World Agriculture
Developments, trade, data, and topics in world agriculture
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Global food prices fell to a seven-year high in August 2015According to reports, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations recently issued a media report stating that the global food price index continued to decline in August 2015, setting the largest monthly decline since December 2008. At the same time, the outlook for world cereal production is promising, with an upward adjustment in production forecasts. The FAO Global Food Price Index is a trade-weighted index of the prices of five major food commodities in the international market, including cereals, meat, dairy products, vegetable oils and sugar. In August, the prices of various food commodities generally fell sharply. Among them, the global grain price index fell by 7% and 15.1 respectively compared with the levels in July and the same period in 2014. The global vegetable oil price index fell 8.6 from July, the lowest level since 2009. The global dairy price index fell 9.1 from July. The global sugar price index fell 10% from July. Only the global meat price index was basically the same as in July, but compared with the highest level in the same period in 2014, its overall price is still down as much as 18%. The report also pointed out that the outlook for world cereal supply in 2015 is good. FAO's latest forecast for global cereal production in 2015 is 2.54 billion tons, an increase of 13.8 million tons from the July forecast, mainly due to improved prospects for coarse grains, wheat and rice production. But the figure is still 21 million tons less than the record level in 2014. According to the latest issue of "Introduction to Cereal Supply and Demand" released by FAO, the global coarse grain production forecast in 2015 was increased by 7.5 million tons to 1.311 billion tons; the wheat production forecast was 0.728 billion tons, an increase of 5 million tons over the original forecast; the rice production forecast was 0.501 billion tons, although it was only increased by 1.3 million tons, but it was 3.6 million tons more than the 2014 production level. http://www.twwtn.com/Agriculture/58_291737.html Science and Technology World Network
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What did the "European cupboard" do to ensure food safety?In recent years, the Global Food Safety Index report, Denmark has been in the forefront. This small Nordic country with a local area of only 43000 square kilometers and a population of more than 550 million is known as the "European cupboard". Nearly three-quarters of agricultural products are exported, and pork exports account for a quarter of the world. Recently, Bent Hassen, chairman of the central region of Denmark, visited Shanghai and accepted an exclusive interview with "Liberation Monday. In his narration, it can be understood that "the reason why a small country like Denmark can maintain its status as a major exporter is precisely due to an efficient and strictly controlled food safety system". Inject animals with antibiotics how was it ended? Denmark can be called an out-and-out "farmer's kingdom". There are about 67000 farms in the country, and family farms own an average of 40 hectares of land. Agriculture occupies a pivotal position in the Danish national economy. Some Danish agricultural products are well-known and highly competitive in the international market. After long-term development, Danish agriculture has formed a modern agricultural industry chain focusing on breeding, planting and processing, which has its mature and unique industrial advantages and characteristics. Among them, the most important feature is that Denmark has established an extremely efficient and strict food safety guarantee mechanism, strictly restricting the use of pesticides and fertilizers, and agricultural products are welcomed by consumers all over the world with high quality, health and safety. Liberation Monday: Food safety is a chain that requires strict standards, security systems, and supervision and spot checks. What is the most important link in this chain? Bent Hasson: The quality of the food is the most important thing. In the case of the pig industry, we have adopted the most stringent quarantine standards in the world, both in the breeding and slaughtering process. In the slaughterhouse, all pigs must be subjected to strict inspection by a professional veterinarian vetted and employed by the government before they can be slaughtered. Such quarantine work is carried out independently to ensure its strictness and objectivity. Slaughterhouse employees must carry out careful internal and external inspections of the workplace in accordance with the standards of the food safety management system to ensure the highest standards of hygiene. Liberation Monday: In the process of animal breeding, the phenomenon of hormone injection exists in many countries and regions. Does Denmark have such a problem? Bent Hasson: We have strictly controlled the residues of antibiotics, hormones and other drugs in animals. In order to control antibiotics, we have indeed made a lot of efforts. In the 1990 s, Denmark's animal husbandry also encountered a crisis, when the use of antibiotics to promote animal growth was very common. In 1995, the government conducted an investigation and found that the use of antibiotics in farms can cause very dangerous chain reactions: the antibiotics used by farmers to animals are the same as the antibiotics prescribed by doctors to patients; the bacteria in the intestinal tract of animals are resistant to these antibiotics; then, people are infected with drug-resistant bacteria in these animals; some people get sick or even die, and the best antibiotics do not work in the treatment. In 2000, the government banned all antibiotic feed for all animals, large and small. Today, all Danish farms are free of antibiotics. People have successfully found alternatives to antibiotic feed-probiotics and zinc oxide in the feed, which can promote feed conversion. In 2000, many farmers thought that if they didn't use antibiotics, the livestock industry would be over. Now, not only have the number of farms not decreased, but the animals are healthier. Liberation Monday: Denmark's organic agriculture is also at the world's leading level. Compared with traditional planting, what are the characteristics of organic planting? Bent Hasson: compared with the traditional planting industry, the organic planting industry is characterized by the fact that it does not use pesticides and fertilizers at all, which means the increase of biodiversity, the protection of drinking water from pollution and other environmental benefits, so it is generally welcomed by Danish people. The Danish Ministry of Agriculture will send regular spot checks every year. If the use of pesticides and fertilizers exceeds the standard, farmers will be deprived of the right to produce. Organic agriculture is the direction of the future development of modern agriculture. We have issued policies to first turn the canteens of public institutions such as kindergartens, schools, hospitals, and nursing homes into "organic canteens" to ensure that the food ingredients in these canteens come from organic food. At present, 95% of the food ingredients in the canteens of all public institutions in Copenhagen come from organic food. Liberation Monday: The production process of food should also be organic. What experience do you have in this regard? Bent Hazen: Many of our farms use animal manure to produce biogas and recycle energy. In 2010, Denmark opened a special "pig city" in Garten: pigs are raised on the ground floor and tomatoes are planted on the top. The planted tomato seedlings can absorb the carbon dioxide emitted by the pig shed and remove the unpleasant smell of the pig house. Pig manure provides rich fertilizer for tomato seedlings. This is a virtuous circle. Slaughterhouse Rian "undercover" in Denmark, if you want to enter the farm to visit, it is not easy. The vast majority of Danish farms are enrolled in pathogen-specific health programmes, using pathogen-free seed breeding and segregated closed management. In order to prevent people from bringing in bacteria, farms have strict standards for people to enter and leave. When farmers enter and leave the barn, they must be cleaned, even the computer keyboard, telephone, shower head, toilet and restaurant in the farm office must be carefully cleaned. Liberation Monday: Prince Joakim of Denmark once confessed that he likes to be a farmer best. He said: "Because the farms are all mechanized, it's cool to be a farmer in Denmark." bent Hasson: Being a farmer in Denmark is happy, but not everyone can do it. Farmers also need to receive higher education. Whether you are taking care of livestock on the farm or cultivating farmland, you must first receive 3 years of basic education in the agricultural college and about 1 year of internship. Only after passing the examination can you be qualified to cultivate and manage farms and pastures. At the same time, an ecological food Junior College school has also been established to teach farmers how to grow ecological crops. If you want to be an "ecological farmer", you must first take an ecological farming course. Such Junior College schools require about two and a half years of schooling. In this way, farmers have learned the basics of how to grow safe food. In addition, all personnel related to the cultivation, breeding and testing of agricultural and sideline products must receive professional training before they can take up their posts. Liberation Monday: It seems that it is not easy to be a farmer in Denmark, so who will pay for the training? Bent Hasson: We have invested a lot of money in the development of agricultural science and technology and new agricultural products, of which more than 90% of agricultural research funding comes from government investment. The government subsidizes agricultural education. Most of the agricultural schools are subsidized by the government. The government subsidy funds account for 70% of the school running funds. Free education is implemented for the children of poor farmers. Farmers can receive education with very little money. The Government has invested in the establishment of an agricultural advisory body. Liberation Monday: What else is the government involved in the management of food sources? Bent Hasson: Some of the inspectors on the slaughter line are the slaughterhouse's own workers, while others are "undercover" by the government ". Twice a year the government will calculate the salaries of these inspectors, how many inspectors we have and how long we have worked here, and then send a bill to the slaughterhouse asking them to pay these inspectors. Once a problem is found, the quarantine personnel have the right to independently exercise supervision and inspection functions, and immediately recommend improvement measures. If the situation is serious, the factory can be closed. We have a very strict system that other EU countries are unlikely to do, because different links, such as farms, organizations, slaughterhouses, etc., have different interests. However, Denmark has adopted a joint venture system. Each farmer is a member of the industry. The entire industry must share risks and benefits. Therefore, the government, organizations, farms, and slaughterhouses can cooperate closely. Every animal has an ID number" food safety is a concept that everyone in Denmark has. Therefore, the most stringent food safety standards have been implemented for a long time, and there is a strict food quality and safety assurance system. Advanced testing methods and instruments can ensure food safety; independent agencies supervise and spot check food manufacturers to ensure that the products entering the market are safe. In many ways, Denmark's food safety requirements are even more demanding than EU standards. Liberation Monday: The food production process pursues excellence. What is Denmark's special practice in other processes in the food safety chain? Bent Hasson: The transportation of food should be more strict. Many animals enjoy the treatment of "VIP luxury box" in transportation. To avoid infection during transportation, we use special vehicles with sealed air filter ventilation to transport animals. The air circulation, temperature, humidity and other data in the cabin are controlled by computer, and even the drivers are specially trained. In addition, the truck must be cleaned, disinfected, and isolated for a certain period of time before it can be transported to the farm again. In Denmark, every animal on the farm has an "ID number". We have established a central database for all livestock, including their time and place of birth, whether they have changed farms, etc. Each animal has a number. Once there is an epidemic, it can be quickly traced back to what went wrong. Liberation Monday: how to ensure food safety for the commercial operation of the table? Bent Hasson: I have also seen smiling faces in some Chinese restaurants, and Denmark also has such a smiling face scheme. In 2001, we implemented the "from farm to table" food safety supervision mechanism. After the introduction of the plan, all restaurants, canteens, snack bars, butcher shops and other shops in Denmark will be subject to regular inspections by the Danish Veterinary and Food Administration. Inspection is approximately 1 to 3 times per year. The inspection results will be displayed on the "smiley face scheme" and required to be posted in the most conspicuous position of the store and announced to consumers. If the results are posted in the corner, the store will be punished for it. Our "smiley face scheme" consists of 4 different faces: laughing, smiling, expressionless and sad. If the store has been "sad" several times in a row and still does not improve, the store will face a high fine. If the store gets a "laugh" rating four times in a row and has no bad record in the past 12 months, it will be awarded a higher level of smiling face-"elite smiling face". http://www.theworldseeds.com/index.php?p=82158 world seed industry network published date: 2015-09-30
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US Precision Agriculture Investment Encountered Resistance in 2015According to reports, in all respects, 2015 was the most difficult year for the U.S. agricultural sector. Good crop fields in the Midwest, South Central, and other parts of the United States are close to the point of rain saturation and are even directly flooded. Compared with the severe floods in the western corn planting belt in early 2000, the disasters caused by rainfall in 2015 may be more serious. The agricultural sector is already facing many difficulties. Basically all growers in the country are facing problems caused by falling agricultural product prices and falling incomes. Recent data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture show that agricultural product prices have fallen by more than 35% overall from 2014, and extreme weather Even worse. The investment perspective of growers is a hindrance to the development of precision agriculture. In the 17th Precision Agriculture Distributor Survey conducted by Purdue University and its partner CropLife Magazine, 49% of retailers believe that the pressure on growers from farm income in 2015 will form a significant obstacle to the development of precision agriculture. This is the option with the highest proportion of choices regarding barriers to the development of precision agriculture. But low income alone doesn't tell the whole story. When discussing the main challenges facing growers today, Ohio grower John Davis said that increasing consumer oversight also has an important impact on his decision-making process. Precision agriculture service and equipment providers are also clearly aware of the industry's feedback. According to the survey of precision agriculture, 16% of retailers plan to invest more than US $100000 in the supply of precision agriculture products in 2015. Respondents in particular want to spend most of their investment on data collection and analysis. http://www.twwtn.com/Agriculture/53_289353.html Science and Technology World Network
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Dairy prices plunge New Zealand dairy farmers mass slaughter of cowsNew Zealand Dairy Network (NZDN.CO.NZ) News of October 21: On the morning of the 21st, the prices of dairy products, mainly whole milk powder, skimmed milk powder and butter, fell 3.1 percent, whole milk powder fell 4.6 percent to US $2694 a ton, skimmed milk powder fell 4.5 percent to US $178 a ton, and butter fell 11.1 percent to US $2850 a ton. New Zealand is expected to enter the peak period of seasonal dairy production this month, and dairy prices will fall as a result. Fonterra's current purchase price of solid milk is still NZ 4.6 per kilogram, which for most dairy farmers, the purchase price can only reach NZ 5.3 per kilogram to break even. In order to make up for the losses, New Zealand dairy farmers have sent some cows and back-up heifers with no or low production capacity to the slaughterhouse truck to be slaughtered. New Zealand Beef and Lamb said the estimated slaughter of dairy cattle in New Zealand reached 27% last year, with about 253000 head of cattle. For the first time in 24 years, the number of New Zealand cows has fallen. Meanwhile, cows are being slaughtered in large numbers, but beef prices are rising. ANZ said that the previous dairy prices rebounded somewhat ahead of the market. Affected by the possible El Nino, dairy production will decrease this summer and purchase prices will rise sharply. China Agriculture News Network http://cj.cnguonong.com/newshtml/92187.html
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EPA Releases New Pesticide Protection Regulations to Take Effect in 2017The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) first updated pesticide protection regulations in 1992, requiring people who grow and harvest more food 0.2 billion to implement them. Recently, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued new pesticide protection regulations, which will take effect in early 2017, which may have a profound impact on American farms and workers. Pesticides may cause a variety of adverse health effects, including skin rashes, nausea and headaches, birth defects, reproductive disorders, increased risk of certain types of cancer, and exposure to pesticides during pregnancy may cause learning and behavioral problems in children after birth. Still, more than 0.9 billion pounds of pesticides are used annually on American farms. The EPA estimates that about 10000 to 20000 farm workers have been diagnosed with pesticide poisoning, and 1800 to 3000 cases of occupational pesticide exposure are reported each year. Ensuring fewer people are exposed to these pesticides can make agricultural work safer. New content of new regulations 1. The new regulations will pay more attention to the protection of young people the new rules will set a minimum age for pesticide applicators -18. Young children are more vulnerable to pesticides, and new research shows that adolescents are more sensitive to pesticide exposure. Previously, there was no age limit for pesticide workers. As long as they were accompanied by their parents, children as young as 12 could also work legally on the farm. Now, young people under the age of 18 will be banned from areas where pesticides have been treated for less than 48 hours (greenhouses where pesticides have been treated for less than 4 hours). However, this age limit does not apply to members of the farmer's family. 2. Farms must provide more training and information for workers under the new rules, farms must provide training to workers every year and before entering sites that have been treated with pesticides within 30 days of work, compared to the original requirement of training every five years. The training should also be expanded to "include how to reduce the chances of bringing home pesticide contamination," EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy recently noted ". Information on pesticide hazards must be posted in the center of the workplace in both Spanish and English. The new rules will also require employers to keep records of pesticide use for the last two years, as well as training materials for farm workers, helping to make it easier and better to track any violations and ensure compliance. 3. The farm must provide more and better equipment farms must also now provide all workers with personal protective equipment that meets the requirements of the Labor and Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) for other industries. For example, respirators should be worn correctly and used effectively. The employer must also provide a sufficient amount of water to ensure that workers perform cleaning and emergency decontamination after pesticide application. Whistleblowers will be protected the new rules include a new anti-retaliation standard. U.S. Secretary of Labor Thomas E. Perez explained that this will allow farm workers to report safety violations more freely." The new rules will encourage farm workers to complain about pesticide safety violations, which will be kept confidential by the authorities, eliminating the fear of losing their jobs as a result. This is particularly important for the agricultural industry, which has many short-term workers. The new rules will also allow "designated" farm worker representatives, such as family members, to be informed of pesticide application information kept by employers for medical diagnosis. Advocacy and Disagreement the news was enthusiastically embraced by farm workers and hired farmers, as well as environmentalists. Virginia Ruiz, director of careers and environmental health for farmhands justice, called the improvement "critically important". And Andrea Delgado, Earthjustice's senior legislative representative, said, "We are pleased that the EPA has finally taken steps to eliminate historical inequities between farm workers and other workers." "The EPA's new rules provide the same protections for other farm farmers in the United States as farm workers, protecting them from pesticides that can cause dangerous cancers and birth defects," UFW's Rodriguez said. "This affects everyone's real life every day, and its importance is self-evident," said Jeannie Economos, coordinator of the Florida Pesticide Safety and Environmental Sanitation Project Farmer's Association. On the other hand, the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) and the Agricultural Retailers Association (ARA) have questioned the costs and benefits of the new regulations. The ARA said the new rules "are based on unfounded assumptions." AFBF said this would "open the door for anti-pesticide activists to take advantage of the new rules to make no difference at all for worker safety." While most farm laborers say that overall, the new rules are a big step forward, some groups, including Earthjustice, had hoped to impose stricter restrictions on re-entry to pesticide-treated areas. Some also suggested that the EPA require on-the-spot shower decontamination, but the EPA did not write this recommendation into the new rules. Another measure desired by the farm farmers' representatives is continuous medical supervision. The EPA's explanation for this is that there are enough protections in the new regulations, and medical monitoring is too expensive compared to what it can do. This rule comes at a time when many widely used pesticides are under increasing scrutiny for their health effects. Earlier this year, the World Health Organization listed glyphosate as a possible carcinogen, and California has proposed adding glyphosate and three other pesticides, including malathion, to its locally designated list of carcinogens. Source: First Agricultural Economic Network | Release Date: October 26, 2015 | Responsible Editor: Zhai Tianchang
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Asian local currency exchange rates affect wheat import demandDue wheat demand for wheat imports was also affected by weak local currency exchange rates in importing countries. Industry officials said that the weak local currency exchange rate of some major Asian wheat importing countries has affected the demand for wheat imports, and the import volume in 2015 may be 5 to 8% lower than the previous year. According to Vijay Iyengar, executive director of Agrocrop International, an agricultural trader based in Singapore, Asian flour processors are only on demand, and some are reducing their imports because the exchange rate of their currencies against the US dollar has fallen. He said demand for wheat would be reduced by 5 to 8 per cent this year. Weak emerging market currencies are adversely affecting flour processors, as is the case in much of Asia. So far this year, the rupiah has fallen 19 per cent against the dollar, the Malaysian ringgit is down 28 per cent and the Thai baht is down 11 per cent. Indonesia is the world's second largest wheat importer. According to USDA data, wheat imports in Asia in 2014/15 were 42.74 million tons, up 6% from 2011/12. Although wheat prices fell to a four-week low this week on the expectation of favorable rainfall in the United States and Russia, the weakness of the local currency of Asian countries has made the cost of US dollar-priced wheat imports more expensive. Iangal said that the harvest in the northern hemisphere is nearing completion, so agricultural prices may have bottomed out, but prices are unlikely to soar because global supplies are abundant. He said the harvest of most of the northern hemisphere's crops had been set. People are talking about El Nino, but the weather in Australia and India has not been completely affected. We have not seen a significant increase in prices. Source: First Agricultural Economic Network | Release Date: October 26, 2015 | Responsible Editor: Zhai Tianchang
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USDA releases safety net payments to farmers facing market downturnWASHINGTON, Oct. 26, 2015 - The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) today announced that beginning today, nearly one half of the 1.7 million farms that signed up for either the Agriculture Risk Coverage (ARC) or Price Loss Coverage (PLC) programs will receive safety-net payments for the 2014 crop year. "Unlike the old direct payments program, which paid farmers in good years and bad, the 2014 Farm Bill authorized a new safety-net that protects producers only when market forces or adverse weather cause unexpected drops in crop prices or revenues," said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. "For example, the corn price for 2014 is 30 percent below the historical benchmark price used by the ARC-County program, and revenues of the farms participating in the ARC-County program are down by about $20 billion from the benchmark during the same period. The nearly $4 billion provided today by the ARC and PLC safety-net programs will give assistance to producers where revenues dropped below normal ." The ARC/PLC programs primarily allow producers to continue to produce for the market by making payments on a percentage of historical base production, limiting the impact on production decisions. Nationwide, 96 percent of soybean farms, 91 percent of corn farms, and 66 percent of wheat farms elected the ARC-County coverage option. Ninety-nine percent of long grain rice and peanut farms, and 94 percent of medium grain rice farms elected the PLC option. Overall, 76 percent of participating farm acres are protected by ARC-County, 23 percent by PLC, and 1 percent by ARC-Individual. For data about other crops, as well as state-by-state program election results, final PLC price and payment data, and other program information including frequently asked questions, visit kill. Crops receiving assistance include barley, corn, grain sorghum, lentils, oats, peanuts, dry peas, soybeans, and wheat. In the upcoming months, disbursements will be made for other crops after marketing year average prices are published by USDA's National Agricultural Statistics Service. Any disbursements to participants in ARC-County or PLC for long and medium grain rice (except for temperate Japonica rice) will occur in November, for remaining oilseeds and also chickpeas in December, and temperate Japonica rice in early February 2016. ARC-individual payments will begin in November. Upland cotton is no longer a covered commodity. The Budget Control Act of 2011, passed by Congress, requires USDA to reduce payments by 6.8 percent. For more information, producers are encouraged to visit their local Farm Service Agency office. To find a local Farm Service Agency office, visit http://offices.usda.gov. The Agriculture Risk Coverage and Price Loss Coverage programs were made possible by the 2014 Farm Bill, which builds on historic economic gains in rural America over the past six years, while achieving meaningful reform and billions of dollars in savings for taxpayers. Since enactment, USDA has made significant progress to implement each provision of this critical legislation, including providing disaster relief to farmers and ranchers; strengthening risk management tools; expanding access to rural credit; funding critical research; establishing innovative public-private conservation partnerships; developing new markets for rural-made products; and investing in infrastructure, housing and community facilities to help improve quality of life in rural America. For more information, visit www.usda.gov/armbill. # USDA is an equal opportunity provider and employer. To file a complaint of discrimination, write: USDA, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights, Office of Adjudication, 1400 Independence Ave., SW, Washington, DC 20250-9410 or call (866) 632-9992 (Toll-free Customer Service), (800) 877-8339 (Local or Federal relay), (866) 377-8642 (Relay voice users). Source: USDA Website | Release Date: October 26, 2015 | Editor: Zhai Tianchang
