Mad Cow Reported

April 24, 2012

FarmFutures

Willie Vogt

In a press call this afternoon, USDA talked through a reported find of an animal infected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy - or mad cow - in the United States. Found in a pre-rendering inspection, the animal was found in California.

The animal is a dairy cow from Central California and it is expressing what USDA is calling an "atypical" case of the disease, which means it may not have come from the typical means of transmission. The animal was found in a pre-rendering test at a rendering facility. Its meat did not enter the food chain and the carcass will be destroyed. USDA Chief Veterinarian John Clifford did not have information about whether the animal was alive when collected by the renderer.

USDA is conducting an investigation into the incident and notes that notification of trading partners has begun. However, officials note that this case "should not" impact trade given the current U.S. status under OIE for BSE. However, the United States is in delicate negotiations with the Japanese to raise the acceptable age of animals harvested for export to that country. How this news will impact those talks remains to be seen.

Little detail is available on the dairy cow. The investigation will look into the age of the animal, whether it was dead when collected by the renderer and other details.

Domestic market impact, however, over the rumor has been deeper. Prices fell $3 per hundredweight from the morning nearby contract price for live cattle at $119.90. Markets locked limit down the $3 daily limit in the final 25 minutes of trade.

Adds Farm Futures Market Analyst Arlan Suderman: "The markets were very vulnerable due to a large ownership of live cattle futures by speculative fund managers, who quickly headed to the sideline with the rumor hit."

Feedgrain prices slipped as well, with corn dropping 10 cents and soybeans sliding modestly off multi-year highs set late in the session of $14.67-1/2.

This is the fourth confirmed case of BSE in the United States since the famous "Christmas surprise" of 2003, when an infected cow was found in a Washington dairy, in an animal that had come from Canada.

Chief Clifford's statement follows:

Statement by USDA Chief Veterinary Officer John Clifford Regarding a Detection of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) in the United States   Assures Consumers That Existing Safeguards Protected Food Supply; Reiterates Safety of Consuming Beef Products  

WASHINGTON, April 24, 2012 – USDA Chief Veterinary Officer John Clifford today released the following statement on the detection of BSE in the United States:

"As part of our targeted surveillance system, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) has confirmed the nation's fourth case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in a dairy cow from central California. The carcass of the animal is being held under State authority at a rendering facility in California and will be destroyed. It was never presented for slaughter for human consumption, so at no time presented a risk to the food supply or human health. Additionally, milk does not transmit BSE.

"The United States has had longstanding interlocking safeguards to protect human and animal health against BSE. For public health, these measures include the USDA ban on specified risk materials, or SRMs, from the food supply. SRMs are parts of the animal that are most likely to contain the BSE agent if it is present in an animal. USDA also bans all nonambulatory (sometimes called "downer") cattle from entering the human food chain. For animal health, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) ban on ruminant material in cattle feed prevents the spread of the disease in the cattle herd.

"Evidence shows that our systems and safeguards to prevent BSE are working, as are similar actions taken by countries around the world. In 2011, there were only 29 worldwide cases of BSE, a dramatic decline and 99% reduction since the peak in 1992 of 37,311 cases. This is directly attributable to the impact and effectiveness of feed bans as a primary control measure for the disease.

"Samples from the animal in question were tested at USDA's National Veterinary Services Laboratories in Ames, Iowa. Confirmatory results using immunohistochemistry and western blot tests confirmed the animal was positive for atypical BSE, a very rare form of the disease not generally associated with an animal consuming infected feed.

"We are sharing our laboratory results with international animal health reference laboratories in Canada and England, which have official World Animal Health (OIE) reference labs. These labs have extensive experience diagnosing atypical BSE and will review our confirmation of this form of the disease. In addition, we will be conducting a comprehensive epidemiological investigation in conjunction with California animal and public health officials and the FDA.

