“It’s our opinion you could responsibly expand semi weight limits by adding a sixth axle to the trailer and by expanding up to 97,000 pounds with that sixth axle, you can load 183 additional bushels of soybeans per trip,” Steenhoek said. “That’s a real savings on fuel for farmers, it’s a real savings on time, it really seems to e a common sense approach to expanding our capacity.”

Steenhoek says while the provision to increase truck weight limits was not included in the House Transporation and Infrastructure Committee mark-up, the provision to renew the agricultural harvest time exemption from the hours-of-service rules that limit the number of hours truck drivers may operate was included.

“Farmers really need to have that flexibility to deliver the products they produce, to have inputs delivered to their farms, so having exemptions for these hours of service certainly needs to be preserved,” said Steenhoek. “It looks like that’s going to be maintained in this legislation.”

Steenhoek says that when you’re involved in an industry that exports over half of what’s produced, logistics are important and another reason why transportation needs to be on farmer’s minds.

Audio: Mike Steenhoek, Soy Transportation Coalition (5:50 MP3)

That prediction comes from CattleFax market analyst Kevin Good. 

At the annual CattleFax Outlook Seminar in Nashville, Good said he expects fed cattle prices to average 122 dollars per hundredweight this year—but he says good risk management will be more important than ever.

“If you think about that from an annual average and say, ‘well, what’s the spread, what’s the risk that we have in the markets’—you’ve got risk at some point back to around 110—and you’ve got potential to the mid-130’s,” said Good. “That’s a 300 dollar per head change from high to low—300 dollars per head.

“You think we don’t have more exposure today than we’ve ever had in the past?”

Good says cow-calf producers are in the driver’s seat right now.  He predicts the average price of  750 pound steers to average around 150 dollars per hundredweight in 2012.

AUDIO: Kevin Good’s presentation at the 2012 CattleFax Outlook Seminar (21:43 MP3)

In a conference call with reporters on Wednesday, February 1, officials with the Department of Labor explained their decision to re-propose the ‘parental exemption’ portion of the child labor in agriculture rule which has been in existence for 40 years.

“Corporate structures of farms and ownership of farms and how farms are operated has changed,” said a DOL official. “So consequently we are wanting to take advantage of all of these really amazing and important comments that we’ve received to ensure that what we do put out as final, is now informed by this really important comment process.”

The Department of Labor’s re-propose portion of the rule is expected to be published sometime this summer at which time public comments will be accepted. In the meantime the DOL will continue to review public comments already received on the remaining portions of the proposed rule.

The agency official, in the statement read to reporters, said that until the revised exemption is final, the DOL will revert to its earlier enforcement practice.

”The parental exemption to situations in which the parent or person standing in the place of a parent is a part owner of the farm, a partner in a partnership or an officer of a corporation that owns the farm if the ownership interest in the partnership or corporation is substantial. This approach is consistent with guidance the Wage and Hour Division has provided to the public on its website for the past several years.”

Audio: Department of Labor Statement (2:25 MP3)

“We would urge, strongly urge anyone who is viewing this video to understand that some of the practices they are showing and that they are saying are abusive are taken out of context or could potentially be taken out of context,” says NPB’s Cindy Cunningham. She tells Brownfield they are still studying the videos – that the HSUS says were taken in late 2011 – to determine if actual abuse occurred. Cunningham says “America’s pork producers take seriously (their) ethical responsibility for the proper care of pigs.”

The HSUS says the videos were taken at pig breeding facilities in Goodwell, Oklahoma — one owned by Seaboard Foods and the other by Prestage Farms. They are calling on all hog producers to commit to phasing out “gestation crates” – as they say Smithfield and Cargill have agreed to do.

Paul Shapiro, director of HSUS Farm Animal Protection, says “We documented pigs living in these inhumane cages perpetually. Many were driven mad by the confinement, some biting the bars of their cages until their mouths bled onto the concrete before them.”

He says the videos taken by HSUS activists who were hired at both locations, detail abuse of pigs and piglets by other employees.

“We’re calling on these pork companies and their buyers, like Wal Mart, to end this practice. We’re calling on them to do the right thing. To end their use of gestations crates,” says Shapiro.

Cunningham says if abuse did occur then the proper steps need to be taken.

AUDIO: HSUS News Conference, OKC, Paul Shapiro (23:00 mp3)

AUDIO: Cindy Cunningham, National Pork Board

“And right now trade as a whole is worth about $220 per marketed head, that’s money in producer’s pockets, so to threaten that we think is really shortsighted and foolish,” said Woodall. “We need to work on a program that will make sure we’re not retaliated against, but also a program that truly gives consumers the information they want and right now we have a program that does neither of those.”