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Access to land is the biggest challenge for young farmers in Europe~ ~ Access to land biggest challenge for European young farmers By Amy Nora Fitzgibbon on 18 October 2015 The biggest general need for young farmers in Europe is access to buying and renting land. Access to buying and renting land is the most common hurdle for young farmers in Europe, according to the preliminary results of a study supported by the European Commission. The preliminary results of the pilot project “Exchange Programme for Young Farmers”, proposed by the European Parliament and supported by the European Commission, were presented at the Knowledge for Young Farmers conference in Brussels on Thursday. Some 2,205 young farmers, none over the age of 40, were interviewed over the phone last year to assess the needs of young farmers, provide an overview of existing exchange schemes for young farmers inside and outside Europe and launch a guide for successful exchange schemes. The number of young farmers interviewed works out at an average of 75 per member state (MS). The preliminary results, which have yet to be approved by DG Agri, show that the biggest general need for young farmers in the 28 MS is access to buying and renting land. This was followed by access to subsidies, credit and qualified labour. Europe's middle countries, such as Luxembourg and Germany, were shown to have the greatest percentage of EU farmers who have difficulty accessing land due to population density and a higher farmer population. The percentage of Irish young farmers citing this need was between 62.5% and 75%. The statistics for Ireland are not surprising given that at the Teagasc Land Use Change Workshop and Farm Succession and Inheritance Conference in May, it was commented on that the volume of land for sale in Ireland is marginal, with less than 0.5% of the total land area in the country switching hands each year. The speaker, Jerry Long, chair of the ICOS Dairy Committee, said the low level of land mobility in Ireland is one of the main structural challenges facing the dairy sector and is a significant obstacle to dairy expansion in the years ahead. Further results In terms of knowledge needs, the majority of the 2,205 farmers interviewed were interested in developing technological knowledge necessary for the farm. The second highest knowledge need was learning how they can develop a farm strategy. The third highest need was skills related to applying for a grant or subsidies. Some young farmers also expressed an interest in developing entrepreneurial skills, such as marketing and communication, but this need was not as common across all MS as was the need for technological knowledge. The authors of the report highlighted that developing entrepreneurial skills is important, as young farmers face many challenges, and said this gap in awareness needs to be addressed by EU policymakers. As for knowledge sources, reading and looking for information on the internet was the most used source of knowledge for many young farmers, followed by field days and excursions. Interestingly, although farmers prefer the internet for sourcing farming knowledge, online discussions and e-learning were not popular in the bar ratings. Tying into the popularity of field day and excursions, the results found that other farmers are the most important source of information for young farmers, followed by farm associations. This preference for communicating with other farmers was common across all MS. Number of young farmers in Europe Only 14% of farmers in the EU are aged under 40, a statistic which has encouraged the European Commission, as requested by the European Parliament, to support this study. Speaking at the launch of the study, Mairead McGuinness, MEP, said that while the perception of farming among young farmers is generally good, the upcoming generation faces many challenges including access to loans at reasonable rates, unfairness in the supply chain, difficulties with broadband and regaining the environmental discussion. McGuinness said that more than any other sector, farmers need to have knowledge about environmental effects. "You need to regain the environmental discussion and engage with policymakers on this issue," she said. "Farmers are the backbone of society. You produce something we consume every day and our duty as policymakers is to ensure you can deal with the challenges that lie ahead ." The conference continued on Friday. http://www.farmersjournal.ie/access-to-land-biggest-challenge-for-european-young-farmers-191950/
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Key Harvests of U.S. Agriculture in TPP~ ~ Key Gains for U.S. Agriculture in Trans-Pacific Trade Agreement 10/12/2015 byAngella Castille, David Lyons,Bradley McKinney The United States and 11 other Pacific Rim nations - Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam - have reached agreement on the landmark Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement. The agreement will eliminate or reduce tariffs and other barriers to trade for food and agricultural products, but just how much, and how quickly, is of particular interest to U.S. agribusinesses. Negotiations have been ongoing in earnest since 2008.The final agreement came after a long week of negotiations in Atlanta, Georgia, where a press conference for a final announcement was repeatedly pushed back to allow for a resolution to the negotiations. TPP is the largest regional trade agreement ever, comprising nearly 40 percent of the world's economy. It is expected to increase world incomes, which in turn, will increase the demand for U.S. agricultural products across the board. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), TPP countries accounted for 42 percent of U.S. agricultural exports in 2014, contributing $63 billion to the U.S. economy. Economists suggest that the TPP agreement could expand U.S. agricultural exports by billions of dollars. Key sectors of U.S. agriculture - primarily beef, pork, dairy and rice - urged the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) to secure increased market access to the TPP countries for exports of their products. This is particularly true for Japan, currently the third-largest export market for U.S. agricultural products, who entered the TPP negotiations in May 2013. Key Trade Barriers Lifted Japan has agreed to lower or phase out tariffs on U.S. products. For beef products, most tariffs will be phased out in 16 years - tariffs for fresh, chilled or frozen beef will be phased down from 38.5 percent to 9 percent. For pork, most tariffs will be phased out over 11 to 16 years, in addition to a reduction in the mandatory gate price specific duty from 482 yen/kg to 50 yen/ kg over 11 years. For dairy, cheese tariffs will be eliminated in 16 years and whey tariffs in 21 years, and Japan will create quotas for several dairy products. Japan will establish a new duty-free quota of 50,000 tons for U.S. rice, which will grow to 70,000 tons in 13 years. Trade barriers on dairy products were among the final challenges to overcome in negotiations. Canada, whose supply management program for domestic dairy production creates barriers to imports, will eliminate tariffs for U.S. whey and will expand access through duty-free tariff-rate quotas (TRQs) for cheese, fluid milk, butter and milk powder, among others. The U.S. will phase out tariffs for Australia and major world dairy exporter New Zealand for milk powder and non-fat dry milk over 20-30 years. The U.S. will also grant TRQ access at various levels for other dairy products from Australia and New Zealand. Some U.S. agricultural exports are already duty-free with TPP countries under existing free trade agreements. However, the agreement will lift a number of trade barriers in these other TPP countries. Though final details on the agreement are yet to be released, the following are some USDA figures for key sectors of U.S. agriculture in the other TPP countries. ? Beef: Tariffs in Brunei and New Zealand will be eliminated immediately; in Peru by 2020; and in Vietnam within three to eight years. ? Pork: Tariffs in Brunei will be eliminated immediately; in three years in New Zealand; in five to 10 years in Vietnam; and in 15 years in Malaysia. ? Dairy: Brunei and New Zealand's tariffs on U.S. dairy products will be eliminated immediately; Vietnam's within five years; and Peru's by 2025. Malaysia will immediately eliminate its tariffs on nearly all dairy products and on fluid milk in 15 years, when it switches to a quota. ? Rice: Tariffs will be eliminated in Vietnam and Malaysia within eight and 10 years, respectively, and eliminated immediately in Brunei. ? Sugar: New Zealand, Malaysia and Brunei will eliminate their tariffs on sugar and sugar-containing products immediately. Vietnam will eliminate tariffs on raw and refined sugar, and sugar-containing products within 11 years. The U.S. will grant greater sugar access to several of the TPP countries, including Australia and Canada, through increased TRQs. Congressional Outlook The approval and implementation process for the TPP agreement is set out in the Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) legislation that Congress passed earlier this year. TPA is a grant of authority to the President to negotiate trade agreements according to congressional directives, and allows for the trade agreements to be passed by simple majorities in Congress, without the possibility of amendment. President Obama must notify the Congress of his intention to sign the TPP agreement at least 90 days before doing so, and no later than 30 days after notifying Congress (at least 60 days prior to signing the agreement) he must publish the text of the agreement for Congress and the public to review. It is expected that President Obama will quickly notify Congress of his intent to sign, and release the text shortly thereafter. Once he signs the trade agreement, the President must submit to Congress the final text which he and the other TPP countries signed. This must be done 30 days before the President submits to Congress a bill that would implement the agreement. The timing for the introduction of the implementing legislation is at the complete discretion of the President. The House Ways and Means and Senate Finance Committees then have 15 legislative days to consider the legislation, and both chambers of Congress are required to hold a final vote within 45 legislative days. Legislative days are days in which Congress is in session, not in recess. If and when the legislation is approved by Congress, the President then takes the final step of implementing the agreement by issuing a presidential proclamation. Only 28 House Democrats voted for TPA this past summer, and perhaps even less will be inclined to vote for TPP during election season, particularly if the candidates battling for the top of their ticket opposed it. Congressional approval of TPP will require disproportionate numbers of Republicans, and though a large majority of Republicans are likely inclined to vote for the agreement, a growing number may opt not to vote for an agreement negotiated by the Obama administration. Moving Forward Clearly, there is much to be gained for U.S. agriculture from the implementation of this trade agreement. The final details will continue to emerge, shedding additional light on just what the USTR was able to secure in market access to other countries and what trade barriers, in return, the U.S. agreed to lift. Beyond satisfaction and dissatisfaction with the agreement itself, there are a number of challenges that are strictly political in nature. Nonetheless, President Obama will continue to make this a priority in his final year in office, and will likely work to secure support from those who helped pass TPA. Furthermore, trade groups representing U.S. agriculture and key sectors will evaluate the merits of the agreement and likely push for its passage. The path forward is murky, to be sure, but not impossible, and U.S. agriculture has a role to play, and much to be gained. http://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/key-gains-for-u-s-agriculture-in-trans-24011/
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How did China's agricultural imports change a U.S. port?~~How China's Growing Appetite Is Transforming an American Port China's growing appetite for American agricultural products is transforming the port of Oakland, California. By Susan Chan Shifflett October 21, 2015 The original version of this article appeared on the Wilson Center's New Security Beat. There's perhaps no better evidence of China's growing appetite for American agricultural products than the ongoing transformation of the port of Oakland. China is increasingly looking overseas for food due to rising incomes, limited farmland, and polluted water and soil. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, agricultural sales to China doubled from 2004 to 2008 and doubled again from 2008 to 2012. In 2008, China became the largest overseas market for U.S. farm products, surpassing Japan, Mexico, and Canada. “China's agricultural demand is massive and cannot be overstated," said Beth Frisher, the port of Oakland's business development and international marketing director. Oakland wants to capitalize by embarking on a series of building projects that would link the U.S. farm belt to China. Meat, vegetables, and soybeans pass through its docks, providing a window into how China's growing food demand is transforming U.S. agribusiness and infrastructure. A “Direct Link” to the U.S. Farm Belt From forks to iPhones to couches, “Made in China” products fill American stores. U.S. ports typically import far more from China than they export, but Oakland stands as a rare exception. In 2014, it shipped 392,612 tons of cargo to China compared to receiving 244,669 tons. The port's trade surplus is largely driven by agricultural exports. As the last stop ships make on the West Coast before departing across the Pacific, Oakland often has the shortest transit time to Asia, making it an ideal gateway for outbound foodstuffs, particularly frozen commodities. Refrigerated cargo is expensive, cooled by diesel-powered generators when at sea, so minimizing transit time is crucial. Oakland is keen to build - quite literally - on its geographic advantage. On the site of the former Oakland Army Base, the port of Oakland is developing a logistics hub that will be able to accommodate four 8,000-foot trains at a time. Last year, U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood presented a $15 million grant to modernize the port's ship-to-rail exchange capacity with improvements expected as soon as 2016. Frisher said the port is also planning a new cold storage facility and a grain transload operation, which moves cargo from domestic 53-foot rail containers to 40-foot maritime containers. The idea behind the slew of projects is to provide the most efficient way for shippers to go west and make Oakland the “gateway of choice," said Frisher. The 35-acre, $90-million cold storage facility by Lineage Logistics and Dreisbach Enterprises will keep meat and vegetables from the Midwest preserved while waiting to be loaded onto ships. Construction is slated to begin in the spring of 2016 and be completed as soon as 2017. The grain transload operation, which Frisher said will be “hugely important," will accommodate China's skyrocketing demand for animal feed. In 2012, the Capital River Group, a Stockton-based international feed distributor, sent 2,500 containers of animal feed overseas through the port of Oakland; this year they anticipate sending 26,000 containers. CEO Todd Lush said that China's rising demand is one of the major driving forces behind the quintupling traffic, and he recently approached the port's board to approve doubling his company's space in anticipation of even more growth. China's Appetite Grows A combination of factors has prompted China to look overseas for agriculture imports. While home to nearly one-fifth of the world's population, China has just one-tenth of the world's arable land. According to the World Bank, China has less than one-sixth the amount of farmland as the United States per capita (0.08 hectares compared to 0.49 hectares, respectively). Water is also scarce. Water availability per capita is only one-quarter of the world average. Making matters worse, China's land and water are increasingly polluted. Some statistics show that 16 percent of the country's soil is too polluted to grow crops. Meanwhile, China's growing middle class is eating and traveling more, adopting diets heavier in meat, dairy, and wine consumption. China is importing more pork, chicken, beef, and fish, and vast amounts of soybeans - a key component for animal feed. Soybeans are the largest U.S. export of any type to China, accounting for 11 percent of the value of all U.S. exports and nearly half of all major agricultural exports to China in 2013. China's imports of wine quadrupled from 2008 to 2013, totaling $1.3 billion, and Chinese investors are buying up vineyards in Napa Valley. China has also been rocked by food safety scandals, shaking the public's confidence in the integrity of the domestic food supply chain. Stomach-turning incidences ranging from fox meat disguised as donkey meat in Walmart to pork buns stuffed with chopped cardboard and pork flavoring sold by street vendors in Beijing have become all too familiar. Opportunities and Challenges for U.S. Agriculture Over the last decade, the United States has been China's top agricultural partner and this relationship looks likely to continue and indeed strengthen. Investment goes both ways. In 2012, China's then- vice president and now president, Xi Jinping, came to the United States and visited a farm in Maxwell, Iowa (population 807), where he was pictured riding a John Deere tractor alongside the farm owner. China is now the largest market for agricultural machinery in the world, and U.S. firms hold a 44 percent share of imports. From 2009 to 2014, U.S. equipment exports for China's livestock sector (meat and dairy) rose 27 percent annually. In 2013, a Chinese company, WH Group, acquired Smithfield Fields, America's largest pork producer. While there was much controversy from both those in favor and against the acquisition, what is often overlooked was WH Group's valuation of the American company's technological and management know-how in operating vertically integrated slaughterhouses. As China moves from a predominantly smallholder farm model to more massive, confined animal feeding operations or “factory farms," vertical integration is a way to improve food safety at all stages of the supply chain, from production to processing. Nevertheless, the path to integrating these massive markets is thorny. On the retail side, foreign companies such as Walmart and restaurants such as Kentucky Fried Chicken and McDonald's report being scrutinized and audited more often in China than their domestic counterparts. And government interventions in key commodity markets, such as subsidies to domestic corn farmers, make it difficult for U.S. producers to accurately gauge the market. While this protectionism is not unique to China, the lack of accurate data and the sheer size of the world's most populous nation mean even slight policy adjustments have massive ramifications. For all the political tension between the United States and China, agricultural trade is an area of huge potential. It's also a reminder of how closely tied the world's two economic giants are already. News of China's recent stock market crash sent commodity prices tumbling in the United States too, worrying farmers across the Midwest. The port of Oakland's plans - and the ripple effects they will have throughout the U.S. agricultural sector - will only tighten this relationship in years ahead. http://thediplomat.com/2015/10/how-chinas-growing-appetite-is-transforming-an-american-port/
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How the TPP will affect agriculture~ ~ How TPP impacts agriculture DC Dialogue Agricultural industry reserves judgment for major trade deal until more details are known. Published on: October 8, 2015 I have been covering trade for over a decade, writing countless articles on multilateral trade agreements. In recent years hopes of concluding Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) were beginning to seem dim, comparable to the boy who cried wolf that a deal was near with every meeting. I mean after all we've been entrenched to believe no major multilateral trade talks could succeed if you looked at the World Trade Organization's track record. But then on the morning of Oct. 5, trade ministers from the 12 countries did the impossible and garnered a deal that the trade ministers could come behind. Everybody had done their give and take and the result was what they had hoped would be a package that does the right balancing act for all that are in involved. President Barack Obama and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack listen to reporters' questions at a roundtable discussion with agriculture and business leaders regarding the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) in Washington, D. C. on Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2015. President Barack Obama and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack listen to reporters' questions at a roundtable discussion with agriculture and business leaders regarding the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) in Washington, D. C. on Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2015. Now keep in mind, this is far from being a done deal. Final details are being prepared but the process moving forward will be for agricultural groups to look at whether the agreement is something that provides enough benefits as a whole to lobby Congress for approval. It will be 30 days before final text is made public, 60 days for the text to be available for public viewing and then the President and Congress have 90 days to ratify the agreement once it is submitted. The President traveled to the U.S. Department of Agriculture Tuesday where he joined Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack for a meeting with agriculture and business leaders on the benefits of the TPP for American business and workers. The U.S. Trade Representative's office said the agreement would eliminate or significantly reduce tariffs on U.S. products and deter non-science based sanitary and phytosanitary barriers that have put American agriculture at a disadvantage in TPP countries in the past. President Obama said with this trade agreement, which spans nearly 40% of the global economy, will enable the sale of more products for agriculture. Currently over 18,000 taxes and tariffs are placed on America's products in other countries. “Under this agreement, all those foreign taxes will fall," Obama claimed. “Most of them will fall to zero ." U.S. exports of agricultural products to the 11 other TPP countries totaled $63 billion in 2014, 42% of total U.S. agricultural exports. Vilsack said without question, “agriculture is going to be a winner with TPP." Overall it is estimated that total U.S. exports could increase by $130 billion and “if that's true and agriculture takes its historic share of 9% of total exports that is billions of dollars of additional opportunity ." Sector impact For example, TPP will eliminate import taxes as high as 40% on U.S. poultry products, 35% on soybeans, and 40% on fruit exports. USDA has done an excellent job of compiling commodity benefits at www.fas.usda.gov/tpp-benefits-us-agricultural-products. For state-by-state benefits, visit www.fas.usda.gov/tpp-benefits-us-states. Although details of the final deal have not been released, agricultural groups are reserving judgment until the text can be viewed. The National Cattlemen's Beef Association, National Pork Producers Council and National Chicken Council remained optimistic that a final deal would benefit their sectors. The American Soybean Association said in their statement, “From the statements made by our negotiators, it appears that the agreement will eliminate tariffs and other market access barriers in most markets, and substantially increase access in remaining markets. We are optimistic that soybeans, soybean products, and the livestock products produced by our customers all will fare well in the TPP agreement when specific details are revealed ." In Japan, tariffs on soybean oil currently as high as 13.2 yen/kg are eliminated within six years. Current 42% tariffs on soybean meal eliminated immediately. Vietnam's tariffs as high as 34% are eliminated within 11 years and in Malaysia tariffs as high as 10% will be eliminated immediately. Many countries already allow duty-free corn exports. Vietnam's tariffs, currently as high as 30%, are eliminated in 4-7 years. Malaysia currently has tariffs as high as 8% and they're eliminated immediately. New Zealand will also eliminate its tariffs immediately. Japan will set new quotas for wheat and wheat products. Tariffs for processed wheat products such as biscuits, crackers, and other bread products that are as high as 26% are eliminated in six years. Vietnam's tariffs as high as 31% are eliminated within four years. http://farmfutures.com/blogs-how-tpp-impacts-agriculture-10276
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Agricultural subsidies: India opposes US proposal~~Farm subsidies: India stands its ground against US proposal US last week circulated a non-paper proposing reductions in market price support and input subsidy programmes The Indian stand is that the US proposal is targeted at specific programmes offered by developing countries for their resource-poor farmers under what is called de minimis (negligible) subsidies. Photo: Reuters The Indian stand is that the US proposal is targeted at specific programmes offered by developing countries for their resource-poor farmers under what is called de minimis (negligible) subsidies. Photo: Reuters Geneva: India is standing its ground against a proposal by the US seeking voluntary reduction commitments in market price support programmes and input subsidies provided to low-income and resource-poor farmers by governments, insisting it will amount to killing public stockholding programmes. Last week, the US circulated a non-paper at a meeting attended by trade officials. Those from the European Union (EU), China, India, Brazil, Australia, Japan and the US were in attendance. Washington proposed that all members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) undertake voluntary commitments to reduce their market price support and input subsidy programmes. Although developing countries are exempted from commitments to reduce their market price support or input subsidies for “low-income and resource-poor farmers” under the existing WTO rules, the US proposed a gradual phase-out of these two schemes in its non-paper. A non-paper is a discussion paper that does not necessarily represent the official position of the institution or country that drafted it. On Wednesday, the chair for the Doha agriculture negotiations, Vangelis Vitalis of New Zealand, convened the meeting of select trade envoys from over two dozen countries to discuss the way forward for the WTO's ministerial meeting in Nairobi, beginning on 15 December. At the meeting, the US spoke about its proposal and what it intends to accomplish in reducing trade-distorting domestic farm subsidies. The proposal states that “each member shall, with respect to agricultural products undertake commitment(s)" not to increase either “the applied administrative price for any agricultural product receiving market price support” or “not increase its budgetary outlays for, or the scope of, product-specific input subsidies for agricultural products above the (existing) level ”. The US provided a menu of options as to how members must undertake commitments to do away with market price support and input subsidies such as “a) fertilizer, B) seeds, c) electricity, or d) diesel fuel ”. Deputy US trade envoy Christopher Wilson justified the proposal on the ground that “certain forms of domestic support (such as market price support and input subsidies) are more trade distorting than others”, according to a participant in the meeting. The US official maintained that Washington's idea to reduce market price support and input subsidies on a voluntary basis by all members will lead to less distortion in agriculture. According to people familiar with the meeting, India's trade envoy Anjali Prasad responded by saying the US's proposal “kills many birds with one shot and among the birds one big bird is public stock-holding programmes ”. The Indian stand is that the US proposal is targeted at specific programmes offered by developing countries for their resource-poor farmers under what is called de minimis (negligible) subsidies. China flatly rejected Washington's proposal saying it is “politically and economically unacceptable”. The landing zones for commitments in trade-distorting domestic support are clearly laid out in the 2008 revised draft modalities or the Rev. 4 and they remain the basis for undertaking commitments in the domestic support pillar, China's trade envoy, ambassador Yu Jianhua, said. Many other countries such as Mexico, Canada, Australia, Norway, the EU, New Zealand, Brazil, Argentina, Colombia and Paraguay, among others, raised several questions and doubts about the US' proposal and whether it would tackle all trade-distorting domestic subsidies. At issue is the US's refusal to accept the Rev. 4 commitments under which Washington is required to reduce its trade-distorting domestic subsidies below $14.5 billion. Washington had passed a new farm bill last year under which its overall trade-distorting subsidy programmes crossed all the limits that were negotiated in the Doha Round. Former US chief trade negotiator Joseph Glauber, along with Patrick Westhoff and Scott Gerit, have argued that the latest US farm bill, passed last year, goes beyond the proposed commitments in the 2008 modalities. “Because of the shift to a much more extensive reliance on amber box (most trade distorting) subsidies and other less direct forms of income transfers to farmers, the 2014 farm bill has complicated trade negotiations by making compliance issues more problematic, especially in the context of the 2008 Doha Development Agenda proposal for substantially lower limits on farm subsidies," Wethoff, Gerit, and Glauber wrote in their article published in Choice magazine. Given the stark domestic realities in which the US's farm lobby plays a dominant role in American politics, the US is unwilling to undertake any commitments in terms of domestic support and is determined to bury the Doha Round at the Nairobi meeting, said a trade envoy who asked not to be quoted. The US's proposal strikes a body blow to what was negotiated in the ongoing Doha agriculture talks, especially the July 2004 Framework Agreement, the 2005 Hong Kong Ministerial Declaration and the unsettled 2008 revised draft modalities. The developing countries are exempted from undertaking any commitments under these ministerial declarations as well as the 2008 revised draft modal. http://www.livemint.com/Politics/PUNFKUiTKK1vYQCgFREULP/Farm-subsidies-India-stands-its-ground-against-US-proposal.html
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U.S. wheat exports fall as world wheat production increasesUS Wheat Exports Plunge; Foreign Production Expands Updated: 10/14/2015 @ 5:27pm According to today's Wheat Outlook Report from USDA's Economic Research Service (ERS), U.S. wheat exports are down 50 million bushels, making a new record low of 850 million bushels, the lowest since 1971. This is due to the slow pace of sales and relatively high prices for domestic wheat, along with increased production from competing nations. Ending stocks for 2015/16 are lowered 14 million bushels, as an 84 million-bushel production decline is more than offset by a decline in total use. Feed and residual use is lowered 20 million bushels after the September 30 Grain Stocks report indicated lower-than-expected June-August disappearance. Higher projected foreign 2015/16 wheat production for major exporters and larger beginning stocks boost world wheat supplies. With projected use unchanged, the already record-level ending stocks are increased further. Global wheat trade is projected higher, and exports are expected to rise for Ukraine, Canada, Australia, European Union (EU), Russia, and Kazakhstan. The U.S. remains priced out of most global wheat trade, with a further decline in its wheat export prospects. The USDA-National Agricultural Statistics Services (NASS) Small Grains Summary 2015 released on September 30 estimates 2015/16 U.S. wheat production at 2,052 million bushels, down 84 million bushels from the previous forecast and up 1% relative to the revised 2014 total of 2,026 million. At 861 million bushels, ending stocks of wheat for 2015/16 are down 14 million from the September projection and up 108 million bushels relative to the previous marketing year. For 2015, U.S. winter wheat production is estimated at 1,370 million, a reduction of 68 million bushels from the September forecast, and down 7 million bushels from 2014. Hard red winter (HRW) production is forecast at 827 million bushels, down 29 million bushels from September but up 88 million bushels from a year ago due largely to an anticipated 2.0-bushel-per-acre yield increase. Soft red winter (SRW) production is forecast at 359 million bushels, down 30 million bushels from the previous projection and down 95 million bushels from last year due to a combination of lower harvested area and lower yields. White winter wheat production for 2015 is forecast to total 184 million bushels, down 9 million from September, but up 0.2 million bushels from a year ago. Hard red spring (HRS) production is forecast at 564 million bushels, down 12 million from the previous forecast and up nearly 9 million bushels from 2014. The production gain is attributable to expanded harvested area, despite a slight decline in yields. White spring production is estimated to total 34.9.5 million bushels, down 10 million from the previous forecast and down 4.5 million bushels from 2014. Durum wheat production is forecast to total 82 million bushels, up nearly 6 million bushels from the previous forecast and up 28 million bushels from a year ago. Desert durum production in California and Arizona is forecast at 20.3 million bushels for 2015, up 0.8 million from the previous forecast, and nearly double the 2014 crop. http://www.agriculture.com/crops/wheat/us-wheat-expts-plunge-feign-production_144-ar50662
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COMMENTARY: AMERICAN U.S. AGRICULTURAL POLICY~ ~ Opinion: U.S. farm policy in disarray By Vincent H. Smith on Sep 23, 2015 at 2:00 p.m. In 1970, professor D. Gale Johnson published what became a seminal work on agricultural policy. Johnson settled on the title World Agriculture in Disarray, to reflect the chaotic incentives and economic inefficiencies created by the agricultural policies of countries including Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, the U.S. and the European Union. Some of those countries since have abandoned extensive supply control, price support, farm income payments and other forms of intervention. Not surprisingly, in those countries, farmers generally have become more entrepreneurial and economically efficient, and agricultural productivity has improved at a faster rate than in other countries whose programs have sustained inefficient farms and reduced incentives for innovation. In this context, Australia and New Zealand, where most farm subsidy programs were terminated in the 1980s, are prime examples of the benefits for agricultural productivity of ending farm programs. Other countries have made changes or moved toward terminating subsidy programs, but only at a slow pace. The European Union falls into the former and Japan into the latter category. In Canadian provinces that continue to “control” the supply of dairy products and eggs, many dairy and poultry farms tend to be inefficient, and prices for milk and other dairy products are unnecessarily high. While the U.S. appeared to be moving away from subsidies that distorted agricultural markets in the early and mid-1990s, the House and Senate agricultural committees since have been allowed to make a 180-degree turn. In many ways, the 2014 farm bill has made matters worse. One example is federal crop insurance, which is to be continued and expanded. In the 1980s, government spending on the program was less than $1 billion per year, but now, the program directs an annual average of about $8.5 billion in subsidies to farmers and crop insurance companies. Federal crop insurance unequivocally distorts production incentives, encourages the expansion of crop production on environmentally sensitive lands and discourages innovation and adoption of private-sector risk-management technologies and strategies. At the same time, the program mainly benefits the wealthiest 15 percent of farm operations, who receive more than 80 percent of subsidies paid under the program. The dairy margin protection income support program for dairy farmers is another example. It guarantees that most milk producers almost certainly will receive revenues in excess of their costs. Any dairy farm can sign up for access to subsidies. But the program's structure is so poor that milk producers can make pretty good guesses about whether the program will provide them with large payouts in any year and then, by paying heavily subsidized premiums, sign up for higher coverage levels. By guaranteeing profits for many inefficient operations using outmoded technologies, the program is likely to do nothing good for the U.S. dairy processing industry's long-run competitiveness in global dairy product markets. And it could well cost taxpayers as much as $4 billion to $5 billion in some years. Then there is the Stacked Income Protection program for cotton known as STAX. The STAX program enables cotton producers to purchase a kind of insurance for every acre of cotton they plant that, in effect, protects them against both price decreases and yield losses in their counties. Production and market distortions associated with STAX are substantial. Taxpayers are on the hook for administra- tion costs and 80 percent of the payments cotton farmers receive for “losses ." Further, in North Texas, and some other parts of the country, cotton is raised on fragile lands. So, in addition to directing most of the STAX subsidies to the largest and wealthiest cotton operations, the program encourages cotton farmers to expand production in areas where the environmental damage they could cause is relatively severe. While Johnson would and, before he died in 2003, did applaud the agricultural policy reforms implemented in Australia and New Zealand in the 1980s, and in the European Union in the 1990s, he would almost surely see no reason to view the 2014 farm bill as anything but a policy disaster. Ag programs in the U.S. continue to be a contributor to the policy disarray about which Johnson wrote in 1970. Editor's note: Smith is a professor of economics at Montana State University in Bozeman. He wrote this opinion piece for InsideSources.com. http://www.agweek.com/news/nation-and-world/3843646-opinion-us-farm-policy-disarray
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The American Agricultural Economy: How Globalization Securing the Milk Market for American Dairy FarmersUS Farm Economy: How Globalization Soured Milk Market For American Dairy Farmers By Carter Dougherty on September 29 2015 7:58 AM EDT The globalization of the milk market helped many U.S. dairy farmers -- but now it hurts them. Pictured, Holstein cows on a farm in Laqueuille, France, in 2013. Thierry Zoccolan/AFP/Getty Images For much of the past decade, the international dairy market did right by Tim Leary, creating opportunity for his farm in southern Maine by linking his fortunes with ever-wealthier Asian milk drinkers. But the downside of this globalizing dairy market revealed itself this month, when Leary watched a livestock hauler whisk away 21 of his cows, destined to be milked the next morning at someone else's facility. The 56-year-old Leary had abandoned the business he inherited from his father, who at 85 had lived long enough to witness what low milk prices and had wrought on the family patrimony. “It was an agonizing decision," Leary said. There is, dairy farmers are finding, no hiding from the global free market once you embrace it, which U.S. dairy producers did over the past decade after 50 years defined largely by a mixture of government subsidies and protected markets. Slowing growth in China, plentiful production in New Zealand, trade sanctions imposed by Russia and the end of European production restraints have driven down the price of milk that farmers like Leary receive. They now face a slow, painful retrenchment, one that government subsidies probably won't ease, despite political pressure to do so. More agonizing decisions of the sort Leary faced are coming. Many dairy cows will go to slaughter or join much larger herds before supply and demand sync up and prices stabilize. “It's not like flipping a switch on a factory production line," said Alan Levitt, a vice president with the U.S. Dairy Export Council, a Washington-based trade association. “This is going to have to run its course in the international market ." For the past 10 years -- and for the first peacetime period since the modern agriculture policy kicked in during the Great Depression -- growth for U.S. dairy farmers came mainly from exports, which accounted for about only 4 percent of production 10 years ago. By 2014, after growing 17 percent per year for a decade, exports made up 14 percent of total production, according to the export council. Brisk growth in Asia, above all in China, underpinned strong global demand for well-known dairy products like cheese, butter and yogurt but also items that seldom appear on grocery shelves, such as whey protein and specialized milk powder. Those days have ended. Through July, U.S. dairy exports were down 33 percent by value compared with a year ago, and 13 percent by volume, according to the council. The price of whole milk powder, which peaked in February 2014 at over $5,000 per metric ton, hasn't been above $3,000 for nearly a year, and in mid-September stood at $2,175, according the U.S. Department of Agriculture. When U.S. dairy farms threw themselves wholeheartedly into overseas markets, they changed the rules of the game in bad times as well as good ones, largely because milk can become a multitude of products. And cows produce it every single day, whether it's wanted or not. Markets for fresh fluid milk are largely local or regional in the United States -- and even in modest-sized countries -- because moving it quickly by air is far too expensive, while transporting it very far on the ground risks spoilage. The market doesn't grow quickly, but doesn't generally contract rapidly either. However, many products derived from milk, notably dried milk powder and whey, last plenty long to be exported over large distances. Other products like butter are often national markets because high tariffs keep domestic prices higher than they otherwise would be. Since about 2004, with the exception of a sharp global downturn in 2009, milk prices rose steadily on the strength of rising demand -- prosperous people invariably have better diets -- in China, and more U.S. milk production headed overseas, by way of the processing plant. Companies joined the Dairy Export Council in droves. “We saw a lot more companies broadening their portfolio to include products not historically made in the United States for which there's a demand overseas," said Robert Wellington, chief economist at Agri-Mark, a dairy farmer cooperative in Lawrence, Massachusetts. Nonfat milk powder was high on the list. It used to be a bulk commodity that U.S. processors sold to cheesemakers to fortify their product. Globally, it has many more uses, such as hot cocoa mixes, ice creams and protein-rich sports drinks. And when Chinese infant formula manipulated with additives sickened thousands and killed a small number of babies in 2008, demand rose for more reliable imported product. American producers invested in the equipment to supply the Chinese, and the virtuous cycle continued. Big U.S. producers such as California Dairies Inc. profited directly, while farmers like Tim Leary got used to the higher milk prices that were the upstream effect of Asian demand for powder. “When you start hearing about the opportunities to export you think 'hey, great,' "Leary said. In fact, he never actually shipped product overseas, he only shared the prosperity -- and then the pain. RTR3182B A dairy cow peers out from behind a fence in Chino, California. Reuters The Leary farm, a short drive from Maine's Atlantic coastline in the small town of Saco, is very much a family matter. It's tucked into an urbanizing part of Maine, where land sells for new homes or commercial development, not farming. Tim Leary's father started working on it at age 13. Tim's daughter, Alison -- one of eight children -- has plans to take over the farm, and is engaged to a man whose family runs a butter farm. They have various ideas for how to tap the growing market for artisanal foods, and one idea of what not to do. “They do not want to make a business model based on the wholesale price of milk," Leary said. That business model died -- and with it Saco's last dairy farm -- in early September, as the smallest producers felt the effects of softening demand. In the last 18 months, Maine lost about 60 dairy farms, leaving 253 in the state today. The proximate event for Leary's decision wasn't actually a new low in the price of milk. It was the loss of his hauler, who drove a large milk truck to the Leary farm each day. He abandoned the run because the decline in dairy farming in southern Maine meant a truck that can haul 65,000 pounds of milk carried only about 13,000 from the remaining five farms in the area, Leary said. Transport costs alone made the route a loser. Leary had two weeks to find a way out. He talked to a local cattle dealer, who picked up the animals the following day, leaving only a few cows for raw milk cheese production, an artisanal business offering more profit potential than supplying milk drinkers. “We didn't just watch margins shrink," Leary said. “We watched them vanish ." Julie-Marie Bickford, executive director of the Maine Dairy Industry Association, said the second-order effects of low milk prices are now wreaking havoc with the state's small-farm dairy ecosystem. “The financial pressure has moved from the dairy farm to the infrastructure," Bickford said. It's not only haulers in southern Maine. Veterinarians have fewer cows to vaccinate and treat. Milking equipment dealers aren't doing much business, and feed companies aren't getting as many orders. Farmers aren't buying sawdust, used for bedding, from local lumber mills. In the United States and Europe, dairy farmers have traditionally turned to the government for help, resulting in lakes of milk and mountains of butter stockpiled to boost prices, or taxpayer outlays to ease financial pain. That's not panning out during the first downturn for a newly globalized U.S. industry. Dairy farmers helped fight for, and won in the 2014 federal farm bill, a government system for insulating against downturns, known as the Margin Protection Program. Essentially an insurance scheme, the program compensates farmers when their costs exceed their income, and the Department of Agriculture exhorted farmers to enroll in it for this crop year. Most did. By midyear, federal officials were dialing back expectations for the program's ability to cushion against a prolonged downturn of this magnitude. Krysta Harden, the deputy secretary of agriculture, said during a visit to southern Maine that dairy farms “need to be running their own numbers” and figuring out whether the program makes sense for them. “It will never make anybody completely whole," Harden told the Portland Press Herald. “That's not the purpose of it. It is to help them to continue to survive throughout the producing season and year so they can continue to stay on their dairy farms ." To Maine farmers, the program has so far proved to be “Band-Aids on open, gaping wounds," said Bickford, the association president. The insurance assumes a level and duration of low prices that the global market has blown through against all expectations. Without a midcourse correction -- and New England dairy farmers have lobbied for changes -- the program won't matter. Rep. Chellie Pingree, a Democrat who represents southern Maine in Congress, has called on the agriculture department to change the way it pays out the insurance to take account of higher costs in the region. Maine farmers pay more for feed than, say, farmers in Nebraska because grain isn't as available locally. Costs “just aren't being calculated accurately for farmers in some states," Pingree said in an email. The best prospect for Tim Leary at the moment has nothing to do with cows. He has 40 acres of squash, green peppers, cucumbers, cabbage and other vegetables planted, and agreements to sell to a distributor that sells to 170 stores in northern New England, the Hannaford Brothers Co. But he won't escape the globalizing food market. Since 2000, the owner of Hannaford has been the Delhaize Group, a Belgian multinational that operates stores in seven countries on three continents. http://www.ibtimes.com/us-farm-economy-how-globalization-soured-milk-market-american-dairy-farmers-2117656
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Fisheries help fill a gap in global food security~~Fisheries, Aquaculture Fill Gap in Global Food Security Dialogue October 18, 2015 07:58 AM U.S. Expands Role in Global Hunger 10/16/2015 4:43:00 PM DES MOINES, Iowa - While fish is a primary source of protein that has many essential nutrients, health-promoting benefits and other nutritional qualities, fisheries and aquaculture are often overlooked in the global discussion of food security and hunger. At a fisheries and aquaculture panel on Oct. 15 at the World Food Prize, leaders felt fish could play a pivotal role in attaining the 2015 United Nations General Assembly initiative to “end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture” by the year 2030. “One of the things that we need to do as (an aquaculture) community is to integrate into the debate about food security and nutrition," said Pinstrup-Anderson. Jeppe Kolding, professor of biology from the University of Bergen, worked as a midwife in Africa when he first pondered the idea of using fish as a way to alleviate hunger on the while living next to Lake Tanganyika, the fourth largest lake in Africa that has large populations of small fish. “I was always wondering how people can die of hunger next to a lake with fish in it," he said. For 3 billion people, 20 percent of their daily animal protein intake comes from the consumption of fish from fisheries and aquaculture, for 1.5 billion people, fish makes up about 15 percent. This number is between 50 and 60 percent in West African coastal countries like Ghana, Sierra Leone, and Asian countries like Cambodia, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. Árni M. Mathiesen, assistant director-general of fisheries and aquaculture at the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), said that the average number of wild caught fish has stagnated within the last three decades and that fisheries and aquaculture has become the fastest growing food production sector, increasing with an annual average growth of over 8 percent. China is expected to see the highest growth in demand for fish, with an increase from 24.4kg per person per year in 2000 to 41kg per person per year in 2030, Mathiesen said. screen-shot-2015-10-16-at-8-59-31-am This figure from the Sustainable Fisheries and Aquaculture for Food Security and Nutrition 2014 report from HLP shows just how crucial fish production is to the agricultural gross domestic product. “The status of fisheries and aquaculture is of high importance right now," said Mathiesen. “We have come to the conclusion that production needs to increase from 50 to 100 billion tons by the year 2030 ." To achieve aquaculture that is environmentally sustainable, Mathiesen said, will require a balance of resource usage, farming systems, health and production management and farming species of fish that are lower on the food chain. Shakuntala Haraksingh Thilsted, senior nutrition scientist at WorldFish, warned that sustainability can never be reached if environmental precautions are not taken by the industry. “We have heard a lot about the demand for food and how we are going to meet that in 2030 and 2050 with (the world) population growing," she said. “I would like to think much longer about using our investments and resources in reducing wastes and losses rather than jumping first to increase production ." Mathiesen believes that farming low-trophic level species would be sustainable, compared to farming higher trophic species like trout, salmon, and shrimp that require wild caught fish and formulated fish-oil feeds. With a 5.8 percent rate of growth within the last 10 years, the effects of aquaculture on the availability of fish on the world market is substantial. In addition to availability, the price of fish, especially salmon, has dropped dramatically since the 1990s when there was an expansion in farm production. Kolding said that a major obstacle in the expansion of fisheries and aquaculture is the lack of the diversity of farmed fish. “We are fishing (in the wild) at least two to three thousand different species of fish and we are farming around seven hundred species of fish," he said. Kolding also noted that research and development initiatives should focus on the sustainability of both large and small scale aquaculture systems. In addition to expanding the diversity of farmed species, Mathiesen said each country needs to keep control of their resources of fisheries and aquaculture. Consistent governance and policy would ensure fisheries would be held to high standards. Read more coverage of the 2015 World Food Prize and Borlaug Dialogue at the MU Earth blog. http://www.agweb.com/article/fisheries-aquaculture-fill-gap-in-global-food-security-dialogue-NAA-agweb-guest-editor/
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US Invests in World Food Security~~USDA Invests in Global Food Security Today, 795 million people around the world do not have access to a sufficient supply of safe and nutritious food. The United Nations estimates that worldwide demand for food will increase 70 percent by 2050. To meet this need, production in developing countries will need to almost double. Establishing global food security is important not only to hundreds of millions of hungry people, but also to the sustainable economic growth of developing nations and the long-term economic prosperity of the United States. As we help countries become more food secure and raise incomes, we also expand markets for American producers. For example, between fiscal years 2010 and 2014, U.S. agricultural exports to developing countries grew 44.3 percent for developing countries, significantly outpacing the 33.4 percent for developed countries. Exports to Southeast Asia grew 56.5 percent. In 2009, G8 nations committed to act with the scale and urgency needed to achieve sustainable global food security and to be accountable and coordinate with country development plans. In the subsequent years, the United States has invested over $3.75 billion to address global food security, exceeding the President's commitment, and launched his Feed the Future Initiative. USDA is a key member of the whole of government effort on Feed the Future and supports global food security through in-country capacity building, basic and applied research, and support for improved market information, statistics and analysis. Around the world, USDA has helped to train small farmers and foreign officials on plant and animal health systems, risk analysis, and avoiding post-harvest loss; completed assessments on climate change; and helped to increase agricultural productivity. Building Local Capacity, Increasing Productivity, and Improving Markets and Trade USDA staff members are strategically placed to monitor agricultural matters globally in more than 160 countries and assist in USDA's efforts to build local capacity. Since 2010, USDA has aligned its program with the Feed the Future Initiative to support agriculture development in select focus countries and regions-Ghana, Kenya, East Africa, Bangladesh, Haiti, Guatemala and Central America-and worked in all 19 of the Initiative's priority countries. Over the past six years, USDA's international food aid programs benefited approximately 48.3 million individuals globally, with assistance valued at nearly $2.2 billion. Over the past six years, USDA's McGovern- Dole International Food for Education and Child Nutrition Program supported the education, child development, and food security of some 26 million of the world's poorest children in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. With the support of the McGovern Dole program, the United Nations World Food Program provides a daily breakfast of rice, canned fish, vitamin A- fortified vegetable oil, and yellow split peas to feed pre- and primary school students in Siem Reap and two other provinces in Cambodia. The project also provides food scholarships, in the form of take home rations, to poor students as an income-based incentive to encourage poor food-insecure households to send their children to school regularly to increase student attendance and retention rates. The McGovern Dole Food for Education program provided training to over 132,000 people on child health and nutrition. Projects have trained health professionals, primary health care workers, community health workers, volunteers, and non-health personnel such as teachers, school administrators and parents. In Mali, for example, as part of USDA's partnership with Catholic Relief Services over 2,000 people have been trained in basic health and nutrition practices such as child growth and development, malnutrition, and how to prepare nutritious foods using locally available foods such as millet, peanuts and beans. In order support the sustainability of McGovern Dole efforts, projects aim to create long-lasting public-private partnerships with businesses and producers. While USDA has just started to track these efforts, in the past year, 258 public-private partnerships have been formed. Many of the public-private partnerships formed under the McGovern Dole program are partnerships between producer groups who commit to providing food to local schools, supplementing food provided by USDA. In Malawi, for example, the USDA McGovern Dole project implemented by WFP has developed 90 partnerships with farmer group associations that provide a diverse selection of local produce, such as maize, beans and vegetables to their local primary schools as part of the Government of Malawi-supported pilot Home Grown School Feeding model. USDA's Food for Progress program helps developing countries and emerging democracies modernize and strengthen their agricultural sectors. The two principle objectives of Food for Progress are increasing agricultural productivity and expanding trade of agricultural products. In fiscal year 2014, nearly 223, 337 individuals in the Feed the Future countries and regions received USDA's agricultural productivity or food security training. Food for Progress projects have trained farmers in animal and plant health and improved techniques and technologies on and off farm. In 2014, over 220,000 producers received training on agricultural sector productivity or food security training as a result of USDA assistance. In Honduras, the Food for Progress program implemented by USDA's partner TechnoServe, Inc., and focused on the coffee and bean sector, trained 13,406 men and 3,357 women in improved agricultural techniques and technologies. In the coffee sector, training was provided in areas such as Good Agricultural Practices (GAP), post-harvest handling, and helping farmers better understand the causes of common coffee bean defects and expectations of international buyers making purchasing decisions. As a result of USDA training in improved techniques and technologies, over 80,000 producers in fiscal year 2014 have adopted one or more improved techniques or management practices. Through USDA's partner, National Cooperative Business Association, more than 19,000 Ugandans have adopted conservation farming practices to their maize, pulse and soybean cultivation. Adopting these practices has led to an average increase in yields of about 47%. Farmers adopting improved techniques or technologies in their farming practices have resulted in almost 64,000 hectares of land cultivated under USDA-promoted improved techniques or management practices in nine countries in fiscal year 2014 in Africa and Latin America. Counterpart International, in coordination with the Guatemalan Ministry of Agriculture's formal extension agents, has held over 83 trainings for agricultural producers in Huehuetenango and San Marcos on topics such as soil conservation, water management, integrated pest management, and post-harvest management. While still early in the project, these trainings have resulted in over 2,426 hectares of land cultivated under USDA-promoted improved techniques and technologies. USDA programs often support increased access to and utilization of financial services in order to expand agricultural productivity and markets and trade. Making more financial loans shows that there is improved access to business development for producers, cooperatives, MSMEs and business enterprises including producers, service providers and manufacturers. In fiscal year 2014, USDA supported $12.6 million in agricultural and rural loans in Bangladesh, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Mali and Tanzania. Last year, USDA's Food for Progress program efforts resulted in close to 10,000 jobs. In Honduras, for example, this has meant that 1,670 new on-farm full-time jobs and 215 new post-production jobs in the coffee and bean sector were attributed to USDA's work through its partnership with TechnoServe, Inc. Two of USDA's premier trade and scientific exchange programs play an important role in USDA's food security initiatives: The Norman E. Borlaug International Agricultural Science and Technology Fellowship Program (Borlaug Fellowship Program or BFP) promotes food security and economic growth by providing training and collaborative research opportunities to fellows from developing and middle-income countries. Borlaug fellows are scientists, researchers, or policymakers who are in the early or middle stages of their careers. Over the past six years, USDA's Borlaug Fellowship Program provided training and collaborative research opportunities to 440 scientists and policymakers from developing and middle-income countries, focusing on a wide range of agriculture-related topics including agronomy, veterinary science, nutrition, food safety, sanitary and phytosanitary issues, natural resource management, and biotechnology. The Cochran Fellowship Program strengthens and enhances trade linkages between eligible middle-income and emerging market countries and agricultural interest in the U.S. The Cochran program also assists eligible countries to develop agricultural systems necessary to meet the food and fiber needs of their domestic populations by providing training opportunities for senior and mid-level specialists and administrators working in agricultural trade and policy, agribusiness development, management, animal, plant, and food sciences, extension services, agricultural marketing, and many other areas. Over the past six years, USDA's Cochran Fellowship Program trained 3,148 agricultural professionals worldwide in areas related to agricultural trade, agribusiness development, management, policy, and marketing. Driving Innovation through Research and Technologies Since 2009, USDA has expanded analysis and reporting to increase core data, statistics, and analysis of global agricultural systems. In 2011, USDA expanded its annual Food Security Assessment to include 77 countries; completed assessments of agricultural statistics and market information in ten Feed the Future countries and identified key areas where improvement is needed; and conducted in-depth assessments of the capacity of the statistical systems of Ghana, Haiti, Malawi, Senegal, Tanzania, Uganda and Bangladesh. In 2014, USDA conducted in-depth country assessments of agricultural statistics and market information systems in Benin, Malawi, and Senegal. An on-going agricultural statistics project in Haiti resulted in the first country wide agricultural production survey data release. Tanzania conducted a cognitive pre-test of point sample area frame methodology for an Annual Agricultural Sample Survey. Important research on solving food production issues continues: USDA researchers sequenced the genome of wheat and the wheat stem rust pathogen, which threatens to destroy wheat crops worldwide, and distributed new wheat germplasm globally to reduce the risk of unproductive harvests. USDA continues research to combat aflatoxin (mycotoxins can be lethally toxic in high dosages or cause dilatory health effects over the long-term in smaller dosages) through genetic resistance in maize and using RNAi approaches in peanut. In partnership with USAID, USDA is part of an international consortium to develop a safe and economically sustainable vaccine for the pathogen that causes East Coast Fever (ECF), a devastating disease of cattle of eastern Africa. USDA is cooperating with over a dozen institutions in the United States and developing countries to provide resource poor farmers with dry bean cultivars with improved productivity and quality. Researchers have identified broad spectrum resistance to rust in large seeded landrace cultivars that originate from Tanzania. These landraces, with confirmed resistance in field trials in Africa and the United States, provide breeders with a valuable source of rust resistance for improving large-seeded African cultivars used by small-holder farmers. In 2013, the United States, along with the United Kingdom, launched the Global Open Data for Agriculture and Nutrition initiative, which seeks to support global efforts to make agricultural and nutritionally relevant data available, accessible, and usable for unrestricted use worldwide. The initiative encourages collaboration and cooperation among existing agriculture and open data activities. Open access to research, and open publication of data, are vital resources for food security and nutrition, driven by farmers, farmer organizations, researchers, extension experts, policy makers, governments, and other private sector and civil society stakeholders participating in "innovation systems" and along value chains. http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/usda/usdahome?contentid=2015/10/0289.xml&contentidonly=true
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US: Five Reasons to Focus on the Global Food Security Act~ ~ 5 Reasons to Pay Attention to the Global Food Security Act Posted: 10/19/2015 6:35 pm EDT Updated: 10/20/2015 10:59 am EDT As we celebrated World Food Day on October 16, it's important to remember that globally, nearly 800 million people are still hungry. Yet here in the United States, there is an opportunity for Congress to act in the fight against global hunger, malnutrition, and extreme poverty. Passing the Global Food Security Act (H.R. 1567, S. 1252) is our chance. Here are five things you need to know about this important piece of legislation: 1. The GFSA codifies a whole-of-government strategy for U.S. global food and nutrition security. After decades of declining support for farmers in developing countries, renewed U.S. leadership from President Bush and now President Obama has sparked a global commitment to help people feed themselves. Governments, nongovernmental and civil society organizations, academic and research institutions, businesses, multilateral institutions, and farmers themselves have all recommitted to fighting extreme hunger and malnutrition through new agriculture-focused investments. The Global Food Security Act (GFSA) seeks to capture and sustain the current successes of the U.S. government through its Feed the Future Initiative. Drawing on resources and expertise from 11 federal agencies, Feed the Future is engaging in national agriculture investment strategies and is helping countries, including 19 focus countries in Africa, Latin America, and Asia, transform their agricultural sectors and sustainably produce enough nutritious food to feed their people. The GFSA calls on each relevant Federal department or agency, coordinated at the highest level by the President, to deliver specific implementation plans, including what they will accomplish and the technical and financial resources each will commit. Codifying this whole-of-government approach will ensure that existing coordination between key agencies involved in Feed the Future - including USAID, USDA and the State Department - continues and is improved. 2. The GFSA codifies a comprehensive U.S. global food and nutrition security strategy. Successfully fighting hunger, malnutrition, and poverty demands a holistic and comprehensive approach. The strategy codified by the bill focuses on increasing sustainable and equitable agricultural development, reducing global hunger, improving nutrition - especially in the first 1,000 days of a child's life - and ultimately achieving food and nutrition security. The GFSA recognizes the important role of small-scale producers, women, and local food economies, and promotes country ownership and civil society engagement. It also builds the resilience of communities, provides safety nets for the most vulnerable food insecure populations, and fosters improved nutrition, research, environmental protection, capacity building, land rights, and gender equality and female empowerment. Establishing a comprehensive strategy in law will enable us to direct existing and future U.S. investments to programs that truly make a difference in improving food and nutrition security and livelihoods. 