we do the things that we do on the farm. We are working with some of those Operation Main Street speakers to move into the blogosphere. We are teaching them about facebook and twitter. We have a number of pork producers out there watching the dialogue in social media and jumping in. They are protecting and defending their industry, sharing information about what they are doing on their farms with consumers. We have some pork producers who have actually opened live web links with cameras on their farm operation. So, if consumers want to see what is happening on a farm they have that opportunity. Those are just a few of the things that producers can do. Engaging with local media stations – we have a wonderful farm broadcast crew obviously that helps us share the message - but for producers to pick up the phone or send a letter to their local media stations and offer themselves as a resource is also a great step. The pork check off has a number of tools that can help producers get information that they can share with local media sources. Producers can go to pork.org.  We also have porkcares.org which is a brand new website that we have launched that helps talk about those issues we know consumers have questions about as far as production agriculture; and finally theotherwhitemeat.com has been revamped. It has lots of recipes for consumers who are interested in spicing up their dinner menu.”

Conversation with Chris Novak

Pork producers wary of HSUS bill in Congress

Pork producers will be keeping a close eye on that HSUS-backed animal rights bill introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives.

The bill proposes to set rules around confinement of animals used to produce food purchased by the federal government.  According to Dr. Jen Greiner with the National Pork Producers Council, it’s the first time legislation addressing animal housing—gestation stalls, veal crates and laying hen cages—has been introduced in Congress. 

Greiner doesn’t expect the proposal to gain much traction by itself—but she is concerned its backers might try to tie it to reauthorization of the Child Nutrition Act later this year.

“(It’s) the bill that gives USDA the ability to go out and purchase food products to go into the school lunch program, the school breakfast program, and the Women, Infants and Children—or WIC—program,” Greiner says, “and so, as we look at that, obviously those foods are going into federal programs and this legislation could get swept into it.  So, clearly, we’re concerned about that.”

HSUS has been successful with animal rights initiatives at the state level and, to this point, has not shown much interest in pursuing federal legislation.  We asked Greiner if she’s surprised with this move in Congress.

“We did pick this year—an election year for the House of Representatives and part of the Senators—we did pick this year as being a year of potential mischief,” she says, “but (we) really hadn’t seen a whole lot of movement in that direction until last week.  So I guess while we are maybe a little bit surprised that it came this early, (we’re) definitely not shocked.”

The federal government spends more than one billion dollars buying animal products for a variety of programs and agencies, including the national school lunch program, the armed services and federal prisons.

AUDIO: Jen Greiner (4 min MP3)

Nebraska ag delegation visits Japan

An agricultural delegation from Nebraska is concluding a visit to Japan.

Representatives of several Nebraska farm and commodity groups were part of the group, which was led by Nebraska Farm Bureau president Keith Olsen. Olsen says Japan is a very important market for Nebraska farmers.

“We ship a lot of corn here—some wheat—and we move a lot of meat, both pork and beef,” Olsen says, “and we were in a couple of supermarkets yesterday and did get to see Nebraska beef and Nebraska pork.”

As for the issues surrounding U.S. beef exports into Japan, Olsen says nothing much has changed.

“What they have said here—and what we’ve known for some time—is that it’s a political issue,” Olsen says, “Not so much a beef safety issue—just boiling down to a political issue.”

The trip was part of the U.S. Embassy’s “Partners in Agriculture” series.  It included an event to celebrate the Japanese Agricultural Exchange Program.  That program has brought more than 350 Japanese to Nebraska since 1952 to learn about the state’s farming practices.

AUDIO: Keith Olsen (8 min MP3)

EPA chief defends authority to regulate GHG

EPA administrator Lisa Jackson, speaking at the National Press Club Monday, defended her agency’s authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act.

Jackson questioned Congressional efforts to stop EPA from imposing new emissions curbs on business, saying such legislation could have “serious negative economic effects.” She says industry needs clear signals from the U.S. government on greenhouse gas regulations—otherwise, she says, investors would have “little incentive” to put money into clean energy jobs.

Jackson also talked about the growing chorus of those who are questioning the validity of climate change science, saying ”there’s certainly an organized effort to sow doubt in people’s minds—and there’s some indication that it may be working, on some level.”

But Jackson says there is no doubt that man-made climate change is real.

“As the head of the EPA, I believe I have to continue to stand here and make it crystal clear,” Jackson says, “that the science isn’t unsettled—that we do know that our emissions of greenhouse gases are accumulating in our atmosphere and interfering with the way the atmosphere is supposed to work.”

Jackson says a failure to act will mean “catastrophic problems” going forward.  Instead of trying to suspend the rules, she says, Congress should focus on drafting its own climate bill.

Link to video of Jackson’s remarks on c-span.org 

New NAWG officers

A Kansan is the new president of the National Association of Wheat Growers. Jerry McReynolds of Woodston has held numerous offices with NAWG and the Kansas Association of Wheat Growers. He succeeds Karl Scronce of Oregon who now becomes immediate past president. Also elected at the organization’s annual meeting at Commodity Classic last weekend:

• Wayne Hurst of Idaho, first vice president
• Erik Younggen of Minnesota, second vice president
• Bing Von Bergen of Montana, secretary-treasurer

 Typically, NAWG officers “run the chairs” starting with the secretary-treasurer position leading up to the presidency although the officers are interviews and recommended on an annual basis.

Pork delegates support animal disease traceability

At the recent National Pork Industry Forum in Kansas City, pork producers expressed concern about USDA’s decision to abandon efforts to establish a National Animal Identification System (NAIS).

The USDA announced in February that NAIS would be replaced by a new animal disease traceability network in which all states and tribes would develop their own traceability programs. Elk Creek, Nebraska pork producer Dennis Beethe, immediate past president of the Nebraska Pork Producers Association, says it leaves Nebraska in a somewhat precarious position.

“With Nebraska being such a big packing state for beef and pork, we have a lot of pigs farrowed in the state, moved out and coming back for harvest purposes.  This could be a great detriment to our state, so this is a very important issue to us.”

The Nebraska delegation was successful in introducing and passing a resolution encouraging producers and states to continue to use nationally standardized premises ID numbers as part of animal ID methods and movement records. Beethe says having that consistency among states is important.

A separate resolution passed by NPPC delegates urges USDA to require all states to develop species specific systems within the new disease traceability network. It says each species group should be permitted to develop its own ID system and that USDA should permit species groups to have mandatory systems if producers within a group approve such a plan.

 Conversation with Dennis Beethe before vote

The National Swine Identification Plan has succeeded in registering more than 85 percent of swine premises in the U.S. Delegates urged its adoption to ensure compatibility and consistency among states.

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