News

No beef buy in Surplus Removal program

US Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack says there’s a reason the USDA is not currently planning to purchase beef for food assistance programs as a way to help farmers and ranchers affected by the drought.  Earlier this week, Vilsack announced the agency will purchase up to 170-Million-dollars-worth of pork, lamb, chicken and catfish for federal food nutrition programs, but not beef.

Opening up emergency haying and grazing as the USDA has done, Vilsack tells Brownfield, is the right approach for cattle producers, “Pork and poultry have very limited feed options,” he says, “Haying and grazing opportunities does make it a little bit easier for those cattle operators and that’s why we opened up millions of acres of opportunity.”

Vilsack says the purchasing program will help those other producers get their stocks down to size.

“The pork area, for example,” Vilsack tells Brownfield Ag News, “We really focused initially on sow meat because we know that that’s where there has been some weakness recently and that’s where a lot of folks are focusing their efforts on.”

The Emergency Surplus Removal Program allows USDA to use Section 32 funds to buy meat and poultry products in the event of natural disasters.

“We have a great deal of flexibility in that program because it’s essentially money that’s borrowed one year and repaid the next year with export fees. So, it’s not about specific dollar amounts, it’s really about what the market needs and what the market can bear,” Vilsack says.

The high feed prices and other market conditions were taken into consideration. Vilsack says the USDA continues to support exports of U.S. beef, poultry, pork and lamb – adding that this is another strong export year.