3.The GFSA establishes Congressional oversight and reporting requirements. Current U.S. global food security strategy is established by the Executive Branch with limited Congressional oversight. The GFSA would provide a clear legislative basis for active Congressional oversight, including reporting that is transparent, more complete, and delivered on an annual basis. It also improves upon existing monitoring and evaluation practices to ensure U.S. taxpayer investments are implemented efficiently and effectively. Furthermore, the data will be appropriately disaggregated, like in the case of gender data, to ensure that programs are reaching women. Finally, identification of lessons learned and more consistent benchmarks for success will greatly help in gauging progress toward sustainability. 4.The GFSA promotes country ownership and sustainability. The GFSA states that it is in the national security interest of the U.S. to promote global food security, resilience, and nutrition, “consistent with national food security investment plans." Feed the Future has operated in close coordination with USAID's Local Solutions Initiative, which aims at assisting countries to become more effective providers of development services for their own populations. Yet more can be done. Language in the GFSA encourages outside service providers to focus more on local capacity strengthening and less on providing those services themselves. This will not only accelerate the creation of capable local organizations, but will ensure that development is locally supported, long-lasting, and not creating duplicative systems. In addition, the bill calls for consultations with local stakeholders at the national and regional level, as well as thoughtful alignment with the country's own plans for agricultural development. Stakeholder consultation - including at a local level and with a diverse group of stakeholders - would become a requirement, and collaboration would become an important mode for mobilizing development actors. Consultation would shape not only the development of plans, but would help to identify roles for non-state actors in lasting development collaborations. 5.The GFSA does not include food aid reform. While food aid reform is a very important issue, it is separate from the GFSA. The GFSA does not make any changes to the Food for Peace or Food for Progress programs. The bill does require long-term food security programs to coordinate transparently with emergency programs, as countries that are vulnerable to food insecurity often require both emergency food assistance and longer-term agricultural development. Effective coordination between these activities and appropriate planning for the relief-to-development transition are essential ingredients of successful and sustainable programs. But again, the bill does not change any existing authorizing law for emergency food and non-food assistance programs. The GFSA is not food aid reform. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/katie-lee/five-reasons-to-pay-atten_ B _8330646.html
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EU: Organic Farming Not Enough to Solve Food Security~~Commission: Organic farming 'not enough' to address food security EurActiv Greece by Sarantis Michalopoulos ? 07:39 updated: 13:54 SPECIAL REPORT / Organic farming has a role to play in the new Common Agricultural Policy, but it cannot address the perplexing issue of food security, an EU spokesperson said. Meanwhile, the innovation-driven GM industry feels marginalised, facing impossible hurdles in the EU. Global population is expected to rise from 7.3 billion today to 9.7 billion in 2050, according to UN projections, meaning food production will have to double to meet nutritional needs. In an effort to rise to this challenge, the new CAP for the period 2014-2020 is focused on innovation as well as environmental protection. And organic farming will have a key role to play. It is recognised as an innovative and sustainable approach that produces high-quality food, whilst contributing to the environment, animal welfare and rural development. But it won't be enough to meet the challenge, according to the European Commission. “Organic farming could certainly not address on its own the vast and perplexing issue of future food security," said the EU spokesperson. “The organic market, initially a niche market which grew bigger over the last decade gaining consumers' confidence, managed to multiply by four its market share. Organics have undoubtedly a role to play in addressing food security, as a system which produces food that respects natural life cycles and the environment," the EU source added. CAP and innovation In budget terms, the new CAP is more focused on innovation and environmental protection than the previous one. Innovation spending from the EU and national budgets for the period to 2020 will represent about 6% of the rural development budget which is about 1/5 of the overall CAP budget. In addition, the new Horizon 2020 Work Programme covering 2016-17 will directly provide €33 million for organic farming and a further €174 million is dedicated to projects in which organic agriculture should play a role. On the other hand, there is little research funding for GMOs, due to the huge public opposition in Europe. In Italy, GMO research has not been allowed for over 10 years, according to the Public Research and Regulation Initiative (PRRI), a worldwide initiative of public sector scientists active in modern biotechnology research. Over half of the EU member states have recently opted out of growing genetically modified (GM) crops on their land, which means that two-thirds of Europe's arable land will remain GM free. Germany, Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, France, Italy, Hungary, Greece, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland, Belgium, Luxembourg, Malta and Slovenia rejected the GM crops while in Britain, only England will cultivate GM crops. In addition, the European Parliament's environmental committee rejected last week (13 October) a Commission-led compromise which allows member states to decide for themselves whether or not to import Genetically Modified Organisms for use in food and animal feed. >>Read: MEPs reject GM crop compromise 'on technical grounds' Organic farming challenges Marco Schlüter, director of the Federation of Organic Agricultural Movements (IFOAM EU), told EurActiv that although the amount of land farmed organically was increasing, around 95% of agriculture in Europe is conventional. “This means that organic farmers are often surrounded by farmers using inputs forbidden in organic and, despite measures taken to prevent contamination such as buffer zones, there is a risk," he noted. “IFOAM EU advocates for the polluter pays principle - those using the pesticides and synthetic fertilizers should pay for the effect they have on their neighbours, (drinking) water quality, and biodiversity, just to name a few," he said. Another challenge for organic farmers, according to Schlüter, is that the demand for organic products is increasing at such a fast rate that it could widen further the gap between production and consumption, increasing imports from outside Europe and potentially creating a shortage in the market. “For this reason it is important for governments to help their farmers benefit from consumer demand and transition to organic," he stressed. Commenting on the “innovation push” of the new CAP, Eric Gall, IFOAM EU policy manager, told EurActiv that it should be better used to incentivise more farmers to increase their sustainability for example by converting to organic farming or taking up agroecological practices. “The lack of prioritisation for organic across a host of policy measures in rural development programmes often acts as a major limiting factor for stimulating organic innovation in the agri-food sector," he said, adding that there were a number of options to prioritise innovative approaches in areas such as farm advice and knowledge transfer, infrastructural investments and supply chain development. Monsanto: We are “politically isolated” Meanwhile, the innovation-driven GM crop industry feels it's unwanted. Brandon Mitchener, Public Affairs Lead for Monsanto Europe, says that the GMO industry is “politically isolated” in Europe. “The EU has chosen to fund NGOs that demonise GMOs, even though the EU's own best scientists say they are perfectly safe. Years of such political hypocrisy have marginalised GM seeds in Europe to the point that most companies have given up trying to sell them here," he said. Referring to the main challenges of GMOs, he noted that in the EU, the industry faces “nearly impossible hurdles, starting with a regulatory review system that is highly political and costs more than €100 million per biotech trait--with no guarantee of market success ". “No one has asked for permission to cultivate a new biotech trait in Europe in more than 10 years," he underlined. Asked where Monsanto failed in convincing half of the EU countries which opted out of growing GMs, Mitchener blamed the Greens and some NGOs. “Monsanto and other companies did everything they could have to try to educate people about GMOs. The European debacle isn't the companies' fault. It is the result of nearly 30 years of scaremongering by Greens and certain NGOs, and (a) lack of science-based decision-making ." Similarly, Beat Späth, Director of Agricultural Biotechnology at EuropaBio, blamed EU politicians for being followers of “public opinion ”. He said that the EU heavily promoted untested organic farming while allowing national bans on cultivating GM crops that “have undergone strict safety assessments confirming they are (at least) as safe as conventional crops ". “The 'licence to ban' the cultivation of safe and approved GMO crops is a very negative precedent of 'politics over science'. In this sense, many politicians seem to have abdicated from their role as leaders in favour of becoming followers of 'public opinion' voiced by scaremongers," he told EurActiv. He continued, saying that trillions of GM meals had been eaten over 19 years and that in 2014 alone, 18 million farmers planted biotech crops on 13% of the world's arable land. “Meanwhile, half of Europe chooses to turn the continent into a museum of agriculture without even asking its farmers," he said. Asked by EurActiv the precise amount of EU money earmarked for research on GMOs the European Commission DG Health and Food Safety referred us to the DG Research, Science and Innovation and the latter, referred EurActiv back to DG Health. TTIP and farming Asked if the TTIP agreement could boost Monsanto's position in the EU market, Mitchener said “not immediately ”. “Monsanto's business in Europe is entirely focused on traditional seeds, which face no discrimination. TTIP will not affect that ." On the other hand, Eric Gall told EurActiv that IFOAM EU had concerns over EU-US trade pact. “IFOAM EU has concerns about TTIP because free trade agreements are risky for farmers and the food sector," he said. "Even more so in times of crisis, and it could lead to a lowering of standards for food, for example, by forcing the EU to open its market to GMOs ." http://www.euractiv.com/sections/innovation-feeding-world/commission-organic-farming-not-enough-address-food-security-318699
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Kerry: Climate change and food security are directly related to world stability~ ~ Kerry says climate change and food security directly linked to global stability Associated Press Oct. 17, 2015 | 10:00 a.m. EDT By MATTHEW LEE, AP Diplomatic Writer MILAN (AP) - The stability of the world is directly linked to climate change and its impact on food security for billions of people, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Saturday. In a speech to the Milan Expo, Kerry argued that unrest tied to climate change-induced agricultural failure poses an international threat. The Milan Expo is focused on food security, and Kerry urged attendants to act quickly against climate change. "Make no mistake: The implications here extend well beyond hunger," Kerry said. "This isn't only about global food security; it's about global security - period ." He said drought-spawned mass urban migration in Syria - up to 1.5 million people from rural areas to cities - exacerbated political tensions ahead of the start of that country's civil war, which has contributed to the world's worst refugee crisis since World War II. "I'm not suggesting the crisis in Syria was caused by climate change - obviously, it wasn't," Kerry said. "It was caused by a brutal dictator who barrel-bombed, starved, tortured and gassed his own people. But the devastating drought clearly made a bad situation a lot worse ." Kerry urged world government to act quickly against climate change because without such action, he said, "the horrific refugee situation we're facing today will pale in comparison to the mass migrations that intense droughts, sea-level rise and other impacts of climate change are likely to bring about ." "The hard truth is that unless the global community comes together to address climate change, every one of these challenges - droughts, floods, extreme weather, ocean acidification, hunger and malnutrition - will only become more pronounced," he said. In addition to dealing with the broader global security challenges of climate change, Kerry said the immediate issue of hunger among large segments of the world's fast-growing population must be addressed. That requires urgent action to regulate fishing, make agriculture sustainable, eliminate waste and bring food to where it is needed. Kerry is in Italy on the first leg of a three-nation tour of Europe that will also take him to France and Spain. ___ Follow Matthew Lee on Twitter at https://twitter.com/APDiploWriter. Copyright 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.