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AgNews Summary for USDA Executives

Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2009 

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FARM & FOREIGN AGRICULTURAL SERVICES

SENATORS SAY USDA FARM SUBSIDY RULES GO TOO FAR (101 Congress Daily 2/10, 
Reuters 2/9) USDA strays beyond congressional intent in a proposed rule on crop 
subsidy eligibility, 23 senators said Monday.  The senators, mostly from the South, 
specifically pointed to USDA revisions to the test of who is eligible for subsidies.  To be 
actively engaged in farming, people must provide capital, land or equipment, and labor 
or management.  USDA has proposed that for labor or management, members of a 
farming operation must be able to show a separate and regular contribution that can be 
documented and is in proportion to their ownership share.  In a letter to Secretary Tom 
Vilsack, the senators said the proposal strays beyond congressional intent in several 
areas.  They said the 2008 farm law did not require USDA to make any changes in the 
actively engaged determination beyond automatically making spouses eligible.  On Jan. 
26, Vilsack said USDA would allow an additional 60 days for public comment on the 
eligibility rule.  

VILSACK SAYS FOCUS IS ON ECONOMY BEFORE WTO TALKS (102 Reuters 2/9) The 
U.S. will focus on stabilizing its domestic economy and getting key positions in the 
administration confirmed before turning its attention to the Doha round of World Trade 
Organization talks, Secretary Tom Vilsack said on Monday.  Most of the attention, at least 
in the short term, will be focused on getting the economy overall heading in the right 
direction, Vilsack told U.S. wheat growers meeting in Washington.  Senate committees 
have not yet held confirmation hearings for the Obama administrations nominees for 
commerce secretary and U.S. trade representative.  I dont expect for a while for us to 
be focused specifically on the Doha round, until we get people in place and comfortable 
with their positions, and until we get the stimulus bill passed and we begin to implement 
it, Vilsack said.  

USDA COMPUTER OVERHAUL COULD BE STICKING POINT IN STIMULUS (103 
Congress Daily 2/9) Along with dozens of other programs at stake in the economic 
stimulus bill, lawmakers will have to iron out House and Senate differences in funding to 
upgrade USDA computers.  Republicans have cited that effort as an example of non-
stimulative spending.  The compromise amendment by Sens. Ben Nelson and Susan 
Collins reduced the amount of money for upgrading the Farm Service Agency computer 
system from $171 million in the original Senate bill to $54 million.  The cut is a major 
difference with the House, which provides $245 million for the overhaul.  The article also 
looks briefly at other USDA provisions, noting that the amendment does not cut spending 
for food stamps.  The only change in the nutrition section of the bill is a cut in money for 
equipment purchases for school meals from $198 million to $100 million.  But it says 

there are differences between the House and Senate bills for nutrition funding increases in 
fiscal 2009 and 2010.  

WTO PANEL WARNED OF PROTECTIONIST THREAT (104 Washington Post 2/10) The 
director-general of the World Trade Organization, Pascal Lamy, called Monday for a freer 
flow of trade information to help guard against protectionism as governments struggle to 
overcome the global economic crisis.  Lamy, addressing the WTOs new Trade Policy 
Review Body in Geneva, gave voice to rising fears, particularly among poor nations, that 
governments might succumb to pressure to restrict imports or subsidize home industries 
in the face of financial instability and economic troubles that have spread around the world 
since the Wall Street banking turmoil erupted last September.  Lamy said protectionist 
steps have been noted by the review body, but he added that the situation is, broadly 
speaking, under control.  He singled out President Obama and his Brazilian counterpart, 
Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, for resisting what he described as protectionist measures from 
industry and legislators.  

FOOD SAFETY

PEANUT SCARE SHOWS NEED TO REFORM FOOD SAFETY, VILSACK SAYS (105 
Reuters 2/9) If the U.S. had a single, modern food agency, schools might not have 
received peanut products from a plant linked to an outbreak of salmonella, Secretary Tom 
Vilsack said Monday.  The country is now taking a look at food safety with heightened 
awareness, Vilsack told reporters.  I think you can expect to see some discussion and 
some real work on modernizing the food safety system in this country.  USDA said last 
week that schools in three states had received suspected products from the Peanut Corp. 
of America in 2007.  Would that have happened if you had a single food agency that was 
modernized? Vilsack said following a speech to wheat growers in Washington.  You might 
not have had the problem to begin with, and once you were aware of the problem, steps 
could have been taken.  Vilsack called for a single food safety agency to replace the 15 
agencies that now handle food safety.  

VILSACK FAULTS USDA, FDA FOOD SAFETY EFFORTS (106 Dow Jones 2/9) Neither 
USDA nor the Food and Drug Administration is doing a good enough job at keeping 
Americans safe from tainted food, Secretary Tom Vilsack said Monday.  The secretary  
said in a statement that he has ordered USDA officials to begin the process of putting 
together a framework for improving USDAs food safety system.  The recent discovery 
of salmonella in peanut butter and the massive recalls that followed are at least partially 
behind Vilsacks call to create a single food safety agency out of the FDA and USDAs 
Food Safety and Inspection Service.  The recent peanut butter recall and multiple 
government reports strongly suggest our food safety system, despite the hard work of 
many at the Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration, fails to 
provide all the safeguards that Americans expect, Vilsack said in the statement.  Its 
time that we establish standards that will prevent food-borne illness, reform the way that 
we inspect and test the safety of food and take steps to create a modern, unified food 
safety agency capable of reducing the risk of food-borne illness. 

MARKETING & REGULATORY PROGRAMS

CALIFORNIA ATTORNEY GENERAL DEFENDS DOWNER LAW (107 Riverside Press-
Enterprise 2/7) California Attorney General Jerry Brown has come out strongly in defense 
of a new state law targeted in federal court by meat industry groups.  The law, which 
took effect  Jan. 1, makes it a crime to allow meat from livestock too weak or ill to stand 
to enter the food chain.  The law also requires such downer cows to be humanely 
euthanized.  The legislation followed last years nationwide beef recall, which was ordered 
after an undercover investigation found workers at a slaughter plant trying to force cows 
to slaughter.  Last month, the National Meat Association and the American Meat Institute 
filed lawsuits challenging the new rules.  Browns office called on the judge to uphold the 
law, saying that the state legislature had determined that non-ambulatory animals pose 
too great a risk to the safety of the food supply.  A judge has set a March 16 hearing in 
the case.  

NATURAL RESOURCES & ENVIRONMENT

U.S. URGED TO SAVE FORESTS TO CURB CLIMATE CHANGE (108 Reuters 2/9) The 
U.S. needs to take the lead in preserving tropical forests in the fight against climate 
change, a coalition of lawmakers, corporate chiefs and environmentalists said on Monday.  
Deforestation accounts for 20 percent of the carbon emissions that spur global warming, 
members of the Avoided Deforestation Partners coalition told a Capitol Hill forum.  
Congress is expected to take up legislation this year  possibly as soon as this month  to 
tackle climate change, aiming to come up with policies that will help the U.S. and other 
countries forge a new international agreement to succeed the carbon-capping Kyoto 
Protocol.  Without the leadership of the United States of America, everybody else will 
say, maybe this is not as serious as it seems, Wangari Maathai, the 2004 Nobel Peace 
Prize laureate, told the group.  If America is not concerned, then it cannot be a serious 
issue.  

FOREST SERVICE PULLS 67,000 ACRES IN COLO. FROM LEASE AUCTION (109 AP 2/9) 
The Forest Service has withdrawn nearly 67,000 acres of national forest land from an 
auction Thursday of oil and gas leases in southwestern Colorado.  The Forest Service 
pulled the land Monday after two county governments and the Colorado Division of Wildlife 
complained that drilling there could hurt natural resources in the area.  Regional Forester 
Rick Cables said the Forest Service will review the complaints before deciding whether to 
do a more detailed study or place additional restrictions if the land is offered at a future 
auction.  

RESEARCH, EDUCATION & ECONOMICS

FARM LIVING  SUBSIDIZED BY A JOB ELSEWHERE (110 N.Y. Times 2/8) USDA came 
out with its Census of Agriculture last week, and the headline was that the number of 
farms increased by 4 percent from 2002 to 2007, with most of the new farms being 
small, part-time operations.  A closer look at the numbers shows that American farming is 
becoming a story of extremes: of really big farms and really small ones.  Consider that 
about 900,000  of the nations 2.2 million farms generated $2,500 or less in sales in 2007.  
By contrast, 5 percent of total farms, about 125,000 operations, accounted for 75 percent 
of agricultural production.  Secretary Tom Vilsack has acknowledged the problem and 
vowed to do something about it.  The question is, what, if anything, can he do?  In an 
interview, Vilsack said the Department would encourage income opportunities that go 
beyond crops and livestock.  You have to take a holistic approach and create the 
understanding that the whole thing is diversification, he said.  Theres no shortage of 
farms that could use his help, as the census makes clear.  Only 1 million of the 2.2 million 
American farms reported positive income from agriculture.  The remainder rely on non-
farm income to cover farm expenses and a rural lifestyle.  The percentage of farmers 
who had off-the-farm jobs increased to 65 percent in 2007, from 55 percent five years 
earlier.  

RURAL DEVELOPMENT

JURISDICTIONAL DISPUTE LOOMS OVER BROADBAND SPENDING (111 CQ Today 
2/9) House and Senate conferees reconciling the economic stimulus package will be forced 
to referee a jurisdictional feud over who should manage broadband spending.  Both 
versions of the economic recovery bill include money to bring high-speed Internet services 
to under-served areas of the country.  However, the Senate bill would put the Commerce 
Department in charge of distributing grants, which the Commerce and Agriculture 
departments would share responsibility under the House bill.  Members of the House and 
Senate Agriculture committees want USDAs Rural Utilities Service to manage the 
broadband rollout to rural areas.  Leaders of the House and Senate Commerce 
committees would prefer to see the program managed by the Commerce Departments 
National Telecommunications and Information Administration.  

USDA -- MULTI-MISSION

GROWERS BENEFIT AS JOBS IN CONSTRUCTION, FOOD SERVICE DRY UP (112 The 
collapse of the construction industry and a slump in the restaurant and food service sector 
have sent thousands of people back to Californias farms, which not too long ago were 
hurting for workers.  We have had no trouble getting workers for the winter vegetable 
harvest, said one farmer.  There is a bigger supply of labor this year than last year or 
the year before.  Labor experts, union officials and farmers say that is happening across 
the state.  Whether there was a true shortage of farm workers is still a matter of debate.  
The lack of workers could have been the result of a reluctance by farmers to raise wages 
enough to persuade people to do farm work, said a farm labor economist.  

SHRINKING WATER SUPPLIES IMPERIL FARMERS (113 Wall Street Journal 2/10) 
Dwindling water supplies are compounding economic woes in Californias Central Valley, 
causing farmers to leave fields fallow and confront the prospect of going under.  The 
states water supply has dropped precipitously of late.  California is locked in the third 
year of one of its worst droughts on record, with reservoirs holding as little as 22 percent 
of capacity.  On top of that, a federal judge last year issued a ruling in an environmental 
lawsuit that could restrict diversions to farmers by as much as one-third, as part of an 
effort to save an endangered minnow, the Delta smelt.  The cutbacks hit big and small 
farmers in Californias $20 billion-a-year agriculture industry.  The article quotes managers 
at one farm who say they plan to sideline 9,000 of the farms 11,000 acres that they used 
to plant with tomatoes, onions, broccoli and other vegetables.  The farm has been 
reducing production for two years because of declining water, and now must cut even 
more than planned.  

TROUBLED PEANUT PLANT DID SELL TO RETAILERS (114 Atlanta Journal-Constitution 
2/10) Contrary to its previous statements, Peanut Corp. of America now says it sold 
products directly to retail outlets.  As a result of the companys prior failure to 
acknowledge those sales, the retail items have not been named in the federal list of 
almost 1,800 products recalled in the salmonella outbreak.  The retailers include Dollar 
Tree Stores, Dollar General, 99 Cent Stuff and 99 Cent Only stores, the company said in a 
press release.  Peanut Corp. had previously said it sold only to institutions such as 
hospitals and other food processing firms that used its products as ingredients for 
products sold in stores.  Federal agents on Monday raided the companys processing plant 
and headquarters.  A senior congressional aide with knowledge of the raids said search 
warrants were executed by the FBI at the Peanut Corp. plant in Blakely, Ga., and at the 
companys headquarters in Lynchburg, Va.

COMPANYS VIRGINIA PLANT CITED LAST YEAR (115 USA Today 2/10) A Virginia plant 
owned by the same company linked to the salmonella outbreak in peanut products was 
cited last year for inadequate conditions, including mouse droppings, a live bird inside the 
plant and mold, according to Virginia state inspection records.  The Tidewater Blanching 
Plant in Suffolk, Va., is a subsidiary of Peanut Corp. of America.  Its Georgia plant is 
linked to the outbreak that has sickened 575 people.  At Tidewater, peanuts are blanched 
to remove the skins before they are shipped to PCAs Georgia plant or to other customers 
for roasting and further processing, a plant manager said.  Tidewater is not involved in 
the current outbreak.  The Food and Drug Administration inspected the Virginia plant in 
January after the outbreak was under way.  No objectionable conditions were noted, it 
says.  

HEALTH RISKS MAY REACH FAR BEYOND REPORTED VICTIMS (116 USA Today 2/10) 
The article leads with an account of a Virginia child who contracted a salmonella infection 
after eating peanut butter crackers on a vacation trip.  The boy has recovered, but he is 
one of more than 538 people across the nation who became sick after they ate 
contaminated peanut butter or foods containing tainted peanut paste from a Peanut Corp. 
of America plant in Georgia.  The conventional wisdom among epidemiologists is that for 
each case of salmonellosis that is reported, more than 38 other people get sick but dont 
go to their doctor or get tested.  So this outbreak could be responsible for more than 
20,000 illnesses.  The article goes on to look at other cases of infection, and it reviews the 
characteristics of salmonella and the way its infections make people sick.  

CONSUMERS AT RISK AS GOVERNMENT INCREASINGLY RELIES ON STATES (117 AP 
2/10) The U.S. government has increasingly relied on food safety inspections performed 
by states, where budgets for inspections in many cases have remained stagnant, and 
where overburdened officials are trained less than their federal counterparts and perform 
skimpier reviews, an Associated Press investigation has found.  The thoroughness of 
inspections performed by states has emerged as a key issue in the investigation of the 
national salmonella outbreak traced to a peanut processing plant in Georgia.  The House 
Energy and Commerce investigations subcommittee, which is to hold a hearing Wednesday 
on food safety, scheduled a meeting today to issue a subpoena for Peanut Corp. of 
America President Stewart Parnell, said a senior aide to a member of the panel.  The aide 
said Parnell was otherwise refusing to appear at the hearing.  State investigators 
performed more than half the Food and Drug Administrations food inspections in 2007, 
according to an AP analysis of FDA data.  That represents a dramatic rise from a decade 
ago, when FDA investigators performed three out of four of the federal governments 
investigations.  

SALMONELLA OUTBREAK HAS GA. CONSIDERING FOOD SAFETY LAW (118 AP 2/9) 
Georgia lawmakers are wrestling with whether to adopt new food safety rules after a 
state peanut plant was linked to a salmonella outbreak that has sickened hundreds of 
people nationwide and may have caused as many as eight deaths.  The state Senate 
Agriculture Committee debated a measure Monday that would require food makers to 
alert state inspectors within a day if a plants internal tests show its products are 
contaminated.  The bill would also force the companies to conduct the tests at least once a 
year to supplement surprise state and federal inspections.  The proposal is in response to 
the salmonella outbreak linked to the Peanut Corp. of America plant in Blakely, Ga.  
Investigators say the company knowingly shipped products contaminated with salmonella 
even after internal tests showed they were contaminated.  State law did not require the 
company to share those rest results, and state officials say they might have been able to 
stop the outbreak if they had known about them sooner.  

EDITORIAL AND OPINION

FDA MUST SHIFT PRIORITIES (119 USA Today 2/10) A commentary says the Food and 
Drug Administration spent a decade to set a standard for how many peanuts needed to be 
in peanut butter before food companies could call it peanut butter.  How, the writer asks, 
could the same agency allow tons of the stuff to become contaminated with a deadly 
bacterium and evade detection, even though the food maker itself was aware of the 
dangerous adulteration?  He says the two regulatory efforts  setting the standard for 
peanut butter and ensuring its safety  show that the agencys priorities are out of 
proportion.  He urges FDA to adopt a risk-based regulatory mind-set, focusing its 
resources on where the greatest consumer dangers lurk.  He calls for increased 
authority for FDA; tougher requirements for firms to report positive test results for 
pathogens; and a better computer system to help FDA to sort through such reports.  He 
urges funding for developing better scientific tools to isolate contaminants.  And he 
argues that FDAs food safety functions do not need to be split off into a separate 
agency.  Part of its problem, he says, is the disparate and far-flung nature of the 
agencys various functions.  Congress exacerbates the strain on FDA by foisting on it 
new responsibilities every time a consumer cause clbre crops up.  He concludes: 
Long-standing preoccupations, and mission creep, divert too much of FDAs attention 
from pressing tasks.  FDA needs to more tightly focus on the areas that pose the biggest 
risks to consumers.  

TOUGHER REGULATION, BETTER COOPERATION NEEDED ON FOOD SAFETY (120 
Baltimore Sun 2/9) An editorial says the salmonella outbreak is the latest scandal to 
highlight a recurring problem  the inability of the Food and Drug Administration to 
properly safeguard 80 percent of the food American eat.  It calls for overhaul of the 
antiquated law that prevented FDA from ordering a recall of contaminated products 
without the manufacturers permission.  It calls on Congress to act on legislation to give 
the agency recall power and provide regulatory reforms aimed at stiffening food 
oversight.  Bills before Congress would also increase FDA inspections of food production 
plants.  The editorial also calls for increased inspection of imported food.  It says reforms 
should go beyond FDA to include USDA and the Centers for Disease Control and 
Prevention.  A single authoritative voice is needed to inform the public on food-related 
infectious disease outbreaks and food safety standards, it says.  It also calls on growers 
to help protect the food supply with periodic independent testing, inspections of food 
sources and voluntary recalls of tainted food.  

PEANUT BUTTER AND JEOPARDY (121 Orlando Sentinel 2/9) An editorial notes that for 
the past three years, the Government Accountability Office has put food safety on its list 
of high-risk challenges facing Congress and the president.  GAO warned that the 
governments ability to safeguard the nations food supply is hindered by a fragmented, 
poorly coordinated system involving 15 federal agencies administering at least 30 laws.  
The editorial says growers as well as consumers have a stake in a better system, since 
they can  and have  suffered losses when produce has been blamed for outbreaks of 
illness.  The editorial reviews findings at the Georgia peanut plant at the center of the 
latest salmonella outbreak, and it notes the limited authority of the Food and Drug 
Administration to react to the companys violations.  FDA is belatedly getting more 
money and staff, but the editorial says Congress can further strengthen the food safety 
system by creating national standards for fresh produce, along with improving 
coordination among federal and state agencies and requiring food makers to submit 
safety plans.  It adds that Congress should mandate that imported food meet FDA 
standards.  

AGRICULTURE AND TRADE PRESS

AGRI-PULSE 2/9
(122) Vilsack warns major farm program changes ahead

AGWEB.COM 2/9
(123) Jim Wiesemeyer: The Week Ahead

BROWNFIELD 2/9
(124) Humane Society at work in Midwestern state legislatures
(125) Vilsack leans toward single food safety agency

DELTA FARM PRESS 2/9
(126) Vilsack to speak at USA Rice conference

USAGNET 2/9
(127) Corn growers group calls Minnesota ethanol study faulty

DTN 2/9
(128) Amendment cuts USDA computer funding
(129) February crop report numbers could get more attention than usual
(130) ACRE offers better defense in years of low farm income

MEATINGPLACE 2/9
(131) Judge dismisses USDA inspector suit against Hormel, QPP
(132) USDA to meet with pork producers affected by Meadowbrook closure

AND ALSO

DOUGHNUT RUN RAISES $35,000 (133 AP 2/10) In a charity race Saturday, more than 
5,000 runners ran two miles to a downtown Raleigh, N.C., Krispy Kreme shop, at a dozen 
glazed doughnuts each, and returned to North Carolina State University in less than an 
hour.  Thats 2,400 calories and 144 grams of fat consumed while burning about 400 
calories during the run.  The student-run Krispy Kreme Challenge raised $35,000 for the 
North Carolina Childrens Hospital.  

NETWORK NEWS

Monday, Feb. 9

ABC:	 Arson probe in Aussie fires

NBC:	Wildfires rip through a huge area near Melbourne, Australia, leaving 160 dead

Saturday, Feb. 7

NBC:	Secretary of agriculture on the front line of effort to modernize how government 
works to protect consumers

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