"BSE is a progressive neurological disease among cattle that is always fatal. It belongs to a family of diseases known as transmissible spongiform encephalopathies. Affected animals may display nervousness or aggression, abnormal posture, difficulty in coordination and rising, decreased milk production, or loss of body weight despite continued appetite.

"This detection in no way affects the United States' BSE status as determined by the OIE. The United States has in place all of the elements of a system that OIE has determined ensures that beef and beef products are safe for human consumption: a mammalian feed ban, removal of specified risk materials, and vigorous surveillance. Consequently, this detection should not affect U.S. trade.

NFU’s Roger Johnson Sees Positives and

Negatives of Chairwoman’s Mark of Farm Bill

April 24, 2012

Oklahoma Farm Report

Roger Johnson of the National Farmers Union has been following the developments surrounding the farm bill mark that has come out of the Senate Agriculture Committee. He says he sees positives and negatives in the progress so far.

“I think if you look at the bright side of this, having the mark released by the chair and the ranking member is a pretty strong signal there’s serious effort behind this and that there’s been a lot of work done behind the scenes to try and put some of the deals together to accommodate the various interests.”

He says he sees two areas of disappointment with the mark so far. One deals with the area of energy which has been dramatically cut back, the other deals with crop price protection.

“You know, as far as rural America, rural development in the last two or three decades has largely been a function of what’s happened with renewable energy. So that seems to be something we would want to pay attention to, to keep a focus on.

“The other area I would say we are disappointed in, and maybe it’s just not possible to get it done given the political atmosphere, but we need some sort of long term protection from price collapse. Maybe a better way to put it would be protection from a long-term price collapse.

“The best that they’re able to do is a sort of a five-year Olympic average of following the market down. If we get back to a period like the late 90s or early 2000s where we had seven, eight years in a row of very low commodity prices, I worry what’s going to happen by not having some sort of safety net that’s price based at a higher level.”

Johnson said he was also surprised that there’s no livestock title in the farm bill even though livestock comprises roughly half of U.S. agricultural production. He said there are several items scattered throughout the bill, however, dealing with important programs for livestock producers.

Push to Give Midsize New York Farms a Hub at the

Hunts Point Market

April 24, 2012

The New York Times

Mireya Navarro

Decades after the slow-food movement began championing the benefits of locally grown fruits and vegetables, pressure is mounting for New York City to stand up to big vendors and make room for the region’s midsize farms at the Hunts Point wholesale produce market in the South Bronx.

The region has no big wholesale hub for local produce, and advocates of local food and farmers argue that this is the logical time to make it happen. The city is deep in lease negotiations with the cooperative that owns the 45-year-old market, which stretches across 105 acres of city land, and is exploring how to pay for much-needed renovations there.

Complicating matters, New Jersey is hoping to lure the cooperative and its 3,000 jobs across the Hudson River, which gives the city less leverage in pushing for change. And the cooperative’s owners are wary of competition from the smaller farmers, whose costs do not include expensive labor contracts.

Proponents of adding a wholesale farmers’ market at Hunts Point say that even as the Bloomberg administration supports sustainability, only 4 percent of the $2.3 billion worth of food sold annually at Hunts Point comes from New York State, and only 8 percent from New Jersey. The rest is brought in from 49 states and an estimated 55 countries, according to the cooperative.

“It is critical that state and city officials seize this opportunity,” said Mark A. Izeman, a senior lawyer with the Natural Resources Defense Council, which advocates for farmland preservation in New York State and the environmental benefits of growing food locally. He said it was “crazy” that New York had not created a central wholesale hub for local food as cities like Paris and Toronto have.

In an interview in his office at the terminal, the co-op’s co-president, Matthew D’Arrigo, said the issue of including midsize regional growers had not come up in negotiations with the city, but “it’s there.”

Mr. D’Arrigo said he was concerned that oversupply problems could worsen if midsize farmers were admitted. And New York State’s limited growing season, about five months of the year, might not make the hub as successful as its supporters predict in any case, he added.

The city and the cooperative, which pays about $4.5 million a year in rent, are in exclusive negotiations on a new lease with the goal of reaching an accord by June 29. If they do not, New Jersey officials say, they are ready to reopen talks.

Local farm supporters want the city to insist that a new lease include year-round indoor space for New York growers that are modest in size yet too large to profit from the small green markets in the New York area’s parks and streets. Such farms are typically under 300 acres in the Hudson Valley, on Long Island and in the upstate areas that can supply the city, according to studies.

Pressed on the issue, city officials would say only that their first priority is reaching an accord on the lease and on resolving nagging storage, refrigeration and traffic issues.

“Our current focus is on securing a long-term lease with the market co-op and creating a larger, modernized market,” said Julie Wood, a spokeswoman for Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s office. So far, the city and state have committed to shouldering $137 million of an anticipated $350 million in renovation costs.

Advocates of a local presence say that a local wholesale hub would help keep struggling farms afloat while helping to satisfy the demand from New York institutions and grocery stores for fresh local food.

Andrew Rigie, an executive vice president of the New York State Restaurant Association, pointed out that more restaurants were promoting the freshness of their ingredients and local sourcing. Creating an attractive, convenient hub to buy those ingredients in bulk, he said, would give restaurants access to more quantity and variety of produce.

Other potential buyers, like Rhys W. Powell, president of Red Rabbit, a farm-fresh and organic food provider that serves about 10,000 meals a day in New York City schools, said that such an outlet would simplify his currently frenzied buying routine. “It’s like shopping at 12 different grocery stores,” he said.

The 150 or so New York farmers selling through Hunts Point now, state agricultural experts said, are mostly large-scale growers of state staples like onions and apples that sell enough volume to absorb the 12 percent to 15 percent commissions set by the cooperative’s wholesalers.

At the other end of the growing spectrum are small-scale farmers that can profitably sell directly to customers at retail farmers’ markets like the one in Union Square.

But most upstate farmers fall into the middle, and they say they are falling through the cracks in the distribution system.

GrowNYC, the agency that runs a network of 57 retail green markets with 240 small-scale farmers, has proposed a $12 million center at or near the Hunts Point terminal. It would have indoor space providing refrigeration and storage for 80 farmers and space for complementary businesses like makers of local cheeses and preserves. The plan also envisions an outdoor site for an additional 50 farmers.

Marcel Van Ooyen, the agency’s executive director, said that such a hub would allow farmers to set their own prices, sell directly to wholesale customers and keep more money in their pockets, just as the small farmers do. “We think this is a huge game changer,” he said.

Frank Dagele Jr., a fourth-generation farmer with Dagele Brothers Produce, 60 miles north of the city in the Orange County village of Florida, said his dream was to introduce his family’s artichokes to the Hunts Point market. “When people think of artichokes,” he said with regret, “they think of California.”

Mr. Dagele, 53, sells 5 percent of his 40 varieties of vegetables in the New York metropolitan area through various channels, including direct purchases by Whole Foods and sales to a Hunts Point wholesaler under the commission system. The bulk of his production goes to upstate supermarkets.

If he could sell directly from a year-round wholesale market, he said, he could plant an extra 50 acres on his farm, ramp up his fledgling greenhouse production and quadruple his sales in New York City.

The idea for the local hub has long been talked up by officials from the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets. More recently, it has drawn support from Christine C. Quinn, the City Council speaker, who has said that her office is pushing for it, and from Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, who last year outlined how it could benefit the upstate economy.

Whether the tight-knit cooperative of 38 companies at Hunts Point will ever agree to it remains unclear.

Mr. D’Arrigo, the co-op’s president, said some members were worried about being outflanked by farmers with advantages like potential city subsidies and not being required to hire unionized labor. If the midsize farms are to sell there, he added, he would agree only to their selling outdoors.

But that would fall short of what advocates of local food have in mind.

“We call New York the restaurant capital of the world,” Mr. Rigie said of the industry association, “and we should have the most cutting-edge, accessible market in the world for local produce.”