Audio: Colin Woodall, NCBA (1:05 MP3)

Woodall was in Ohio on Saturday, January 28 speaking at the Ohio Cattlemen’s Association annual meeting.

All cattle and calves as of January 1 totaled 90.8 million head, down 2% on the year when on average, analysts were expecting a 1.5% decline.

That is the lowest total U.S. cattle and calf herd since the 88.1 million head inventory on January 1, 1952.

All cows and heifers that have calved were pegged at 39.1 million head, a 2% decrease, with beef cows down 3% at 29.9 million head and milk cows up 1% at 9.2 million.

Heifers weighing 500 pounds and up were 1% below a year ago at 19.4 million head, with beef replacement heifers up 1% at 5.2 million head, milk replacement heifers at 4.5 million head, down 1%, and other heifers decreased 2% to 9.6 million head.

Steers weighing 500 pounds and heavier were 16.1 million head, 2% lower than last year, with bulls 500 pounds and up at 2.1 million head, a 5% year to year drop.

Calves weighing less than 500 pounds declined 3% to 14.1 million head and slaughter cattle and calves on feed pegged at 14.1 million head, a 1% increase.

The combined number of calves weighing less than 500 pound and other heifers and steers over 500 pounds outside of the feedlots were 25.7 million head, down 4% from January 1, 2010.

The 2011 calf crop came out at 35.3 million head, down 1% from 2010 and the smallest annual calf crop since 1950.

USDA estimates calves born during the first half of last year were 25.7 million head, 1% less than during the first half of 2010.

Allendale’s David Kohli says that aside from the dairy cow numbers, the report is bullish.

The Corn Refiners Association President Audrae Erickson says the study’s authors were unable to draw meaningful conclusions based on their data, and conceded the study had “several limitations.” Erickson notes, “This study does not compare high fructose corn syrup to sugar made from cane and beets, and it did not use real-life diets as a model. In fact, the authors noted that the sugar, or sucrose, had ‘broken down’ into the very same sugar compounds contained in HFCS. The study is also inconsistent with the great weight of scientific authority showing the nutritional and metabolic equivalence of HFCS and sucrose.”

The study was published in the December 5th scientific journal Metabolism.

The two sides are currently in a dispute over a CRA request that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration allow the use of “corn sugar” in place of ‘high fructose corn syrup” on food labels. The Sugar Association wants FDA to reject that request.

Read the Metabolism article here:

The changes are the product of recommendations from a panel of experts convened by the Institute of Medicine. They are designed to help fight the growing childhood obesity problem in the United States and will affect more than 32 million children.

Most of the changes will be phased-in over a three-year period starting with the 2012-2013 school year.

Jerry Kozak with the National Milk Producers Federation praised the Ag Department for continuing the requirement that low-fat or fat-free milk remain a part of every school meal noting; “Milk is the single largest contributor of nutrients in kids’ diets.” Kozak also praised USDA for keeping low-fat and fat-free yogurt and cheese on school breakfast and lunch menus.

John Keeling with the National Potato Council says while they are pleased USDA recognizes the importance of increasing consumption of vegetables, they are concerned the final rule “falls short of giving schools flexibility”. By giving preference to certain vegetables over others Keeling says the rules handcuff local schools trying to meet nutritional needs within a budget.

More details from USDA available here:

Growth Energy CEO Tom Buis says the nation has “to move ahead with American ethanol as part of that solution.” He says the ethanol promotion group looks forward to working with the Administration and the Congress.

Ann Steckel, the National Biodiesel Board vice president of government affairs says they couldn’t agree more with the president on making renewable fuels a top priority. Steckel says in a statement – that’s why the NBB is “calling on the Administration to quickly finalize the delayed EPA rule for boosting biodiesel use under the Renewable Fuel Standard in 2013.” She says that “single-handed” decision would support more than 10-thousand new jobs.

National Farmers Union President Roger Johnson says NFU is pleased the administration has renewed its pledge to energy independence for the United States, adding, “Homegrown energy is how we keep money, jobs and family in Rural America.”

The study noted more than half of the structures that are part of the U.S. inland waterway system exceed their 50-year usable lifespan and more than one-third surpass 70 years of age. As an example of that aging, the report notes “on the Ohio River alone, the accumulated shipping delays at broken-down locks has more than tripled since 2000, rising from 25,000 hours to 80,000 annually.”

Up to 89 percent of U.S. soybean exports travel through ports of the lower Mississippi River so any long-term failure in the system would have tremendous financial ramifications for exports.

The United Soybean Board, the American Soybean Association and eleven state soybean checkoff boards, plan to examine new and different ways to fund lock and dam and other rural transportation infrastructure improvements.

Read the report here: