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UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

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GRAIN INSPECTION ADVISORY COMMITTEE

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WEDNESDAY

JUNE 22, 2022

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The meeting convened at the National 

Grain Center, 10383 North Ambassador Drive, 

Kansas City, Missouri at 8:30 a.m., Matthew 

Kerrigan, Chair, presiding.

GIAC MEMBERS PRESENT: 

MATTHEW KERRIGAN, Chair

JANICE COOPER, Vice Chair

CHRISTOPHER FREDERKING 

DAVID AYERS

CHARLES BIRD

CURT ENGEL

NICHOLAS FRIANT, Secretary

PHILIP GARCIA

BARBARA GROVE

RYAN KUHL

JOHN MORGAN

KURT ROSENTRATER*

ROBERT SINNER

JIMMY WILLIAMS
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ALSO PRESENT: 

MELISSA BAILEY, Associate Administrator, AMS

ANTHONY GOODEMAN, FMD Director

ED JHEE, TSD Director

ARTHUR NEAL, Deputy Administrator, FGIS

TIM NORDEN, Chief Scientist

BYRON REILLY, IAD Director

DENISE RUGGLES, Executive Program Analyst

KARLA WHALEN, QACD Director

*participating virtually
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CONTENTS

Call to Order/Roll Call/Welcome ............... 4

Greetings ..................................... 5

FGIS Program Updates ......................... 19

Discuss Industry Issues ..................... 145

Public Comments ............................. 230

Wrap-up Discussions on Industry Issues ...... 232

Adjourn
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P R O C E E D I N G S

8:30 a.m.

MR. KERRIGAN: I'd like to start our 

meeting here; let's start at 8:30. Calling to 

order the Grain Inspection Advisory Committee 

meeting, June 22nd.

At this time I would like to take roll 

call of our GIAC members.

Ryan Kuhl.

MR. KUHL: Here.

MR. KERRIGAN: David Ayers.

MR. AYERS: Here.

MR. KERRIGAN: Robert Sinner.

MR. SINNER: Here.

MR. KERRIGAN: Janice Cooper.

MS. COOPER: Here.

MR. KERRIGAN: Jimmy Williams.

MR. WILLIAMS: Here.

MR. KERRIGAN: Curt Engel.

MR. ENGEL: Here.

MR. KERRIGAN: Nick Friant.
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MR. FRIANT: Here.

MR. KERRIGAN: John Morgan.

MR. MORGAN: Here.

MR. KERRIGAN: Philip Garcia.

MR. GARCIA: Here.

MR. KERRIGAN: Barb Grove.

MS. GROVE: Here.

MR. KERRIGAN: Chris Frederking.

MR. FREDERKING: Here.

MR. KERRIGAN: Chuck Bird.

MR. BIRD: Here.

MR. KERRIGAN: And is Kurt on the 

line, Kendra? Okay, we have thumbs up on that. 

So we have all members here present.

Well, welcome, everybody. It's been 

two years since we've had an in-person meeting. 

I appreciate our guests, our members, staff 

members from FGIS and other agencies for kicking 

this off. 

At this time, I'll turn it over to 

Arthur and Melissa for AMS and FGIS introductions 
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and kickoff.

MS. BAILEY: Okay, good morning. 

Everyone can hear me, yes? Okay, great. All 

right, good morning, everyone.

I had the opportunity to meet a number 

of you yesterday informally, so great to see you 

all this morning. I'm Melissa Bailey, I am one 

of two Associate Administrators for the 

Agricultural Marketing Service. I'm just so glad 

to be with you here this morning in Kansas City 

to help kick off this June Grain Inspection 

Advisory Committee meeting. It is nice to see 

some familiar faces from those of you that I did 

meet at the official agency's meeting back in 

April, and I certainly look forward to a 

productive, engaging Advisory Committee meeting 

tonight. So thanks for being here.

As Associate Administrator for the 

Agricultural Marketing Service, I do want to 

first extend my thanks to all of the members who 

are serving on this year's Advisory Committee. 
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At AMS, we only have a few Federal Advisory 

Committees, and those committees develop 

critical, industry-driven recommendations to 

advise the Secretary on how to better support 

U.S. Agriculture. We are glad the grain sector 

is represented as one of those in the AMS cadre 

of FACA Committees.

Our new involvement in this committee 

does take time for calls, coordination, and 

attendance of meetings like this one. I want to 

recognize you for contributing your time and 

thank you for your effort, your commitment, and 

truly your sacrifices. I do know it takes time 

away from your businesses, your organizations to 

be here, and that you're able to participate and 

contribute to the betterment truly of the U.S. 

grain market.

Today before I turn it over to Arthur, 

I would like to share just a few kind of insights 

from USDA headquarters before the meeting truly 

gets underway. The first update is something 
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I've been working on for the last couple of years 

here now. I didn't think I'd spend a couple of 

years working on supply chain issues but here we 

are. I know many of you face these every day.

So in terms of the first update, 

really it's focused on supply chain and 

transportation. At the official agency's 

meeting, there was some robust discussion during 

that meeting around the transportation challenges 

that face the U.S. grain industry. These are 

pervasive as you know at the port, in trucking, 

and in rail. To address these challenges, USDA 

does continue to roll out support with AMS' help 

for things such as pop-up container yards that 

target U.S. AG products at the ports of Oakland 

and Seattle, and most recently if you saw our 

announcement, we just did one up in Houston. 

Specifically, AMS is providing 

support, financial support to cover up certain 

upgrade costs for yards that will hasten 

container access and facilitate AG exports at 
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those ports. We're also working with our sister 

agency, the Farm Service Agency, to provide a 

payment per container to incentivize exports, 

specifically of U.S. AG products at these ports 

as well.

In addition to those sort of real onthe-ground actions that we're taking, USDA has 

leaned in significantly on railroad service 

issues, which I'm sure many of you face or are 

aware of in your day-to-day business. 

Specifically, our Deputy Secretary, and I 

mentioned this at the official agency's meeting 

because it was literally while we were there, she 

testified at the Surface Transportation Board 

hearing in late April. At the STB hearing, she 

emphasized just how serious the railroad issues 

have become for our farmers and ranchers, and 

requested that STB move from deliberation to 

action on many of the service issues that have 

plagued the rail industry and, in turn, U.S. 

Agriculture for far too many years.
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Now, as a result of USDA's advocacy, 

STB recently announced that it will now require 

the major railroad providers to submit all 

service recovery plans as well as provide 

additional data and regular progress reports on 

rail service, operations, and employment. These 

measures are meant to inform the STB's assessment 

of further actions, all of which the USDA 

continues to comment on, and that may be 

warranted to address the acute issues that face 

the rail industry and will help continue to 

promote industry-wide transparency, 

accountability, and improvements in rail service. 

We'll be continuing to work on these issues in 

the coming months and perhaps years as these 

issues seem to stretch for many, many months and 

require sort of some long-term solutions.

The other update I wanted to provide 

from DC today is to highlight Secretary Vilsack's 

recent announcement in June on food system 

transformation. When the COVID-19 pandemic 
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began, USDA had made significant investments 

through our Pandemic Assistance Program, 

providing truly immediate relief to producers, 

businesses, food workers, and others on the 

ground. Now, as the pandemic has evolved, and 

Russia's war on Ukraine has caused supply chain 

disruptions and as you all know particularly in 

the grain sector, it became clear that we cannot 

go back to the food system we had before. The 

Biden-Harris administration and USDA recognized 

we must strengthen the food system across the 

supply chain from how our food is produced to how 

it's purchased, all the steps in between and 

including at the other side, transportation.

To support this vision, Secretary 

Vilsack outlined four goals for USDA's food 

system transformation framework: first, 

building a more resilient food supply chain that 

provides more and better market options for 

consumers and producers while reducing carbon 

footprints; second, creating a fairer food system 
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that combats market dominance and helps producers 

and consumers gain more power in the marketplace 

by creating new and more, better local market 

options; third, making nutritious food more 

accessible and affordable for consumers; and 

fourth, emphasizing equity throughout.

Now, in announcing this framework, the 

Secretary also detailed numerous investments that 

USDA has or would be making through American 

Rescue Plan funds to support these goals. AMS 

has been right at the forefront of that, I can 

attest to. We are heavily engaged in developing 

and implementing these funding programs, 

particularly those that are related to building 

new and better markets and strengthening supply 

chains.

A few examples that might be of broad 

supply chain interest to this committee include, 

first, providing up to $600 million in financial 

assistance to support food supply chain 

infrastructure that is not covered by our ongoing 
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work in the meat and poultry processing program. 

So this could be for any of those other 

industries, especially crops, grain, et cetera, 

that we have not invested in so far. 

Independently-owned and available infrastructure 

such as processing facilities are in short supply 

but essential to creating a more resilient food 

system. So USDA will make these investments 

through this new program to address the limited 

processing distribution storage and aggregation 

capacity for a variety of food sectors including 

high equipment costs, lack of competition, and 

limited supply chain and value chain 

coordination.

The second program, just to highlight 

for you all, is that USDA will be investing up to 

$400 million to create regional food business 

centers. This is a project that the AMS team has 

been working on for many months and we are glad 

to see the preliminary announcement in June. 

These business centers will provide coordination, 
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technical assistance, and capacity building 

support to small and mid-size food and farm 

businesses, particularly those focused at that 

sort of middle of the supply chain, on 

processing, distribution, aggregation and market 

access challenges.

The business development needs of food 

businesses are certainly distinct from other 

small businesses, and existing supports in the 

government such as those available through Small 

Business Administration are insufficient to 

support robust and local regional markets where 

food businesses truly need to flourish. These 

centers will be designed to target support to 

under-served communities, in particular regions 

as identified by the applicants for this program. 

We expect to have a funding announcement for 

applicants available later this summer.

Those are just a few examples that I 

thought would be of interest to the committee 

from this announcement. We can certainly share 
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the full details for those of you who are 

interested in learning more about the full scope 

of all the investments.

In closing, today, across the supply 

chain, AMS continues to work steadfast to help 

support the AG industry, certainly including the 

grain sector at the forefront which connects to 

so many facets of U.S. Agriculture from food, 

feed, fuel, and from local to global markets. We 

certainly look forward to the committee's 

engagement and recommendations that are coming 

out of today's meeting. I was excited to see a 

pretty robust agenda, so I look forward to 

hearing those discussions. It's truly an honor 

to be with you today and join you in this very 

important work. Thank you so much.

(Applause.)

MR. KERRIGAN: Thank you, Melissa. 

MR. NEAL: Do you all hear me okay? 

There it is. I was looking for green and it's 

supposed to be red. Sorry about that. Thank 
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you, Melissa.

Before I get into some of the FGIS 

updates, I do want to share some housekeeping 

notes with us today. In the case of an 

emergency, there are some designated routes I 

want us to keep in mind. If there's a fire, the 

fire alarm will sound and we want everybody to 

walk out of the double doors right over here where 

you see Cheyenne standing with the exit sign 

above. Walk out of those doors and we're going 

to make a right and walk out the double doors to 

the patio. In the case of a tornado or some 

inclement weather that could, you know, shake and 

rattle our building, we'll walk out of this door 

to my right with the exit sign, we'll line up in 

the hall and we'll go downstairs to the basement 

area. So be mindful of that just in case of an 

emergency such as that. Hopefully, we will not 

have one.

At our last Grain Inspection Advisory 

Committee meeting, I think I heard that you all 
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wanted to hear less talking from me and more 

talking from my staff. No, just kidding. But 

we're going to have some pretty good updates from 

our staff today. I'm going to share just a few 

with you from really mostly around our rulemaking efforts.

There are a number of standards and 

rules that we had shared via the Federal Register 

and I just wanted to share some perspective and 

updates with you on those. First is the 

exceptions to the geographic boundaries rule. We 

are in the process of finalizing that rule. The 

goal is to have that rule published by the end of 

summer, and that has been the goal. We have 

drafted that rule and it's going through the 

review process, and our goal as I said is to have 

it published by the end of summer.

When the United States Grain Standards 

Act was re-authorized, there was a requirement 

that FGIS or USDA conduct a review of geographic 

boundaries. That review has been completed and 
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is going into legal review this week to enter 

into the clearance process so it can be published 

as well. So we're making good progress on that 

review.

There are three grading and inspection 

standards that we had published in the Federal 

Register for comment, and those were canola, 

wheat and sorghum. Those had been delayed 

primarily because of increasing priorities with 

the geographic boundaries review process and the 

exceptions final rule. We are getting them back 

on track with an expectation to have those into 

the clearance process by next month.

Another update is related to user 

fees, or not user fees but our user fee cap. 

There was a Grain Inspection Advisory Committee 

recommendation I think in 2018 for USDA to remove 

the user fee cap of $55 million. What that means 

is that FGIS cannot spend more than $55 million 

of user fees on any given year. That cap we 

believed as you all had also recommended should 
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only pertain to grain inspection work, grain 

inspection and weighing; however, it's been 

applied to all of our user fee activities 

including, you know, rice and pulses which fall 

under the Agricultural Marketing Act, not the 

U.S. Grain Standards Act. So it can sometimes 

create unwanted strain on our ability to spend. 

We have not crossed the cap. We've 

come close to the cap. However, as we work to 

right size fees in the upcoming months, we will 

probably begin, if we're successful in right 

sizing those fees, generating more revenue which 

will require us to spend more. But in addition 

as we come and deliberate during our time 

together, we want to explore how we can leverage 

more technology in grain inspection which will 

cost us or require us to spend more in terms of 

research and development. We're going to need 

to spend in that arena as well. 

So we haven't made significant 

progress on adjusting the user fee cap. We had 
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started and then administration changed, so we 

have to start all over again with educating 

people about the cap and in getting the buy in to 

support the exploration of efforts or ways that 

we can address that particular challenge. So 

that is something that is still on the table, on 

the agenda for us to accomplish.

Any questions on anything that I've 

shared thus far?

Okay, so I'm going to pause here with 

my updates and I'm going to turn it over to Denise 

Ruggles who will come, she's already here, and 

she will give us an update on the FGIS budget.

MS. RUGGLES: Thank you. Good 

morning. Like Arthur said, I'm going to discuss 

the FGIS financial overview of our user fee 

programs.

Posted on our public website, you will 

find the second quarter of our user fee accounts 

for the revenue, the obligations, the earnings 

and losses for this year through the second 
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quarter, and the operating reserves. We will be 

updating the third quarter in July, towards 

probably the 25th of July. 

So the United States Grain Standards, 

as you can see for the inspection and weighing 

program, often called our export program, but it 

includes other programs such as, you know, scale 

program and appeals and such. The revenue we've 

brought in so far is $16.8 million, obligations 

at $18.6 million. So we've had a loss of $1.8 

million. The operating reserve has dropped down 

to $5.2 million. 

The official agency account is our 

supervision account for grain inspection. That 

account has brought in $383,000 in revenue. That 

account has now been suspended on fee collection 

so that revenue will not increase. We are 

suspended for a year, and I'll explain why when 

I get to the operating reserve balance and how 

many months of reserve we had at the end of the 

fiscal year. Obligations we spent about $620,000 
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through the second quarter, so we've had a 

negative of $200,000. So the operating reserve 

is about $1.8 million at the end of second 

quarter.

On the Agricultural Marketing Act, 

just to fill you in on the rice account, we 

brought in $1.6 million and we have expended $2.8 

million. So we've had a loss of $1.2 million. 

The operating reserve in that account is at $4 

million.

The commodities program also on the 

Agricultural Marketing Act is about $1 million in 

revenue, $1.4 million in expenses, so we've had 

a little over $367,000 loss with a reserve of 

about $1.5 million.

So for the export account, we call it 

the grain inspection and weighing program, you 

can see the five years of the revenue, 

obligations, the surpluses we had and the 

reserves, and how many months that equated to. 

As you can see in '17, we were at about 7.1. 
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This account does have a trigger of fee 

adjustments at 4.5 months with a maximum of five 

percent increase or decrease. It's two percent 

per million with a maximum of five percent. 

So in fiscal year '17 when we ended, 

we were at 7.1. In '18, we were at 6.6. At the 

end of '19, we were at five months. At the end 

of '20, we dropped down to 3.4 which triggered 

the increase. Then last year we were at 2.2 

which also triggered the increase.

To show it on the graph, the green is 

our revenue that we've brought in from 2013 

through '22 second quarter. The red is our 

obligations. As you can see, the previous table, 

that was shown through second quarter about the 

$6.8 million in revenue, the $8.6 million in 

obligations. Then the purple line that we have 

on there is our metric tons and we have brought 

in about, we've inspected 72.5 metric tons under 

the inspection and weighing program.

Supervision account for the official 
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agencies, this shows '17 through '21. However, 

at 47 months, we had suspended the fees and they 

were reinstated I think in 2020, fiscal year 

2020. So that's why you see the climb from 11 

months in 2020 to '21. In '21 we had 18 months. 

That account has a trigger when we have more than 

six months, or less than six months on the fee 

and statement we adjust fees. Those fees have 

been suspended for '22.

Here's the graph of that account 

showing the revenue. You can see in '17 how 

there was no green bar, the fees collection was 

suspended. There was a little bit in '18 but 

that was related to designation amendments. In 

'19, there was no revenue. In '20, again, 

another designation amendment. Then in '21, you 

can see that the revenue was reinstated with the 

tonnage fee. This account we brought in about 

221.5 million metric tons that we had 

supervision.

On the rice account, we've brought in 
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like I said the $1.6 million in revenue, and we've 

had expenses of about $2.8 million this year. 

The reserve is at $4 million. You can see the 

reserve account is dropping down to bring it down 

to the six months of reserve.

This is the commodity inspection 

program. For '21, the revenue that was brought 

in that account is truly the CARES Act funding 

that helped supplement this account as we could 

not make, we have been unable to make any fee 

adjustments in this program. So you can see for 

this year, we have brought in $1 million in 

revenue, we've expended about $1.4 million in 

obligations, and the reserve amount right now is 

at $1.5 million.

On the fees assessment, we did the 

annual review of the grain inspection program. 

As I said, we adjusted the fees by five percent. 

There was a delay in implementation so they 

didn't take effect until February. 

The supervision account also went 
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through the annual review. Those fees were 

suspended effective February. 

The rice fees had a fee change that 

went into effect October 1st of 2021. We have 

publicly announced the fiscal year '23 fee change 

that will go into effect October 1st of 2022. 

We are currently still reviewing the 

commodity inspection program, and as you can see 

those fees have not been adjusted. The 

inspection fees haven't been adjusted since May 

4th of 2001 and the laboratory testing fees for 

TSD haven't been adjusted since February 12th of 

2004. That's all I have.

MR. NEAL: So as you can see, we've 

got a lot of fee work to do. With today's 

changing environment and inflation, we can't 

sustain operations at those 2001-2002 rates. 

We're going to have to, we're going to be really 

busy reviewing our fees and working with the 

various industries that we support on adjustments 

so that we have alignment and agreement. So 
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thank you, Denise, for sharing that update.

Any other questions about the review 

of the FGIS user fees?

MR. FRIANT: Arthur, just real quick. 

Are those slides already on the Advisory 

Committee website or will they be?

MR. NEAL: All of the slides are 

available online on the website.

MR. FRIANT: Thank you.

MR. NEAL: Yes, sir. Now, we'll hear 

from Ms. Karla Whelan, Director of Quality 

Assurance and Compliance Division.

MS. WHELAN: You've got it, perfect. 

Good morning, everyone. I'm going to do a fast 

update for you on QACD major tasks that we have 

going on.

The first one I want to cover is 

agency fees. You may recall in February of this 

year, FGIS made a decision to change its policy 

to segregate out the FGIS portion of the fees. 

So that actually is a huge assistance, hopefully 
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to the industry as well as us. So every time 

Denise has to do a fee change, we don't 

necessarily have to go through an immediate fee 

structure change for the OAs. So that was a huge 

thing we did in February.

The AMA services agreements, this has 

been about a year-long process. We are taking 

the historical FGIS AMA agreements, transferring 

them and updating them into the AMS. You may 

recall FGIS moved into AMS cooperative agreements 

process. At present, we have 31 ready to go 

through clearance through USDA. That actual 

process has been delayed a couple of times 

waiting on the vaccine situation and how that was 

going to apply. So we have not moved that as 

fast as we would have hoped, but we have 31 that 

are ready to go now.

Quick thing out of that, we did 

discover that there was some confusion on AMA 

licenses, what staff needed what license. So 

through that process, a document was developed to 
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bring that forward for everyone to have a better 

understanding. Also that allowed us to see where 

some people maybe did not have the proper 

licenses for what they thought they needed to do. 

So that is one of the reasons we only have 31 

ready to go; there's a few more still in process.

The next thing I want to cover is 

designation audits. So major, major thing that 

my staff does is the designation audits prior to 

someone reapplying. This I just want to show 

you, it's a quick snapshot, actually a sample out 

of one of our audit reports.

So these are the actual statutory 

areas that we look at in the audits. Just to 

mention a few, facilities, equipment, personnel, 

preserving system integrity, training 

requirements, conducting training, official 

inspection fees, et cetera. So each time someone 

is audited, they will get an analysis like this. 

Our auditors do team score so we take out any 

bias or if there's some confusion. We are trying 
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to do that now, so this is just an example. 

There's more color bars, but I wanted to give you 

a good one here as an example.

This, we've done some analysis on the 

actual findings from the audits in 2021. So 

during the pandemic, the staff did develop a, I'm 

going to say virtual audits. What you just saw 

is an example of that. This is trying to show 

where we found some problem areas. I think it's 

interesting that it's a lot of little problem 

areas, okay. Hopefully, we do this analysis with 

this year's audits and see where there are some 

areas where we may need to do some re-education 

or training.

The staff will also try to work where 

there's confusion, if something is not clear in 

our directives. We'll work with policy to try 

and get that clarified and not apply negative 

inference to someone who's confused by something 

that we had done. So this also helps us to try 

and see where those areas are.
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Some of the biggest ones are time is 

not recorded, not maintaining FGIS 944s, 

fumigation records not maintained. So those are 

the top three on this analysis.

The pink is miscellaneous. We have 

done some quick analysis on that. So if you want 

more detail on that, we can do that.

Designation audits we have coming up 

and/or in progress for 2022. You can see that 

list right here. We're running around 12 to 14 

per year. It's a pretty heavy schedule. We're 

running honestly about a third of our staff at 

the moment, so that is probably the biggest 

struggle that I have.

On this, I want to also mention, 

partly because of staffing the USDA clearance 

process, we have tried to consolidate the FRs 

that provide notice of opportunities and also 

provide designation audit awards. So we are 

trying to do that twice a year with a template 

that will hopefully get us through OGC and the 
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Department of Clearance Process much quickly. We 

just put two more into clearance. 

So designation opportunities that 

will open coming up will be Alabama; Essex, 

Illinois; Missouri; Hastings, Nebraska; 

Aberdeen, South Dakota, and the Washington areas. 

The designation awards that we will soon, 

hopefully, be publishing will cover about 25 

areas, and I'm not going to list those, but if 

you want them, I've got them.

Another big area when I started with 

FGIS was the export registration. This is a 

multifaceted, multi-divisional project. You'll 

maybe hear a little bit from Byron on this. In 

trying to better market, inform, make our 

internal processes a little bit more clear on 

this, we have been working on this all year. We 

are not done but we have made some significant 

progress. Eventually, there should be better 

information on the website. 

We are trying to do real-time updates 
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to the web on who has been registered. It should 

be by January 1st, but people trickle in. So 

we're working on that, and then we intend to do 

the same on the waiver side of the house. So 

this is just the process that we're going on. It 

is taking us quite a bit of time to work through 

different issues.

Another major aspect of this is trying 

to facilitate exporter needs through the China 

decree situation which Byron can speak to as 

well.

The last area that was on my beginning 

slide was the Q&P program. We are also working

to replace that with the internal audit program. 

Again, staffing has been a real challenge for us, 

so we're a little bit more delayed there than I 

would like and I'm sure you would like. But 

hopefully, in the fall of this year we'll have 

something for there.

I can take questions later I guess 

because we're running on time, right? Good.
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I guess there's time, I spoke fast.

Okay, are you up or Byron I think?

MR. GOODEMAN: I am. You go, Karla.

MS. WHALEN: Thanks, Tony.

(Applause.)

MR. GOODEMAN: All right. Good 

morning, good morning, how's it going? Doing all 

right? Let's get this all set up here, excuse 

me, while I'm pulling this up, the camera crew, 

did you get my direction notes? How many cameras 

do we have? There's like three or four? I'm 

just thinking like a three-quarter and soft 

focus, something like that, okay. 

Speaking of cameras, my wife was doing 

a presentation kind of like this for work and she 

was really excited about it. It's kind of a big 

deal, she doesn't do it a whole lot. She asked 

me to record it. And so I'm in the back recording 

the thing and it's kind of long, about halfway 

through my battery dies. It is not good, I'll 

never hear the end of it.
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Let's see. I'll start my time work. 

Kendra tells me that we pay by the minute and not 

the word for the transcription service, so I do 

want to make sure that I don't go over my time 

again as I've been prone to do. All right, and 

Kendra's got the signs for me all set up, we'll 

be all right.

Good morning. My name is Tony 

Goodeman, the Director for the FGIS Field 

Management Division. We oversee the field 

operations here at FGIS. We've got eight field 

offices. I'll talk a little bit more about those 

in a minute and also policy staff. I like to 

start out with jokes because usually people don't 

laugh at my jokes and laugh at my policy, so it 

kind of comforts me knowing that maybe they're 

just laughing at the silly camera joke from 

earlier. We'll go ahead and get started here.

I'm going to talk about a quick market 

update, our prior Advisory Committee 

recommendations, some staffing priorities here 
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within the division, COVID and continuity of 

service, our Grand Forks field office closing, 

and our Portland office status.

2022 has been kind of wild. Just like 

2020 and 2021, we've had a lot of odd events in 

the agricultural sector and grain sector. We've 

had the war in Ukraine, the drought in Brazil, 

continuing COVID issues around the world. We've 

had some planting delays this year, especially in 

the northern corn belt. We've had a major 

drought last year in the wheat growing areas, and 

this year here in the heart of winter areas, a 

drought in France, and then a lot of price 

fluctuations.

You might think, as I did a few months 

ago, well, there's just going to be a wild 

increase in U.S. grain exports, right, I mean, 

with all these difficulties around the world, 

we've got good prices. Thus far we haven't seen 

that big increase. However, the USDA increased 

the 2021-22 soybean export sales estimates in the 
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June WASDE due to reduced export forecasts from 

Brazil. The Russia grain conflict continues with 

the port closures, so if that continues into the 

fall, that could continue to be a major 

challenge. So we could be sought after as a 

residual supplier if those struggles continue.

Last year was the biggest year all 

time -- I'm sorry, yes, was the biggest year all 

time for U.S. grain exports since we've been 

keeping track. We exported over 150 million 

metric tons of grain. This year, that's the last 

bar on the right there, the green is a projection. 

That's nothing sophisticated really, it just 

takes in what we've been doing so far and 

continues that current pace.

Right now we're on pace for 11.5 

percent below last year, but again, since last 

year was a record, if we continue on our current 

pace we'd be the third highest all time. So 

while we are below, still a very big year.

Corn. Corn and soybeans are both off 
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of last year's records, but they're ahead of 

their five-year paces. Mexico is our number one 

destination for -- there's an opportunity to edit 

out at least, right? No?

Mexico is our number one destination 

totaling 28 percent, and China and Japan 

following behind that. Corn to Mexico is at an 

all-time record pace.

Soybeans, again, down from last year's 

record but ahead of the five-year average. China 

continues to be our number one designation for 

soybeans. 56 percent of all soybean exports go 

to China. Mexico and Egypt are far behind. 

However, the U.S. exports to Mexico are also at 

an all-time record pace like corn.

Sorghum. More sorghum to China is the 

big story over here. Ninety percent of our 

sorghum exports go to China. Mexico behind that. 

We're a bit ahead of last year and way ahead of

the five-year average at 53 percent. March of 

this year was an all-time record of the amount of 
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sorghum exported to China in a single month, over 

double what we do in a normal month. So you see 

that big jump there.

Wheat, that's actually not a typo. 

The last year in the blue there tracks with the 

five-year average, a remarkable consistency 

there. Unfortunately, this year, a bit down over 

the five-year average and compared to last year. 

Mexico is our number one destination. It's more 

parity in the buyers here with Philippines and 

Japan following behind.

I'll talk briefly about some of the 

prior Advisory Committee recommendations. This 

is one from I think a couple of years ago, to 

look at stowage exams via drones. We wanted to 

take into a project, not necessarily to use 

drones specifically but to examine the 

environment, who else is using them, is anybody 

doing this now, what kind of requirements are 

there, either within USDA or just generally in 

the commercial side to use the drones.
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We also have, you know stowage exams 

are one of the dangerous jobs that we have in 

FGIS. We go out oftentimes, you know, most of 

our stowage exams are conducted in the middle of 

a river, whether it be in Astoria, Oregon or down 

in Mississippi. So we go out on a launch boat, 

we hop from that launch boat to a gangway onto 

the ship, and then once on the ship we go down in 

the holds which could be, you know, 50-60 feet 

deep. That's a pretty, and we do have 

unfortunately some injuries from that, so we 

wanted to look at the cost of technology versus 

what we're spending, you know, to BCP claims.

We also, as referenced, we have fixed 

cameras approved now to use on barges and 

railcars for stowage. So we've got our railcar 

stowage exam. Actually most of our railcar 

stowage exams now are conducted with cameras. 

It's a fixed camera, it doesn't have to be nearly 

as sophisticated because it doesn't have much 

distance. We just recently in the last few years 
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approved barge camera storage. That's a much 

more robust system because of the size of the 

barges. So we have some precedent there.

Regulatory requirements are 

complicated. Needing a line of sight is a big 

hindrance because, you know, in a perfect world 

you'd be able to fly a drone from our office or 

somewhere on the shore as opposed to having to go 

out. There's a requirement that we have a line 

of sight with that drone at all times, and that 

does make it more complicated if you ever want to 

have it fly some distance, frankly, or certainly 

into a hold where you wouldn't be able to see it. 

You also need a pilot license to operate the drone 

commercially which, it's not totally burdensome 

but it's another, I couldn't just go out and fly 

one for work purposes right now. I'd have to go 

out and get licensed and there's some training 

and certification requirements there. There 

also could be port restrictions depending on the 

specific port or what airplanes or airports might 
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be nearby.

So we'd like to continue to engage 

with you all in industry to gauge interest and 

see if there's any other headways we've been 

taking this project. It's not something where 

we'll start using drones tomorrow, but I think it 

is a very good possibility and potential for us 

to go out and get some licenses, get a drone, you 

know, they're not prohibitively expensive.

My computer is about to restart. This 

is fine timing. Maybe that's the hard shot that 

you have planned here, Kendra.

We talked a couple years about this as 

well, the consolidation of our instructions. So 

as you're probably aware, for anybody that uses 

our instructions, they can be in different 

places. We've got the law, the regulations, 

we've got handbooks, directives. So in a perfect 

world, we'd like to have one web page with links 

to all these instructions in one spot so they're 

easier to find.
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As we've merged with AMS and had some 

updates to the old GIPSA website, some of that 

continuity has been disconnected. So we're 

looking at ways that we can put that more 

straightforward, and also at the same time 

reducing the amount of instructions we have out 

there and consolidating them. So that's an 

ongoing project.

We do have several handbooks in the 

works for this year. The NIRT handbook is being 

posted as well as the moisture, there was a 

moisture handbook update for the new moisture 

meter that was approved this year. We've also 

got a couple in final review, the hops handbook, 

processed commodities coming soon with some minor 

updates, the mycotoxin handbook, NMR weighing and 

equipment, and some new handbooks that will have 

more significant changes, licensing handbook, 

certification.

Then we're going to consolidate some 

of these kind of one-off single directives that 
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have instructions about how to inspect millet or 

cranberry seed or, I'm trying to think of some of 

the others. There's probably about eight or 10, 

to consolidate those into one handbook.

Also the equipment handbook was 

revised to include the LED lighting. So actually 

here in this room, I don't want to steal Ed's 

thunder too much, but here in this room, I think 

in the back section of the training area, we've 

got the new LED lights. It's a good opportunity 

for a light bulb joke. How many fellow employees 

does it take to change a light bulb? I'm not 

going there. Just one, one or two, we're very 

efficient, we're professional, kind of boring. 

Although did you hear about the hipster burned 

his hand? He changed a light bulb before it was 

cool.

Glad to be here in-person. I was 

doing the math, the last time I was here in Kansas 

City was in March of 2020, literally right before 

the lockdowns went into effect. I remember 
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sitting at the Residence Inn, my hotel, and 

watching how Tom Hanks got COVID and NBA shut 

down and all the conference tournaments were 

being canceled. So it's great to be back out 

here in-person.

It's not going away though. We look 

at this map here, every Friday, this is the COVID 

community levels for each county. Let me just 

get this information. There's different rules 

that we follow depending on if the county is in 

low, medium or high status. If a county is in 

medium or high status, we implemented a testing 

program for anybody that's not vaccinated. So 

anybody that's not vaccinated has to take a 

weekly test.

In areas of high transmission of which 

we've had a few in the last month or so, masks 

are required whether you're vaccinated or not. 

So an update there. We have not had any 

interruptions in service. We do have, 

unfortunately, staff that get it from time-to-
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time. We have special quarantine rules.

I think when the CDC changed the 

guidelines this past winter to shorten the 

isolation or quarantine period from 10 days to 

five, I think that was a big difference maker, 

but our staff has been great to work with. You, 

all the industry has been great to work with in 

trying to mitigate COVID as best we can.

Hurricane recovery. Our New Orleans 

field office, the entire area south of Louisiana 

was struck by a major category four hurricane 

last fall, Hurricane Ida. Unlike Hurricane 

Katrina which kind of hit east of New Orleans, 

but badly impacted the population center of New 

Orleans, this one went west of town right up the 

gut of where most of our grain export operations 

are, where our field office is, and where our 

employees live. I want to have a shout out to 

our employees and to the industry for working 

with us to make sure that we're back up and 

running. We're back up and running at the 
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elevator could run the next day, and back up and 

running at other places as soon as they came 

online.

We're looking at ways we can improve 

our hurricane recovery and our response. There 

was an emergency declaration last year and we had 

waivers for companies that couldn't operate their 

elevators and wanted to use some rudimentary 

loading operations, and they were able to operate 

under waivers. It was great to work with APHIS 

on that so they could still get a phyto.

This is my last slide here, a couple 

of staffing updates. The field office managers 

since we last met, we've got a new field office 

manager in League City, Texas, Mr. Jorge Vasquez. 

It was about this time last year that he came in. 

We've got just this spring a new manager in 

Portland, Mr. David Wybell who's our field office 

manager out there. 

We've got a vacancy in New Orleans. 

I want to thank Mr. Andy Ping who couldn't be 
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here today, he's actually acting in New Orleans. 

He's been our acting manager since the hurricane 

down there. And so he's been on detail and we 

really appreciate his help. That vacancy is open 

now and we hope to have a selection soon.

We've got a number of quality 

assurance specialists we look to hire on board. 

Same for technicians. We're undergoing a project 

to provide a more structured training environment 

for our technicians and also testing before they 

come online. We've got a greater position 

announcement that closes today. That's a 

nationwide announcement from most of our offices. 

That's kind of the staffing side.

On the office side, we went through a 

major package, USDA put forward a package for 

congressional approval a year ago I believe it 

was to consolidate our operations in the Pacific 

Northwest and also to close the Grand Forks field 

office. We used to have probably 40 field 

offices in FGIS. We used to have a field office 
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in Wichita, Minneapolis, Indianapolis, field 

offices in Saginaw, Michigan, and they were 

everywhere.

So we went through centralization and 

modernization, we've consolidated them primarily 

here at the National Grain Center in Kansas City. 

So DIOO, the Domestic Inspection Operations 

Office handles most of that work on the domestic 

side or the official agency oversight side. 

Grand Forks was primarily handling pulses and 

we're consolidating those functions here at DIOO. 

As part of that change, the Moscow duty point 

that was under Grand Forks, they're going to 

transition to be under what we're now going to 

call the Pacific Northwest field office. Our 

Olympia office, we're going to consolidate also 

into Portland as well, or into the Pacific 

Northwest office.

That concludes my remarks and bad 

jokes. I can field any questions at this time.

Yes, ma'am?
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MS. COOPER: Can you give us a sense 

of numbers of vacancies, either by category or by 

region? You put some numbers to those to, you 

know, either percentages or number of positions. 

Then a little more information on the plans for 

the PNW field office, when that location is going 

to be, what that timing might be?

MR. GOODEMAN: Yes, sure. On the 

vacancy side, our announcement for ACGs, for 

example, AG commodities graders, those are front 

line graders, it's a career job. It's a journey 

person level job. Our primary pool for that 

would be like current technicians or anybody with 

grain experience. I think our announcement now 

we're looking for 30 or 40, in that ballpark. 

We'd hope to get that many, I think that would be 

ideal.

By office, it kind of varies. New 

Orleans is our biggest area of need I think, 

followed by Portland. We've had a lot of 

turnover in Portland recently. So we're looking 
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to, if we could, you know, hire eight or 10 out 

there. So that's a pretty big deal.

Then in the Pacific Northwest field 

office, we're looking to consolidate those 

operations. In our proposal, we said we'd move 

to Vancouver, Washington. We've been having some 

difficulties in Portland, being downtown 

Portland, and location with customers in 

Washington and Portland. So we're looking to 

relocate to Vancouver; however, it's kind of a 

long process. We're engaged with the General 

Services Administration to find space and that 

can be lengthy.

MS. COOPER: When you say there are 

45 openings, out of how many? What's your total?

MR. GOODEMAN: Oh, yes, we've got I 

think about a 100, low hundreds number of graders 

in the system now. That also includes ones in 

training now. So we're definitely running thin. 

That's made up for by overtime frankly by most 

staff. We definitely need more, we're definitely 
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behind the curve.

MR. FRIANT: Tony, on the 

consolidation project, I guess this is more 

comment than a question, but yes, please, and the 

sooner the better. Finding information today, 

as it's been integrated into AMS, has been very 

difficult compared to the old GIPSA website. So 

I guess, so please continue with that work, and 

if there's anything that we can do as a committee 

or as industry to support that, please let us 

know because I think it's a valuable resource to 

have things in one area or closer to one area 

where it's easier to find the information.

MR. GOODEMAN: Anything else?

All right, let's introduce my 

colleague, my good friend and colleague, Mr. 

Byron Reilly. Byron is the Director for the 

International Affairs Division. Byron, do you 

have a presentation?

MR. REILLY: Yes.

MR. GOODEMAN: All right, let me get 
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this out of the way. It's going to restart 

halfway through so be ready for that. It won't 

let me snooze, and it won't let me leave this 

screen. It really won't let me get off of that 

screen.

MR. KERRIGAN: Does anybody have any 

additional bad jokes for Tony while they work on 

the computer here?

MR. NEAL: Well, while we wait, Tony 

mentioned drone, you know, technology and 

exploring that. As we were kind of looking at 

some of the research, there's research that staff 

had done on the requirements of needing to have 

a license to fly the drone and, you know, the 

cost of drones, wherever you get a license to fly 

the drone, potential accidents with the drone. 

There's a number of facts that we all want to 

have to consider as well as if those people who 

were licensed decided to take a job somewhere 

else, getting somebody else licensed now, just 

the time process involved.
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We were having some off, just kind of 

after-hour conversations and as we, you know, as 

you all talk about agenda items for the next 

meeting or things of that nature, technology will 

probably be one of the things we'd be looking to 

discuss further.

Byron, they got you taken care of?

MR. REILLY: I want to get it up on 

the, I just lost it. How do I get it to project? 

Let me go back.

Okay, good morning. It's a pleasure 

to be here, finally out of the office again. 

It's been a while.

Topics I want to cover briefly are 

international trade issues, the outreach that my 

office has been doing, and I'll close out with 

updating you on the complaints.

What came up in Karla's presentation 

was discussion of the China Decree 177. I just 

wanted to let everybody know this information 

that we provide under this decree to China are a 
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list of all the registered exporters that do go 

through QACD on. My office continually updates 

working with QACD. We also provide a list of our 

export facilities where FGIS has an inspection 

lab and other companies that are under the 15,000 

metric ton exemption who intend to ship to China.

We prepare monthly updates and submit 

them to China. The last one was submitted on 

June 9th. China has been taking anywhere from 

two weeks to two months to update this, but 

they've been doing better than when we first 

started.

One issue that we have encountered is 

that importers in China are now requesting that 

all export documents, particularly the APHIS 

phyto document has the same address and company 

information that are on China's registered 

published list. They have refused to allow some 

shipments in because of this, so we're working 

with APHIS to come up with a solution and get the 

word out. So I've had preliminary talks with 
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APHIS and asked them if we could put a notice on 

their website where they fill out the 

phytosanitary application.

Just a little blurb, if you intend to 

ship to China, please make sure your address is 

the same because we have encountered APHIS 

addresses for the phyto, let's say Exporter XYZ 

(containers) or X shipping yard. Well, that's 

not going to be on China's registration list. So 

we're doing everything we can to facilitate it 

and not disrupt trade for you exporters.

If any of you had a question about 

what's the status of Japan's phytosanitary 

certification, it still goes into effect August 

of '23. I have met with APHIS and they're 

developing a pilot program, a compliance-based 

certification to allow private entities which 

they will train and supervise in how to take 

samples and look for phytosanitary quarantine 

pests, and then APHIS will still continue to 

issue the phyto.
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A new development we encountered is 

weight shortages in Honduras. Cooperators, U.S. 

Wheat, Grains Council, USA Rice have reported 

weight shortages. It started like two years ago 

where they were seeing minimal weight shortage, 

and over the past two years the amount has been 

increasing. Lately, it's three to five percent 

weight shortage, which is huge.

So FGIS, my office, gave a seminar to 

the Hondurans explaining our weighing system and 

how it's the best approach so we don't look or 

point the finger at USDA because we're doing a 

good certification job. We're working with the 

Foreign AG Service, and in fact I suggested to 

them that we have a meeting with USDA cooperator 

groups in the area because they will know more of 

what's going on than what USDA has suspicions of. 

So we're working to get a better handle on this 

and see what we can do, whether or not we can 

invite these officials up to the U.S. to show 

them, but I know they want training. So I 
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proposed a list of questions, detailed questions 

asking for diagrams of the port area, the 

transportation system, how it's moved, and how 

the operations at the port work to give us a 

preliminary update.

As for our outreach, I have been 

working with the Foreign AG Service to educate 

them since before COVID they've hired a lot of 

new people who have had no agricultural training, 

to educate them on our grain industry and what 

FGIS provides. So I first had a session with the 

low junior level professionals, and I recently 

had one with the mid-level career professionals. 

We're proposing to have a series of quarterly 

seminars updating on specific topics on how FGIS 

works together with FAS to resolve trade issues.

We've given several seminars through 

U.S. Grains Council in Honduras, again, on 

weighing, and Japan on U.S. corn quality, we'll 

be giving that in July. We have been asked by 

U.S. Wheat Associates in Santiago to provide a 
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training of their new regional laboratory they're 

setting up there. There's still some work on 

equipment to be upgraded. So hopefully we'll 

have travel restrictions lifted that we'll be 

able to accommodate those requests.

Some of the work that we've been 

doing, we're building up a library of PowerPoint 

presentations and grain grading mats we have 

translated into Arabic, Chinese, Korean, 

Japanese, Spanish. We recently have new updates 

all in French because our North Africa offices, 

we thought we'd provide it with Arabic, but they 

said no, we prefer French. So this year we've 

done a lot of new translations in French, and 

working with Digital Media Group here, we'll be 

updating the grain grading mats that all the 

industry uses for their training.

So I hope to have these available. 

Right now they're available upon request, again, 

because of server space, but if you need any 

presentations or information, let me know.
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Complaints. Here is showing from 

2016. 2017 we had the greatest number of 

complaints. In 2020, we had only two complaints. 

Right now in '22, to date we have six. Percent 

by export weight is less than 1/1000th of a 

percent.

Summarizing them, we had one short 

weight complaint on Italy. The other five 

complaints, Malaysia-wheat, Korea, we had one 

from Korea and three from China.

That concludes my presentation. Any 

questions? Thank you.

MR. FRIANT: Byron, sorry.

MR. REILLY: Yes? Go ahead.

MR. FRIANT: On the Decree 177 

registration situation, first of all I was 

encouraged to hear Karla mention some interagency work happening on that. One of the things 

that we're seeing from an exporter perspective is 

a lot of what I would say confusion and 

discrepancy between Decree 177 requirements and 
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now the new Decree 248 requirements which is 

being kind of executed by FDA in the U.S.

Can you talk to the group a little bit 

about what if any work and outreach you've been 

doing with FDA on that side of the registration 

requirements?

MR. REILLY: Sure. Back when 248 was 

first announced and there had been a lot of 

confusion between USDA and particularly FAS, and 

since exporting grain is covered under Decree 

177, that was the first one initiated requiring 

registration. Then 248 came along which dealt 

with mainly food, commodities for food. FAS 

assumed that it would be grandfathered in, 

anybody under 177 would be included under 248, 

but under 248, exporters need to have a lot more 

paperwork and have to curb, a Chinese curb as to 

what the product is going in, and as in 177, you 

know, it requires to have a Federal agency have 

oversight. So 177 was FGIS, and then 248 since 

it involved food, that fell into Food and Drug 
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Administration's.

So I tracked down who in FDA handled, 

was handling this registration process and spent 

several hours on the phone a couple times with 

them to educate them in the grain marketing 

process and what FGIS has done for 177 and what 

we provide. They said fine, but they would be 

the ones handling the registration although they 

don't do anything to 'certify' the accuracy of 

the registrants. They were just 'like a 

facilitator,' a conduit to provide updates to 

China.

The FDA people, they only had, in the 

international branch there, there are only three 

people that cover all commodities, hundreds of 

thousands of products that have to go to China. 

So I understand that they were swamped, and this 

is all new territory for them as far as 

registering anybody for other countries. So I 

think they're still having growing pains on how 

to handle it like FGIS. We've worked out that 
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we would do monthly updates for 177 and, you know, 

I told FDA, the people I've met with that, you 

know, if they need any assistance or help from 

us, please call me. But after the initial 

engagement, I haven't heard anything back.

MR. FRIANT: Thanks for that. I have 

a couple more questions in this space, hopefully 

we have some time for them. Kind of in that same 

vein, have you or anyone in the agency had any or 

looked at any international coordination with 

other countries with respect to these Chinese 

requirements? So have you had any conversations 

with counterparts in Canada or any of the South 

American equivalents to FGIS? Is there any 

international coordination on this?

MR. REILLY: To my knowledge, there 

has not been.

MR. FRIANT: So one thing we're seeing 

in this space is the desire for the Chinese to 

have a number that's been issued by a U.S. 

Government agency. Correct me if I'm wrong, but 
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today on the exporter registration, facilities 

aren't given a specific FGIS export registration 

number; is that correct?

MR. REILLY: Correct.

MR. FRIANT: Is that something that 

could be explored from an FGIS perspective? All 

exporters have to be registered, could there be 

some sort of FGIS exporter registration number 

that's part of that process that could be used 

for part of that communication tool, particularly 

back to China to say yes, this facility, we know 

today a list gets sent, but is there an 

opportunity to just also include a registration 

number that, you know, was developed and designed 

by FGIS? Because what we see is they like to see 

a number associated with the facilities.

MR. REILLY: And that's something 

like Karla mentioned that is probably one of the 

issues that we may want to look at. So but we 

still have a lot of work to do together because 

it's a multi-agency jurisdiction area. So that's 
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something that we may look at.

Go ahead.

MR. NEAL: Yes, so in short, that's 

something we can discuss and explore.

MR. FRIANT: Yes, I think it would be 

a good idea.

MR. REILLY: Any other questions?

Thank you.

DR. JHEE: All right, good morning, 

everybody. Thank you for this time to bring you 

guys all up to speed on the activities with the 

Technology and Science Division. It's good to 

see a lot of familiar faces, a lot of folks that 

I also met back in April in Las Vegas.

Today, I'm going to go over some 

current GIAC recommendations including the 

mycotoxin test kit criteria, the technology 

evaluation process, and the update on the status 

of the LED project as well as other activities 

within TSD. And Tony, you almost stole my 

thunder, almost.
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In 2021, FGIS proposed changes to the 

mycotoxin test kit criteria to improve accuracy 

and align with FDA and Codex standards. We did 

take some time and reviewed and analyzed the 

comments. We do have a Federal Register notice 

drafted under agency clearance which includes all 

response to the comments. We do anticipate this 

FR notice being published very soon. TSD is also 

working with the Field Management Division to 

update the mycotoxin handbook.

As mentioned earlier, or actually we 

haven't mentioned this, I think for discussion 

later this afternoon in a topic that we discussed 

back in December, the technology evaluation 

process is intended for new technology or 

instrumentation that could be used for official 

grain inspection. This documented process is 

intended to be transparent and establishes a 

consistent approach by which FGIS would review 

and evaluate new technology. We did share an 

initial draft of this process with the GIAC back 
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in December and I believe it is still on the 

website.

More recently, we received input from 

our Office of General Counsel. The document has 

been revised and we also included a section on 

how the agency would protect confidential 

business information. We also have a Federal 

Register notice drafted under agency clearance 

where we will be seeking public comment on this 

new process.

The LED field study. The purpose of 

this LED field study that was recently conducted 

was to determine if there is no difference 

between LED lamps and the currently approved 

fluorescent lantern official grading. Again, we 

want to thank the official agencies that provided 

inspectors for this field study. What they did 

is they compared percent damage for corn, soy and 

wheat under currently approved fluorescent lamp 

as well as the test LED bulbs.

Based off of statistical analysis, the 
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results indicate that the LED lamp could provide 

inspection results that were indistinguishable 

from the approved fluorescent lamps. What does 

that mean? We approved them. Moving forward, 

the test bulb used was made by a company called 

Waveform and this bulb has established the 

minimum standards that could be used. These 

include what we call the R value or color 

rendering index as well as the correlated color 

temperature. For this study in particular, we 

used the 6500 Kelvin bulb.

FGIS recently issued a program notice 

and updated the equipment handbook with the 

technical details. For those of you in the room, 

if you could turn around and take a look at the 

back, that's what they look like.

(Applause.)

DR. JHEE: Let there be light. 

Thanks, Charlie.

TSD will continue to explore research 

and development efforts to evaluate imaging 
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technology that can add value to the official 

inspection system. In February, an FR notice was 

published seeking proposals for an R&D or 

research and development collaboration with FGIS 

to determine if imaging technology can support 

the rice industry. We received proposals from 

manufacturers, and two were selected for this R&D 

effort to give our stakeholders a choice that 

best matches their needs. Our next step is to 

enter in an agreement with these manufacturers 

that outlines roles and responsibilities.

Other current events. This past 

month, FGIS established a formal partnership with 

the U.S. Agency for International Development's 

Bureau of Humanitarian Assistance. TSD will be 

supporting their Food for Peace agenda by 

developing and implementing a full suite of 

analytical services for their grain-based 

commodities. We can now say that FGIS has a role 

in addressing world hunger.

Other current events of interest also 
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include the FGIS approval of the DICKEY-john GAC 

2700-UGMA moisture meter. This will replace the 

GAC 2500 which the manufacturer indicated is due 

to obsolete components.

Since the onset of the pandemic, the 

in-person quality assurance specialist seminars 

had been postponed. This year, the Board of 

Appeal and Review have begun in-person seminars 

to ensure alignment of subjective grading across 

the inspection system.

Then, finally, FGIS is working with 

FAS to evaluate the Infratec TM NIR instrument. 

That concludes the updates. I'd be happy to take 

any questions.

All right, thanks.

(Applause.)

MR. KERRIGAN: I just want to take 

another moment to thank all the FGIS staff for 

all them being here, taking time away from their 

day. Some of them obviously had to travel in for 

these updates. You know, as always I think 
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they're always open door-open book, you know, 

should anybody have any questions, comments, 

concerns throughout the process outside of the 

GIAC meeting. I appreciate that once again.

At this time, let's go ahead and take 

our break. Somehow or another, Tony, you've 

managed to leave us ahead of schedule and not 

behind schedule. So let's go ahead and take the 

full 30 minutes. We'll come back at 10:15 then.

(Whereupon, the above-entitled matter 

went off the record for a brief recess.)

MR. KERRIGAN: If everybody would 

take their seats please? We're going to get 

started.

Okay, I think we have most of the 

group back here, they're filing in. Go ahead.

So we're going to go back to our meeting 

here. Arthur is still out, I believe on his 

coffee run. We do have five topics in looking 

at the agenda to get through the day. We 

obviously have lunch, we have a pretty hard stop, 
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public comments this afternoon. So we've got 

plus or minus four hours.

I bring this up just, you know, in the 

spirit of discussion, what this committee, you 

know, really intends to do as far as, you know, 

discuss different industry-related items, 

issues, topics, have discussion on them, get 

updates, ask questions. Then, you know, really 

if there is a recommendation for support, change, 

something that we make to the Secretary, so those 

recommendations would come tomorrow, but we do 

want to make sure that we get through these topics 

today.

So as such, we're going to shuffle the 

order a little bit and we're going to start off 

with the FGIS Technology Review Process. I'm 

going to ask Dr. Jhee to go ahead and kick us 

off.

DR. JHEE: I appreciate this 

opportunity to come bring you guys more up to 

speed on the details of this process. I think 
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what I'll do is I'll start off with maybe some of 

the revisions to the existing process.

So what's on the web right now is a 

version that I think when you wade through it, it 

is very strict. The language we chose for that 

particular version was must and you'll see that 

throughout the document. The guidance we 

received from our Office of General Counsel was 

to pretty much soften the language up because of 

considering two different paths: Do we want to 

go down the regulatory path or do we want to go 

down the path of more guidance? We chose the 

guidance route; thus, the user guide is a 

guidance.

I think the other significant change 

we made was to have an appendix that dealt 

directly with how the agency will protect 

confidential business information. This process 

has been reviewed by the FOIA office, and I think 

one of the most important things that we wanted 

to address for manufacturers was that we would 
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have a robust process to protect that type of 

CBI, specifically under the Trade Secrets Act.

Other things that we want to 

accomplish with this process in terms of 

consistency and transparency, one of the ideas we 

have is to have kind of like an open solicitation 

period where manufacturers that wanted to submit 

a technology or an instrument for review, we 

would accept these proposals on a biannual basis. 

We would then issue a Federal Register notice 

that describes these proposals. We would have 

the non-CBI version of this on the website so 

they can see what the technology is about and 

what the intended use is for. Then we would seek 

public comment to address I think the first 

criteria.

I'll let Tim discuss some of the other 

key criteria, but the first one I think addresses 

need. That need criteria is put into several 

other sub-criteria such as demand, cost, et 

cetera. What we want to do is ensure that the 
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agency is putting resources into evaluating a new 

type of technology or instrument that does add 

value and would be useful for the grain industry.

So I'll pause there to see if there's 

any questions or anything I can help clarify.

MR. KERRIGAN: I'm just asking 

generally, you had called attention to how rigid 

it is, and obviously there's a reason for that 

given, you know, what FGIS provides, being very 

partial to make sure that they're doing a 

thorough scientific review. Just going through 

what the LED lighting obviously as a non, you 

know, kind of plan, but a review, obviously 

there's a moisture meter which has been, you 

know, ongoing. Do you feel this is the right 

amount of scrutiny? Is it too rigid in your 

opinion? Is it that right balance I guess as a 

starting point? Because the last thing we want 

to do is put this out there and then have to make 

changes because nobody can actually facilitate it 

I guess.
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DR. JHEE: Actually, I think the 

guidance we received from our OGC is to kind of 

soften the language. So I think the document is 

largely unchanged, but what you will see is 

replacement of must with shoulds and mays. I 

believe that provides a little bit more 

flexibility, but it does establish a strong 

framework.

I wouldn't say that it's going to be 

rigid, so to speak. I would just say that it 

lays a clear path, particularly with regards to 

some of the data requirements.

Tim, do you want to talk about some of 

the key other criteria?

MR. NORDEN: Yes. Can we both be on 

here?

MR. KERRIGAN: Yes.

MR. NORDEN: Okay, yes, good. So, 

yes, the framework itself is, we kind of designed 

it so that it will accommodate all technologies. 

So that was really the challenge, too, because if 
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we think about putting together terms where you 

can talk about any technology, that can be really 

challenging. So as Ed mentioned, need was a key 

one. So for official inspection, we wanted to 

make sure that we document that, yes, there's a 

need and there's a benefit here.

Then some of the other criteria, as 

you probably have already seen in the document, 

of course there's accuracy. That's really always 

very important which includes a component of, you 

know, how true is the result? You know, is it 

going to hit the bull's eye? You know, that's 

part of accuracy.

The other part of the accuracy is how 

precise is it? So what range of results might 

we get from the whatever technology or test that 

we're talking about? Is the original inspection 

going to agree with the appeal inspection? So 

that's one criteria is the accuracy.

Another is quality control. So we 

want to be able to control the quality of the 
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technology once it's out there. That's an aspect 

that we want to just address. Then there's of 

course the time it takes to do the test, and then 

the cost.

So those are all the, pretty much the 

criteria that we have out there. Again, we tried 

to make it flexible enough to cover any 

technology that might be submitted for 

consideration.

DR. JHEE: I think another example, 

maybe in the very near future, so I spoke earlier 

about rice imaging and the need for the 

California, in particular California rice

industry to find an instrument that supports 

their inspection results because the current 

instrument has now become obsolete, and if it 

breaks, you know, that's probably not a good 

thing.

So in this particular case, Tim, I 

guess we would say that the agency is initiating 

this technology evaluation process ourselves. 
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So the intent is, if we can get past this research 

and development effort to ensure proof of 

concept, the next phase would be to go down the 

path of fit for purpose. Then, we would then as 

an agency follow the procedure as it's written 

ourselves.

MS. COOPER: I have a question.

DR. JHEE: Yes?

MS. COOPER: Going back to the concept 

of need, have you, I mean, FGIS, you're the 

experts on the inspection process. We have heard 

of Arthur state many times in the recent past 

that you recognize the need for technology to 

improve the official system, the grading system 

streamlined, maybe make it less dependent on 

humans because of staff shortages.

So have you done any internal 

evaluation on which parts of the inspection 

process would be appropriate for shifting from 

human to technological response?

DR. JHEE: We haven't done a thorough 
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assessment of that internally. I mean, we are 

hearing this and I think it's the reality of the 

current situation we're in, in terms of trying to 

find enough people and sustain a workforce that 

can achieve the results that we want.

I think, Janice, you asked a really 

good question, how do you balance the expertise 

of the human eye and many of the subjective 

grading factors with what something like an 

instrument could do. I think that's probably 

where that need factor is going to be important 

in terms of getting public input.

What we would actually seek comment on 

really is, if there's a proposal for this new 

instrument, it would be perhaps a replacement or 

to take part of the visual, subjective inspection 

process and then turning into an objective 

process. Well, does the industry want this? We 

would then make a determination, okay, the 

industry does want this, we are going to expend 

resources to make sure we can do a thorough 
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evaluation.

If there is pushback against this, 

well, it's been out there. We proposed it should 

the agency put our resources into this, and if 

not we back out.

Yes, sir?

MR. SINNER: Ed, some of your field 

offices are doing biotechnology presence and some 

aren't. I'm wondering if the agency has done any 

review in terms of industry need. Is there a 

uniform process that you looked at? The way you 

addressed Janice's question, I think you've 

recognized that we've gone from a subjective 

human observation to electronic observation, and 

the same has happened in biotechnology presence 

--

DR. JHEE: Right.

MR. SINNER: -- and I'm just wondering 

what your agency has done with that review.

DR. JHEE: That's always a sensitive 

topic in terms of being able to detect unapproved 
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or approved GE traits. Coming from APHIS 

actually, my former role in biotechnology, I 

understood the importance of this.

The agency, we have not looked into 

this more thoroughly. We have the capability, 

actually agency-wide meaning AMS, I know the 

North Carolina Science and Technology Lab has the 

capability for GMO detection. Our lab has the 

capability for detection as well. We do operate 

the, I guess quality program over the lateral 

flow test strips that are often used to detect 

the GE traits.

I think this probably requires further 

discussion with industry in terms of need. How 

do we meet the industry's needs especially when 

your customers perhaps are asking for 

certification of, you know, GE-free. I think 

another complicating factor, maybe not now but a 

few years from now, would be the new regulatory 

change that happened with APHIS in terms of the 

new secure rule. So the regulatory oversight may 
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shift actually in terms of new products that are 

approved.

Did that help?

MR. SINNER: Yes.

MR. KERRIGAN: And just thinking 

about these last two remarks, you know, really 

this document is addressing the framework for 

review of a piece of equipment, piece of 

technology. It does address in there obviously 

fit for use if a manufacturer were to come for 

you versus R&D, you know, if it's something you 

do. But a lot of these questions seem to come 

from the evaluation of what we're currently doing 

and what we, you know, may need to look at in the 

future.

This framework aside, I guess not 

knowing what that may be or how the evaluation 

process would go, what do you see as a next step 

for trying to evaluate or the need for more R&D, 

you know, as we think about, you know, human 

resources overall, neuro-technology that's 
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coming out? The framework I think is very well 

written and there's not a lot of questions that 

doesn't appear on it, you know, for that. But 

not knowing where we go is really kind of the 

next question, right? Because it's almost like 

we're having to do more R&D and sought after with 

that.

Do you have any thoughts I guess 

around how that would progress?

DR. JHEE: Tim, any idea? 

MR. NORDEN: Well, we do have 

manufacturers approach us, to talk to us and have 

a conversation, and we will have that 

conversation with them. You know that 

manufacturers, they're constantly looking for 

business opportunities. So they want to have 

some imaging technology that replaces the human 

grain inspector, too.

I think the key thing for us is to 

engage with them, and we've done some of that, 

you know, already even this year. So when 
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manufacturers approach us and they say like, hey, 

we maybe have a solution here, you know, we'd 

want to talk with them, particularly when they're 

at the R&D stage and let them know what, okay, 

here's our handbooks out here, here is how we 

grade, you know, what does your solution look 

like and just direct them. A lot of times they 

don't even know those things, you know, maybe 

they don't even know those grading handbooks are 

out there and they exist. When we can engage 

with them, you know, it helps them see, you know, 

what the solution, you know, maybe needs to look 

like.

Of course, this is complicated, too, 

because people have been talking about this for 

decades. I can remember when I started with 

FGIS, we were talking about imaging technology. 

And so it's been around a long time, but the 

solutions kind of seem to be few and far between. 

But I do think it's getting closer and closer to 

where there are technologies that can help us 
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with specific things.

DR. JHEE: Thanks, Tim. I think 

another key thing that the agency will focus on 

is making sure that the industry is aware of this 

process. We have heard rumors and met with folks 

about maybe a different way to look at falling 

number, or a different way to look at mycotoxins, 

those types of things where it does appear that, 

you know, this type of technology could speed 

things up at the field location which would, you 

know, in turn add value to your processes.

You know, but there's still, what we 

heard is that they're still in the research and 

development phase. I think when they see this 

user guide, they will understand what kind of 

data they need to prepare for us to review. Then 

at that point, we come to you guys, we come to 

the public and say, okay, we've received this 

data package, we think it does add value to the 

industry, it addresses need, accuracy, cost, 

time, do you guys want this. Then we'd kind of 
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go, we would have an open discussion that way.

MR. KERRIGAN: Okay, but kind of where 

this is at, it sounds like you've had several 

internal reviews you've sent out there. What 

would be the next steps for this document, this 

process, this framework in general to get it out 

there and get it released for you to start 

implementing it, you know, for everybody?

DR. JHEE: Right, well, we anticipate 

the Federal Register notice to be published soon. 

Mark my words, soon. The intent of the FR notice 

is to put this document out there, the revised 

document out for public comment so it's not just 

the GIAC that's had a chance to take a look at 

this. We want folks across the industry as well 

as the manufacturers to take a look at this 

process and give us some feedback.

Once we receive the comments, we may 

consider making additional changes or tweaks to 

the process, but we think it's pretty robust as 

well as fair in terms of what the expectations 
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are. So once the comment period closes and the 

agency has made a determination it will move 

forward, it would become a controlled, publicly 

available document.

MR. KERRIGAN: Any comments from the 

GIAC?

Any other additional comments from 

anybody else?

Okay, sounds like things are moving 

forward very well. I appreciate the update on 

that, thank you.

DR. JHEE: Thank you.

MR. KERRIGAN: As we talk them out, 

we're going to shuffle this up a little bit. 

We'll ask Dr. Jhee to come back here in a little 

bit for another topic, but I would like to move 

on, Mr. Ayers, to the Grain Inspection Advisory 

Committee Alternates.

During our pre-work yesterday going 

over policies, procedures, our overall charter, 

you know, this really stemmed from a few meetings 
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ago not having enough committee members available 

or even either nominated/appointed by the 

Secretary to continue this work. You put forward 

a kind of summary on, summary framework to maybe 

try and get some additional members to be used as 

alternates.

So would you like to kind of just 

summarize that for the committee? We'd likely, 

since Arthur is back here, need to discuss about 

what he knows about why the alternates were 

removed and what may or may not be feasible.

MR. AYERS: Thank you, Matt.

The concept behind the Advisory 

Committee alternate members is to maintain a 

workable, viable force for the Advisory 

Committee. The job is too important, to advise 

the Secretary of direction, possible direction 

that they should take. When we can't meet and 

because of the quorum, there needs to be 

something done.

In the past, we have had alternates, 
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and now we don't. This proposal that, or 

recommendation that I wrote up for alternates is 

that there will be an alternate, which is at no 

cost, no additional cost to anybody, but it 

serves to show that alternates would be available 

for the major sectors that are mentioned in the 

Act and regulations so that each, the industry, 

the official inspection, and the other mandatory 

members of this committee would have an alternate 

available to them to maintain at least where we 

would have a quorum.

Then the additional part with this 

where if the government is, time-wise is not able 

to get new members put on, and when you lose five 

that puts you at the minimum amount for your 

quorum at 10, so it would allow for the people 

that were going off to be retained in that 

position until new people are appointed. I mean, 

there's many ways it can be done. You can submit 

it through the Farm Bill, you can do it through 

the re-authorization. It's just a suggestion to 
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try and keep this as an important committee as it 

is invaluable.

MR. NEAL: Now, I agree, Dave, the 

reason why the alternates came off was through 

the charter, the renewing of the charter process 

legal review. They said because U.S. GSA did not 

provide for them, the alternates were not legal 

selections. The challenge that we have had with 

alternates though on the practical side is, 

because they're not necessarily engaged with the 

committee on all the work, they lose interest 

extremely fast. So when we have reached out to 

some alternates, not all, they have not made 

themselves available for the meeting. In some 

cases, they have; and so it varies. But I do 

think that this is a valid recommendation and 

something that can be put forward.

MR. AYERS: Thank you.

MS. COOPER: I have a question. The 

idea of keeping people in place until they are 

replaced by a new appointee, is that done for any 
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of the other committees that are currently 

operational FACAs?

MR. NEAL: Help me clarify when you 

say keeping people in place.

MS. COOPER: Right. So if I roll off 

in October of '23 but there's no replacement 

that's been named yet, could there be, or do any

other committees keep those people in place until 

the new appointees are named?

MR. NEAL: I'll have to check on that, 

Janice. I don't think, I think because the terms 

are statutory, it's pretty fixed, it's three-year 

terms. But I will check into that and see if 

there's precedent for it.

MR. KERRIGAN: Given that the both of 

you, I would assume it's going to go back to what 

was in the Farm Bill or the Grain Standards Reauthorization Act as far as, you know, how many 

appointees and such. After the FACA training 

yesterday and this meeting, I'm going to look at 

you, Arthur and Kendra, to make sure I saw this 
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correctly, that the Federal requirements are 50 

percent for quorum but we have a two-thirds 

requirement; is that correct? 

So is the issue I guess with the fact 

that we're going above and beyond what the 

requirement is, that we need to have two-thirds 

which tends to be, you know, two years of the 

appointments completely, to where if that were 

maybe a different threshold that can be 

considered, maybe one less than the two-thirds? 

Could it be something that we, I guess could have 

control over versus waiting for a reauthorization?

MR. NEAL: Yes, we can make that 

change.

MR. FRIANT: And that would be a 

change to the charter?

MR. NEAL: That's a change, if I'm not 

mistaken, Kendra, to our procedures. Let me 

double check the Act, too, on that to ensure that 

that's what established for a quorum. I think 
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most of our other committees in AMS, they are 

two-thirds.

MR. FRIANT: And Matt, I think that 

would be a question for the committee, would we 

be comfortable changing that quorum requirement? 

So I don't know if that's a, it may not be a 

discussion we're prepared to have now, but I 

think that should be something to think about.

MR. NEAL: Yes, and as you think about 

that, check that against Robert's Rules of Order, 

because I think that's also what's the guiding 

principle for how the committee operates.

MR. KERRIGAN: What's the timing for 

the re-authorization for a recommendation of a 

change to, maybe a recommendation to the 

Secretary to make sure we get it added to, 

obviously I guess it wouldn't be to the 

Secretary, I guess it would be a recommendation 

in general, it could be added to a reauthorization or a Farm Bill. What does that 

timing look like?
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MR. NEAL: They have just now started 

Farm Bill discussions. So recommendations, 

we'll make sure the recommendations are shared 

and taken into consideration as the Department is 

having a dialogue with Congress on Farm Bill 

issues. With respect to re-authorization, I'm 

not aware yet of any conversations around reauthorization that have begun.

MR. KERRIGAN: Any other comments, 

dialogue?

MR. MORGAN: Given it's a reauthorization issue for this, it might be best 

that the committee members that are in their 

respective industries approach their industry 

representatives if we do want to go forward with 

it for the next Farm Bill discussion and debate. 

That would be my recommendation on how you 

proceed.

MR. AYERS: Yes, I know there have 

been changes made to the Grain Standards Act 

through the Farm Bill. It's been done in the 
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past, and if the committee likes, I have both a 

senator and a congressman from Illinois that's on 

the AG Committees. We've had very good luck 

having them submit proposals that are sound and, 

you know, the Advisory Committee recommendation 

would go a long ways with it.

So if the committee so decides that 

something in this format would be appropriate, I 

would be willing, to either one who would be on 

the committee, to submit it to our senator and 

representative as a start.

MR. KERRIGAN: Okay, any other 

discussion for the moment?

MS. COOPER: Just a question. When 

we get to the point of approving the 

recommendation, will we have that language 

projected on the screen?

MR. KERRIGAN: We'll be doing that 

tomorrow, but yes.

MS. COOPER: Thank you.

MR. KERRIGAN: Yes. Okay, any other 
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discussion on this topic? You know, I kind of 

stated I want to make sure that we give, you know, 

each topic ample time for discussion, you know, 

so that way then we can kind of think about it if 

we need to revisit some if we have time later 

today before we go into what recommendations we 

may want to draft language for consideration for 

approval.

Okay, let's move in to one of the big 

guys. Jimmy, are you ready?

MR. WILLIAMS: Absolutely.

MR. KERRIGAN: Let's go into 

Accessing Real-time Shuttle Train Data. I'll 

turn it over to you.

MR. WILLIAMS: All right, thank you, 

Matt.

Well, I hope everyone has had the 

opportunity to read the narrative that I 

submitted to the committee regarding shuttle 

trains and the challenges that we are facing due 

to a lack of real-time train location data.
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Before I begin, I'd like to preface my 

remarks by saying that we are very grateful for 

all of our grain inspection customers. Whether 

they go barges, railcars, containers, we're glad 

to have your business and this agenda item is in 

no way intended to be critical of those 

customers. On the contrary, we understand that 

this lack of real-time train data is causing our 

grain customers the same type of problems that we 

are experiencing as an official inspection 

agency.

David Ayers mentioned yesterday 

during our training session how grain inspection 

has evolved over the years. He talked about how 

official grain inspectors used to work a typical 

8:00 to 5:00 work shift. That was definitely the 

case in Missouri in years past. Inspectors would 

go out in the field, they would take poke samples 

of railcars and barges, and those samples were 

typically taken back to the office for grading. 

There was no onsite grading and there was no 
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shuttle trains.

Today, however, if you're a grain 

inspector, you're not working 8:00 to 5:00. 

You're working days, nights, weekends, and 

holidays. Now, that in itself isn't a problem. 

There are lots of jobs that require employees to 

work these types of hours. The problem is that 

grain inspectors who are required to work shuttle 

trains never really know when their shift is 

going to start or when their shift is going to 

end. To make matters worse, many times these 

employees are given a start time only to have it 

change multiple times.

Now, to be clear, again, this problem 

is not new. It didn't start overnight. This 

issue has been going on for years, and grain 

companies as well as the official grain 

inspection system has made the best of it and 

continues to do so today. However, it is 

becoming more difficult to find employees who are 

willing to put up with that level of uncertainty 
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in their work schedule.

Yesterday, I requested updated data 

from our HR department regarding turnover rates 

for entry level grain inspectors who work for 

Missouri Department of Ag, and the numbers are 

truly shocking. We are seeing a turnover rate 

of 83 percent. Recent exit interviews are 

suggesting that the number one reason people are 

leaving these jobs is not money, it's the 

unpredictable work schedule.

Now, some of you may wonder if this is 

purely a problem with our agency or if it's a 

systemic issue, and I'm sure we'll discuss that 

in greater detail today. While I can only offer 

anecdotal evidence, I have had conversations with 

multiple agencies across the country and have 

been told that we are not alone in this problem.

In today's world, you can order an 

Uber and you can track the car on your phone. 

You can go out on the internet and you can pull 

up European railroad websites where you can watch 
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trains move in real-time. The technology is 

there and it's been there for a very long time, 

yet it is not being made available to rail 

customers here in the U.S. Until it is made 

available, shuttle trains are going to continue 

being difficult to service, and grain companies 

and inspection agencies alike are going to 

continue losing good employees to jobs with more 

predictable work schedules.

I'm not suggesting the sky is falling 

today, but I sincerely believe that if workforce 

trends continue, official agencies are going to 

continue to struggle finding help and it could 

very well result in some agencies being unable to 

provide such services in the future. I don't 

think any of us want to see that.

The official system is unique in that 

it is a cooperative effort between state, Federal 

and private agencies. The diversity of this 

system is one of its strengths. But if we are 

to maintain this diversity, we've got to start 
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making more efforts to attract and retain 

employees, just like any other employer or 

industry is trying to do right now. I think one 

way we can accomplish this is by improving the 

work schedules of the folks working these trains. 

That would be an easy lift if grain customers 

could simply track these trains in real-time.

So I would like to open this up for 

discussion to see if the committee feels that 

FGIS should take a stronger public stance on this 

problem by sending a letter to the STB requesting 

greater transparency by the railroad. Thank you.

MR. KERRIGAN: Thanks, Jimmy.

I think, you know, we all definitely 

have felt the constraints, you know, as of, I 

guess I'd say as of late but, you know, really 

that's being amplified, I would say a better word 

for that, you know, by COVID-related staffing 

issues overall. We're definitely all feeling it.

I don't remember hearing, obviously 

most of the STB hearings have been related to 
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just overall service. I don't know that I, in 

tracking metrics, the speed metrics, hiring 

metrics, I'm trying to remember and I ask anybody 

else from the committee who has followed the 

hearings at all if there's been anything similar 

to this regarding data request other than just 

general metric staffing and such, that we were 

not, well, that we could either help the 

Secretary support or recommend support for an 

existing motion or duplicating.

MS. GROVE: I think listening to some 

of the testimony at some of the STB meetings, one 

of the requests was for, again, as you're talking 

about that service desk, the websites being so 

inaccurate or staffed in such a way that when you 

call in to find out that information, there isn't 

an idea. Somebody can't tell you this is where 

your train is at, this is where your lead car is 

at, or so far as saying it's sitting there, it's 

already there. You can look out the window, it's 

not, I know it's not here.
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So websites, maybe some of it how they 

track, tracking the power, and if they move the 

power, if you have to, short on power, pull power 

to another train, that's not updated in realtime. So a train may show it's there only 

because they've moved power, or a train has been 

pulled because they've moved power. So I think, 

again, that real-time change or the understanding 

in training with their people, is it a system or 

is it training?

As you said, you know, we can track a 

car throughout the city through a phone app and 

they can tell us when they're going to get there 

and it's real-time. I have not looked at 

European trains and so don't know that piece. 

But if we can track a cow coming out of Canada 

and where it is specifically in the United States 

as it moved through the system, how can we not 

track a piece of equipment as large as a shuttle 

train?

So I think there's twofold in that of 
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systems and, as we are all facing, changeover in 

employees to have the training to be able to 

answer those questions.

MR. KERRIGAN: It brings up a good 

point regarding the power, because obviously 

Positive Train Control, PTC, has been a big 

safety initiative, you know, in the railroad 

industry, not just for freight, but also 

commercial and commuter trains. I hadn't really 

thought about that piece about the power being 

swapped because I believe that those are just on 

the locomotives as far as accessing that 

information of how it pulls in. You're thinking 

about the ability of implementation I guess or 

something like that versus just technology versus 

tracking cars.

MR. ENGEL: Jimmy, do you have, have 

you had any conversations with any of the 

railroad providers about whether they actually 

possess this technology?

MR. WILLIAMS: No, we haven't had any 
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conversations directly with the railroads. You 

know, I mean, technically, the official agencies 

aren't their customers, so no, we haven't had 

those conversations with the railroad.

MR. ENGEL: Just a curiosity question 

on my part because, you know, I've had the 

opportunity to see a lot of ETAs, almost, but 

very few of them were highly accurate. So I'm 

just curious as to whether the technology exists 

to be able to achieve your intended outcome.

MR. NEAL: So the Transportation 

Services Division came virtually to our last 

meeting I think and presented. That group 

represents agricultural shippers as well as tees 

up the conversation, the briefings for the 

Secretary as they prepare to engage STB on these 

issues. The request that they made from the 

committee was to let them know what you're 

experiencing, what you see, what you think, 

because they are going to be the ones to package 

things up and make sure our letters get to STB.
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What you wrote I think is nice in the 

nice perspective, if they haven't already shared 

something like that for them to have on behalf of 

the committee, you know, signed, wrapped up, 

packaged so that they can include that in their 

communications with STB. If the Secretary or the 

Deputy Secretary will have further engagements 

with STB, they've got that from the committee as 

an idea or concept to share as they're engaging. 

Just as a thought.

MR. SINNER: Matt, I think it's a 

very, it's a really relevant issue. If you take 

it beyond the shuttle trains and you look at the 

inaccuracy of the information regarding container 

moves, ERDs and the higher detention to merge 

cost that had been put on exporters because of 

changing ERDs and changing ramp cuts, having this 

technology even on container which are generally 

full train moves would be relevant.

Now, the STB doesn't have oversight on 

inter-modal, so I'm not sure it's appropriate for 
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STB but I think they would certainly be 

interested in it as well.

MR. KERRIGAN: Just trying to 

summarize a little bit here in thinking about 

these comments as far as the process forward. I 

mean, really what the committee is after is, and 

what Jimmy provided here in the write-up and 

discussion frankly is just, it's better ETAs with 

real-time data to confirm again instead of just 

grabbing a checkpoint, either arrive checkpoint, 

depart checkpoint with some arbitrary ETA on 

where it gets that, right?

So it's kind of twofold. It's a 

better tracking method, but then it's also, you 

know, how do you get to those ETAs with a tracking 

method. Obviously with, you know, pulling power, 

crew shortages, you know, things of that nature 

which are a lot of intangibles which I know this 

is impacting service which is obviously impacting 

the ETAs right, too. So it's almost a twofold 

issue of the industry would like to know where it 
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is better, but then also, you know, we would 

request that they provide some better tracking 

plan.

I can say from an industry standpoint, 

we're in communication with the major railroads 

at least twice a day by no fewer than six to eight 

individuals for our one export terminal at 

different, you know, spots, methods, you know, 

all the way up to their corporate, you know, 

logistics offices which are running them. You 

get different answers and none of them are 

accurate, right? So it's definitely been 

longstanding but it has gotten worse.

So I just want to make sure that, like 

I say, whatever recommendation we put out there 

is going to not further convolute the issue but 

actually that we seal that end game that we're 

actually seeking.

MR. FRIANT: Matt, I would just add, 

you know, the questions around the technology and 

how it's done, you know, today you can get pretty 
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accurate information on vessel arrivals, right? 

So there's some model and precedent there on how 

that's handled. I think the other key question, 

you've alluded to it, Jimmy, and others have 

commented to this, you know, where and how do we 

want to get data? What's the format?

You know, it's easy to say we want a 

website, but there's a little bit more behind 

that potentially. I'm not an IT person by any 

stretch but that data piece, you know, how do we 

want to access it? Where do we want to get it 

from?

MR. KERRIGAN: A lot of good 

discussion to think about here, you know, as we 

kind of move in into the next step. Is there 

anything else that anybody on the committee would 

like to speak right now?

MS. COOPER: Just a question on the 

railroad. Are there Homeland Security issues 

related to supplying information on location of 

trains?
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MR. KERRIGAN: You have to have a 

login issued by the railroads to be able to see 

that data already. You can't just, it's not like 

airplanes, you can't just, you know, kind of 

search what's in the sky. You know, you have to 

have, you know, very specific information that 

you're trying to track. You have to know what 

locomotive, what lead car information you're 

actually looking for.

The cars themselves have RFID tags on 

them, and that's why they give us that reader ID. 

We're not tracking locomotives currently, we're 

tracking cars. So much like we scan them in or 

scan them out of the facility because all that 

car information is on it, it's the same way that 

they're going through checkpoints.

So you do kind of have to, with all 

the thousands of cars that are in the system, 

have to know what you're looking for.

MS. GROVE: I will say that particular 

piece of information is where I think it gets, I 
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don't know, convoluted in that tracking system. 

We are given that lead car. I mean, again, you 

have your specific login, you are given a lead 

car, but then when they start tracking it by 

power, that changes that because then they have 

now put that power on that car and then it's 

connecting that car. Then it's just connecting 

that whole system so it's no longer the car with 

that power. So when that power moves, now their 

information is inaccurate.

We have seen that multiple times, 

again, when the railroad, when you are calling 

the desk thing where is the train because you 

have now said it's here, or it was close now it's 

gone, what happened to it? It goes back to your 

issues, you know, how do you lose a train per se 

when it was showing it's just about there. So I 

don't know if, I won't say manipulation of system 

is very strong, but I think there is some of that 

in the information that sometimes we receive or 

that's being reported.
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MR. KERRIGAN: Yes, that's a real good 

point, Barb, and it's something that I thought 

about as well. Because as we track it from, you 

know, origin all the way through the system, we 

start with lead car, we go to locomotive and 

checkpoints, but then as we get into it, we start 

to go by the manifest number depending on which 

group you're talking to, which then goes into 

destination code and origin code which is a three 

to nine-digit section. So depending on which 

desk you are talking to depends on which piece of 

information you have to have in front of you to 

actually get the right, the actual right ID.

You know, and kind of thinking about 

this, obviously it's one thing to request 

information, but at the end of the day we all 

know what speaks volumes, right, is the fee, it's 

money. You know, currently, there are typically 

some incentives out there for how quickly we 

operate, how accurately we operate as far as 

loading and unloading, you know, within a certain 
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time period. You know, it's something that I, 

you know, when anybody tries to ask the railroad 

for money, I think we all know what answer we 

get, you know. But when we think about what this 

is impacting, it's people's lives because of 

time, it's because of schedule, it's because we 

are given this very tight window to operate in 

from them.

You know, is that something from a 

talking point potentially to either the Secretary 

or the STB regarding, you know, further 

flexibilities from the railroad itself, you know, 

as far as how they incentivize us to operate? 

You know, but if they fail, you know, is there a 

mechanism for us to reverberate that back that 

could be, you know, helped with staffing?

David, you talked about, you know, 

just when trains arrive late at night, early 

morning hours, you know, they've been up all day 

waiting on that train to arrive. You know, 

there's always the safety factor there but then 
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there's also the compensation factor there that 

obviously, you know, the grading agency bears, 

but obviously the loading or unloading facility 

bears as well because, you know, we are holding 

that staff there. Just a kind of question I 

guess to the group, you know, if there isn't some 

discussion around that as far as a mechanism, you 

know, on just some leniency, flexibilities, or 

having to enter the chat because of how their 

tariffs are actually set up, you know, for how 

they operate, but then that back in depending on 

if they can't get this piece in information.

MS. GROVE: I think that's a very 

interesting concept, you know, we all talk about 

it within our companies. It's something you 

don't say as you walk out the door just for fear 

of somebody being upset that you've mentioned it. 

But again, yes, we are charged fees, we are 

charged merge if we don't do our job. If we 

don't get something done by, they say we have put 

it here now, we have placed that car, placed that 
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train, you know, if you don't have it done within 

the allotted time, here's your fees according to 

this. But there is nothing on the reverse side 

if they say we're going to place it there and now 

four days later, you know, and there's a lot of 

those cases. It's days, it's not just a few 

hours.

When you have somebody on call, hey, 

Friday morning you're going to be loading a 

train, oh, never mind, it might be Friday night, 

hmm, no, maybe Saturday, you've put people's, and 

not just one or two people, you've put an entire 

crew's lives on hold. What does the railroad do 

about that? You know, yes, we get incentives if 

we load so that they can move trains and then let 

it sit there for days. But I guess if I got my 

money that's okay if they don't move it, but we've 

had end users have to close because then they 

didn't receive that train.

I think there has to be some aspect of 

that. If we don't perform, we in a sense get 
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fined for it or fees for it. Where is the 

railroad taking that cut? Like it is all about 

dollars.

I think if we listen to one of those 

hearings and they talked about some of the 

different railroad employees discussed, you know, 

power being taken out of service, it's about 

dollars. It's about the money, so money hits 

people's pockets. How can we help them see that?

MR. KERRIGAN: All right, as the 

committee moves forward here into this afternoon 

and tomorrow and thinking about this topic, you 

know, it's a good point that Arthur made in 

reminding us, you know, about the Transportation 

Services Division and, again, because of all the 

groups that are interacting with the STB, 

obviously, this committee, you know, interacts 

or, you know, provides recommendations to the 

Secretary. So, you know, as a committee 

ourselves, we cannot, obviously, sending it to 

STB, so I think that that is an interesting 
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concept for, you know, something drafted to 

assist that other division to assist the 

Secretary.

MR. NEAL: In the years that we've 

been involved in crafting comments to STB, most 

of the perspective has been from the grain 

elevator, our eyes, AG shipper eyes. But I don't 

recall ever reflecting, until recently, the 

impact that it has on grain inspection. But this 

recent comment submitted by the Deputy Secretary, 

it did talk about the impact it had on our 

employees having to wait to provide the service. 

I think that type of perspective needs to 

continue to come from this group and not get lost, 

because it is a segment of the customer base or 

those that are impacted by those movements that 

needs to be taken into consideration.

So just keep that in mind as, you 

know, you continue to engage around the work.

MR. KERRIGAN: Any further discussion 

for the moment?
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I'd like to delve into getting the 

summary about the FDA/FGIS MOU. This was 

something that we do have a subcommittee that 

worked on regarding some draft reconditioning 

plans to try and have FGIS and FDA work on getting 

approval for. So that way, should one of these 

scenarios or actionable lots happen, that there 

is a clear path of potential remediation for what 

to do with those lots versus it being sealed for 

days, hopefully days instead of weeks before 

something can actually be done with it.

That subcommittee has had several 

rounds of drafts. I believe that there is a 

semi-final copy that was presented to the 

committee at the last meeting for moving forward. 

Unfortunately, we did not have a quorum to be 

able to do anything with it.

It does appear that there, and I guess 

we'll ask FGIS to comment, it sounded like there 

may be some updates I guess from FDA on either 

that interaction level, it may be a different 
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department, different personnel they had been 

interacting with, and I guess before we kind of, 

you know, delve into this subcommittee's work, I 

guess I'll ask FGIS for an update as far as those 

interactions with FDA.

MR. NEAL: In terms of an update 

regarding interactions, we learned that there's 

another component of FDA that's involved in 

approving elevators remediation plans, and that's 

the Center for Veterinary Medicine. We were not 

engaging with the Center for Veterinary Medicine 

when we began the dialogue with the Food and Drug 

Administration. We had been talking to the 

Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition.

So moving forward, it doesn't affect 

the work that's been done by the committee, but 

moving forward we're going to need to facilitate 

dialogue between all of the parts of FDA that's 

engaged in this process as we also I think 

introduce them to the segments of the industry 

that's affected by the decisions. So that's the 
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perspective that we're bringing today that's 

different than what we had in our last meeting.

MR. KERRIGAN: Has everybody in the 

committee had a chance to take a look at the draft 

reconditioning procedures that the subcommittee 

worked on? Is there any questions on that draft 

as it's been put out there? Again, the 

subcommittee also worked with FGIS personnel for 

their comments on what they've seen, how the 

interactions have been, and a lot of these were 

based on the already in place reconditioning 

plans with corn and aflatoxin using it as the 

basis.

So anybody from the group, any 

questions on those procedures as it's been put 

out?

MR. FRIANT: Matt, well, no questions 

from me, but I do know that there's a few new 

members of the committee that maybe weren't, 

aren't as familiar with the previous discussions. 

So I might propose that, Kendra, if it's possible 
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for us to bring the document up on the screen? 

I've got notes from our unofficial meeting, I 

don't know what to call it, the meeting that we 

had in December, and it might be a good idea to 

run through some of those questions that came up 

with some of the newer members and give the other 

members a chance to ask additional comments or 

raise questions on what we talked about 

previously.

So unfortunately just by the nature of 

how we had to post it for the meeting, it's in 

PDF, so folks can't see the comments but I do 

have them here. So when we met back in December, 

one of the first comments that came up was how 

closely this SOP, and Matt already alluded to 

this, how closely this SOP mirrors the aflatoxin 

reconditioning SOP. So they are, as Matt said, 

we used that document as the basis for 

development of this document.

So I don't know that there's any 

specific action but that was one of the comments 
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that came up previously, was how closely do these 

two documents align. It is very, very close 

because it took that document and then just 

edited it to be more inclusive of other 

actionable items.

The one question that did come out of 

that, and I do think that some discussion is 

needed by the committee, is do we want to keep 

the aflatoxin reconditioning document which is 

established, it's in the directive, do we want to 

keep aflatoxin reconditioning document as a 

stand-alone document and then this new 

reconditioning document with additional items as 

separate, or do we want to combine those all into 

one reconditioning document? So I throw that out 

to the committee for some discussion.

Perhaps to Tony or your team, in terms 

of difficulty, if we wanted to make it into one 

document versus keep aflatoxin separate and 

create a new one for the rest of the actionable 

items?
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MR. KERRIGAN: I guess maybe that's a 

question, I guess from the committee versus the 

FGIS/FDA. I mean, is that something that the 

committee really needs to define or is that 

something that we can, you know, as long as we 

agree on what we feel are appropriate 

reconditioning procedures we'd like to give back 

to them, what some of that document control work 

reside with that working group. That's probably 

a Tony question if Tony is in the room.

Does it matter to you? Doesn't matter 

to him.

MR. FRIANT: Okay, I didn't hear his 

answer, sorry.

MR. GOODEMAN: No jokes, I have a 

microphone now. Okay, it wasn't on? Okay, 

sorry.

Okay, so the question was what format 

do we want this in from the committee in order to 

run with it? I was not really joking, I don't 

think it matters that much. I think that's just 
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a recommendation. If you have any insight that 

will be easier for the industry, that will be 

helpful for us. So that's a lot of trouble for 

a pretty short answer.

MR. KERRIGAN: Is there anything from 

your standpoint in the Field Service Division, 

from anybody in here, I think we've been very 

open with the subcommittee work all together, any 

current concerns, new concerns as Nick is going 

to be running through kind of the previous ones 

as the draft sits today?

MR. GOODEMAN: No, I think we've seen 

a lot of the same, some of these things are, you 

know, kind of year by year. We have worse 

aflatoxin years some years, we have worse insect 

years some years. So I don't think there's been 

anything new or different.

I think we heard in New Orleans some 

challenges kind of like what Arthur talked about 

with a different part of FDA when people want to 

divert to animal use and getting some different 
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questions than we had gotten from before. So I 

think engaging with that group will be helpful in 

this process, but I don't think there's anything 

new or different.

I think that the subcommittee's work 

has been great on this, excuse me, and people on 

our staff, I mean, it's just been really 

positive, the amount of work that you all have 

put in. I think it's been very, very helpful. 

I think this is going to be really positive.

MR. FRIANT: Thanks, Tony. The next 

-- first of all, I should have asked, can 

everybody see this okay or does it need to be 

larger?

The next comment that came up during 

our last discussion was in the section here 

around wheat found to be actionable due to 

insect-damaged kernels and being allowed to 

directly divert into animal feed without 

reconditioning. The additional question that 

came up around that is do mycotoxins need to be 
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addressed in diversion of high IDK wheat to 

animal feed?

MR. KERRIGAN: I would think that 

mycotoxins would be, I mean, there's going to be 

a sample that's tested per normal procedures, so 

I would think that if it came up in either lot of 

it, that it would need to be pulled up at that 

time. But just IDK as IDK is not necessarily 

being tested, correct?

MR. FRIANT: I agree with that, Matt, 

and as I was reading through the question and 

thinking about it from our previous meeting, 

mycotoxins were the only issue in this instance. 

If it was an issue with the sample rate, it would 

already have been identified as being FDA 

actionable because of mycotoxins today which 

would only be aflatoxin anyhow.

MS. GROVE: For wheat? I mean, if 

you're talking about --

MR. FRIANT: Yes, that question was 

only revolving around wheat found to be high IDK.
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MS. GROVE: Correct, and the previous 

reconditioning only addressed aflatoxin.

MR. FRIANT: Correct.

MS. GROVE: I guess you would say for 

an assumption you would be looking at the grade 

factors of an entire lot because the entire lot 

for all factors would have been graded along with 

checking IDK. So if there was a health and 

safety issue of anything, but again, it doesn't, 

we're not stating that, but all factors need to 

be determined I think before moving to animal 

feed if something is of safety concern in the 

rest of the sample. If mycotoxins were high and 

IDK was also high, you would have to look at FDA 

advisory for both.

MR. FRIANT: You would have to address 

both separately essentially, maybe not. Your 

plan might still be the same but you've got to 

manage both.

MS. GROVE: You've got two factors --

MR. FRIANT: Yes.
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MS. GROVE: Yes, you would have 

multiple factors. IDK may not be the only 

determining factor, this is the one that is being 

questioned but I would think you would have to 

address all factors of that lot.

MR. FRIANT: Yes, you're exactly 

right, Barb. The way this was worded was it was, 

and maybe that's what needs to be changed if 

necessary, you know, that this only applies if 

it's for insect-damaged kernels only. That's the 

intention behind what the working group or 

subcommittee wrote was if you only have an IDK 

issue, it could be diverted to animal feed. Any 

other potential actionable issues would have to 

be addressed separately.

So maybe that's what needs to be added 

here is a sentence at the end, or maybe not. 

Maybe it needs to stay as written and just that's 

what it stands for, it's only if it's actionable 

due to IDK.

MR. SINNER: Nick, it kind of relates 
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back to some of the wording where it says at the 

very beginning FDA will permit, actionable lots 

can be. Is there any discretionary authority of 

FDA or is it all subject to the final 

reconditioning to make approval? So the wording 

basically says anyone can do this.

MR. KERRIGAN: Well, this is part of 

a larger document where FGIS is supervising this 

reconditioning plan to where we don't have to 

then go to FDA, that it's signed on from a higher 

level without bringing a local FDA jurisdiction 

to be part of it. So it's not necessarily that 

anyone can do it, it's still a very set 

process/procedure that's being observed. It's 

just trying to identify a few of those actual 

levels that we can pre-approve without having to 

get local jurisdictions to have a lockdown.

You know, in looking at the very top 

section that's talking about permitting the 

reconditioning of certain types, given that it's 

only listing, you know, animal feed with IDK, 
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aflatoxin, you know, DLQ, I don't know that we 

need to call out those others because then we 

would have to, you may complicate it more than 

what it already is until it says that, well, if 

it's for IDK you would do this. But obviously 

if it's on the mycotoxin, then it would have to 

go through the full FDA route anyhow because, you 

know, I don't know that adding onlys, you know, 

is really providing any additional substance to 

it.

MR. FRIANT: Yes, I would agree, Matt. 

I think the piece that folks may not be familiar 

with is that this list is derived from the current 

MOU where it says if FGIS finds these conditions 

on officially sampled and inspected grain, then 

they have to notify FDA and we have to have a 

reconditioning plan. So that's why, to your 

point, Matt, it's specific to this list that's on 

there. 

I think part of what I'm hearing 

through this discussion that we might need to add 
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particularly in this top part is reconditioning 

the following types of actionable lots of grain 

at domestic and export locations, something along 

the lines of, you know, identified by FGIS or 

their designated agencies through official 

sampling and inspection procedures, or something 

referring that it only applies when it's done, 

when they're identified as part of the official 

system.

Then I think, Bob, does that help 

clarify the question I think you're raising?

MR. SINNER: Yes.

MR. FRIANT: So I'm not taking notes 

on this. Is Kendra or somebody as part of the 

group taking some notes on some of these? I know 

we'll have them in the written notes.

MR. ENGEL: Nick, isn't that implied 

that this is a piece of the official system? How 

would it have ever been identified in the first 

place?

MR. FRIANT: You're correct, Curt, it 
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is. Probably what we need to do, because this 

was taken out of the aflatoxin handbook I think, 

so we might need to look at what, you know, this 

was --

MR. ENGEL: I think we borrowed 

heavily.

MR. FRIANT: We took it right from the 

handbook and just tweaked it basically. But I 

think depending on how this gets used by FGIS and 

then their discussions with FDA, for good order's 

sake, we probably do need to clarify it. If 

nothing else, because what --

MR. ENGEL: That's just a curiosity 

question, clarification from my standpoint.

MR. FRIANT: I think that was a good 

question, too, and it might be incorporated in 

other places. If FDA or someone else sees this 

in a vacuum, I think we want it clear that it 

only applies to officially inspected grain. I 

appreciate that, Curt, thanks.

MR. ENGEL: No, absolutely.
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MR. FRIANT: So, Matt, I notice we're 

getting close on time.

MR. KERRIGAN: Keep going.

MR. FRIANT: Okay.

MR. KERRIGAN: And as Nick is going 

through some of the other comments, I think, you 

know, the key piece with Tony, I think is, this 

is a recommendation for the process, you know, 

that there may be some, you know, some items in 

here that has FDA and FGIS, you know, get that 

final working document, you know, final 

agreement, that some of the only this, only that, 

you know, bullets numbering, where it actually 

resides can change. But the idea is that these 

are the items, this is what industry, both on the 

inspection as well as the elevator side, you 

know, feels can adequately, you know, recondition 

to better lots, you know, with a procedure for 

what to do with the others.

So as far as not getting caught up on 

some of these others, you know, it does still 
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need to go, you know, to FGIS working with FDA, 

with these two different groups to make sure that 

everybody is in agreement, you know, of it. The 

heart of it is really the actionable lot with 

what we can actually do about it.

MR. FRIANT: So the next comment also 

was in this same section around diversion of high 

IDK wheat to animal feed. Well, it wasn't a 

question, it was a comment, to provide additional 

background to FDA on why diversion of high IDK 

wheat is appropriate or okay. In other words, 

don't assume that when FDA reads this, they will 

understand why it's not an issue to impact human 

or animal health, right, or a safety issue.

So I think based on that comment, 

probably what needs to happen is the 

subcommittee, well, I guess it's a question, 

Arthur, for you and Tony, do you guys need more 

information from the subcommittee on why it would 

be okay to do this for when someone talks to FDA?

MR. NEAL: Yes. As you've noted, we 
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should not assume that they fully understand 

those impacts. Based on the dialogue that I have 

heard, it's in the substantive and preventive 

measure the reason why they're concerned about, 

you know, diverted feed going to animals and then 

coming back to the U.S. in the version of meat 

products. So I think that's a conversation that 

needs to occur with industry at the table, but 

that background and perspective needs to be 

provided in writing to prepare them for that 

conversation so we can hear their perspective as 

well.

MR. FRIANT: So I think based on that, 

my suggestion would be that the subcommittee 

works to develop some of that additional 

background. I guess if anybody on the committee 

or subcommittee disagrees, please speak up.

Okay, so we'll take that on, on behalf 

of the subcommittee, we'll take on some of that 

background work on this piece.

The next comment came up in the 
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Section 6.5 around FGIS responsibilities, and it 

was around providing additional clarity for field 

office managers and delegated state officials. 

I guess the question would be, you know, for Tony 

and his team, the field office managers, maybe 

Phil from a state perspective, what additional 

clarity might we need in this section? I'm not 

sure that we can answer all those questions right 

now, but, Lee, I see you're raising your hand.

PARTICIPANT: That was my comment --

MR. FRIANT: It doesn't actually 

speak to delegated state officials. It just says 

field office managers. Yes, okay, so it's really 

an and.

PARTICIPANT: It's an and. You're 

likely wanting to allow Phil to make that call, 

not requiring the PNW field office to be that 

person.

MR. KERRIGAN: That's in the sublevel 1 for export locations. Do you want it up 

at top instead of just down below there?
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MR. FRIANT: Sorry, I didn't, it may 

have been added, but --

MR. KERRIGAN: Okay.

PARTICIPANT: -- that had been my 

comment.

MR. FRIANT: Yes, I think that's an 

easy enough change that we can add. Field office 

managers, and Phil, we can work with you on the 

right language there, delegated state agency 

managers or something along those lines, okay.

The next one was in this top paragraph 

here on the next page. We need to be clear on 

responsibilities and how FGIS is helping to 

facilitate FDA's work and maintain a streamlined 

grain supply chain. The further comment was 

should we add a cover letter or preamble to 

establish the purpose for the SOP which is 

facilitating consistency?

MR. KERRIGAN: Is something like that 

currently done or as part of this bigger draft 

MOU for the aflatoxin?
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MR. FRIANT: I'd defer to Arthur maybe 

on that.

MR. NEAL: So that comment, I'm not 

sure where it's coming from, but I think we do 

have to have some introductory language that 

helps us to stage on whoever is going to use it 

as we may have different people engaging in this 

process. They need to understand why this was 

done and the like. However, for the work of the 

committee and subcommittee, the focus needs to 

really be on the plans and kind of making sure 

that the issues or actionable incidents, all of 

them are addressed thoroughly, and that the 

subcommittee anticipates questions that FDA may 

ask and add clarity on to ensure that those 

anticipations are addressed in what's being 

provided.

MR. FRIANT: So I think what I heard 

you say, Arthur, and please correct me if I'm 

wrong, is that as long as the broader committee 

is comfortable with the items we've identified, 
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the actions that we're taking, you have enough 

information to continue the conversations with 

FDA. Also we need to continue to work on some 

of the additional background and kind of 

justification information that can be used in 

those conversations.

MR. NEAL: Right, because we learned 

about the concern that FDA had about such grain 

going to animals, but I don't know if we had that 

context before fully.

MR. FRIANT: No, I do not think we 

did. 

MR. NEAL: And so giving them 

perspective from the industry to further that 

conversation, conversation and engagement with 

them will be necessary because that is something 

that I think that lays a decision being made on 

a remediation plan, that particular, that 

principle that they have of making sure that such 

grain does not come back into the country by way 

of a meat product. So I think a dialogue should 
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really occur around that to make sure that 

industry's concerns are heard, perspective is 

shared, and also FDA's concerns are heard, and 

then try to figure out if we can meet in the 

middle to help facilitate a decision more timely 

with common understanding.

MR. FRIANT: So the subcommittee will 

continue to work on that additional information.

The last comment we had was down in 

what's now labeled Section 6.7, Disposition 

Policy, and it's around the screenings not reentering the human food channel in any fashion. 

The comment that was made during our last meeting 

was more commentary or direction on how 

screenings should be handled.

I guess I would open it up to the 

committee on what additional clarity or 

commentary is needed in this section in 

particular?

MS. GROVE: I just wanted to double 

check. This disposition is for all of those 
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listed in 6.4, all of the different actionable 

items, or was this still going back to the wheat 

IDK?

MR. FRIANT: That's a great question, 

Barb. This would be for all actionable items, 

and No. 1 only applies to the screenings. So 

essentially what the reconditioning procedures 

that we've outlined here say is if you find one 

of these actionable items, you can recondition 

the grain, i.e., run it over a screener or some 

sort of mechanical separation to remove the 

actionable items. So that No. 1 is referring to 

those screenings, what gets removed.

The sound grain that's been 

reconditioned, as long as it does not exceed FDA 

action limits, it can be handled without 

restrictions. So we've got two separate pieces 

of this disposition, it's the screenings and the 

sound grain. Yes, it applies to all, whatever 

it was, five or six of those actionable items 

that we identified at the beginning.
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MR. KERRIGAN: This may be an area 

where we need to, knowing that the Center for 

Veterinary Medicine may go into play since we 

only call out human food channels, it doesn't 

state that it can necessarily has to go into feed, 

but that may be a question I guess on the FDA 

side from the screenings itself.

MR. ENGEL: We should be able to break 

that down because the components of those 

screenings, a couple of them like the aflatoxin 

level needs to be verified before it can go 

anywhere. The IDK piece is about, you know, 

wheat cleaning so to speak that are unacceptable 

to a flour grower but may be acceptable to a 

feeder. The excreta and the rest of the DLQ key 

parts of it absolutely don't go anywhere. I 

mean, can't we just spell that out?

MR. FRIANT: I'd open that question 

to the whole committee, what are your thoughts on 

that? So, Curt, what I think I heard you say is 

perhaps the disposition of the screenings needs 
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to be a little more prescriptive than what it has 

today; is that accurate?

MR. ENGEL: Absolutely, because I sit 

here and I can mull that over in my head and 

there's really components of what's being removed 

from this that just need to go into the garbage, 

so to speak. Some of it still has some type of 

use, but it needs to be validated as having that 

use.

Does that make sense?

MR. FRIANT: Absolutely, yes.

MR. NEAL: On that same note, I think 

that kind of goes to my comment about 

anticipating what they don't know. Hearing that 

come from is that they may not have an idea of 

what that process even looks like. For that 

reason, it slows the decision-making process 

down. So anything to help them visualize what 

that process looks like, what happens to the 

byproducts or the screenings, I think it's 

helpful for them to accept what we're presenting, 
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what you're presenting, well, what we're 

presenting more readily.

MR. FREDERKING: I think there's a bit 

of a difference, or in my mind, you were talking 

about remediation plans. Certainly there is a 

reconditioning process, that I hope this is the 

purpose I guess of this document is to 

standardize the reconditioning process, whereas 

the diversion plan on the screenings can be 

really complex like Curt said, depending on what 

results are actually seen in those screenings. 

So just keeping those two things separate and not 

getting lost I guess in some of the CBM confusion 

on where these screenings can go would be 

important.

MR. KERRIGAN: Yes, and I was going 

to agree with that intent, Chris. You know, 

really the idea of this is to get that actionable 

lot released as an actionable lot so it's not 

locked up somewhere, export terminal or interior, 

you know, to tying that bin up, that we can 
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hopefully move it along the process. Maybe the 

disposition one for the screenings is not 

delineating each individual actionable lot but 

maybe it just needs to go back to, it needs to 

meet FDA guidelines, you know, for that, that 

there's not an actual pre-approved plan for 

what's removed. Maybe we still, you know, 

because of all the unknowns, because of the 

testing, because of the various levels, maybe 

that just still resides with we need to get in 

touch with FDA for that portion of it, but at 

least it keeps everything moving through the 

process.

MR. FRIANT: Now that we've gotten 

into this discussion, it's coming back to me 

slowly. But you're exactly right, and the 

intention was you still may have to go through 

the full diversion process with FDA on what to do 

with the screenings. The one caveat being that 

I think that the subcommittee threw in was if it 

is screenings for aflatoxin, as long as you're 
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going to go to the appropriate animal species, 

you wouldn't need to go through the full 

diversion plan for aflatoxin, in corn screens for 

example, but the rest of the actionable items you 

most likely would have to go through.

So maybe that's some clarification we 

need to add, particularly to this No. 1 is, we've 

already said it's not going to go into human food 

channels, all other actionable items except the 

aflatoxin you have to go through the full

diversion request process. Aflatoxin, as long 

as it's going to the appropriate animal species, 

can go. So that gets it clearer but still keeps 

it relatively simple.

MR. KERRIGAN: And should provide I 

guess a big portion of that clarity that you think 

the FDA is going to look for, for why this is 

okay. I think we probably still need to add a 

small piece to why the reconditioning plan of 

screening, you know, is sufficient. But then 

that should then, you know, leave that back in 
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their court for what to do with the --

MR. FRIANT: So from a process 

perspective, I think this subcommittee maybe has 

a little more work to do before we go for any 

sort of final approval from the full committee, 

is that --

MR. KERRIGAN: I think we can do one 

of two things, given that there exists a couple 

of minor clarifications depending on timing this 

afternoon and tomorrow. There could be an 

opportunity to potentially clean some of this up, 

run it back through the committee depending on a 

couple of these other action items, see if they 

wanted to keep it moving. It doesn't necessarily 

have to go back as long as the committee comes to 

a language in items that they are comfortable 

with and addresses all the concerns. Otherwise, 

if time does become a constraint or does get to 

be very convoluted or complicated, then I would 

suggest that then it would kick back at the end 

of tomorrow's meeting.
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MR. FRIANT: So I don't want to speak 

totally on behalf of the subcommittee, but I'm 

happy to add some of the additional language and 

clarification, and as a subcommittee we can have 

a chance to take a look at it very quickly. I 

would prefer we try to bring it back before the 

committee tomorrow.

MR. KERRIGAN: Okay.

MR. MORGAN: One clarification. 

Conversation with you yesterday, Arthur and Matt, 

do we need to take rice out of this document?

MR. KERRIGAN: I think we already did.

MR. FRIANT: There's still some 

reference in the --

MR. KERRIGAN: There's still some 

reference?

MR. MORGAN: Okay, I just wanted 

clarification. I know we, we're going to have 

to work on our own plan, so we're going to 

probably piggyback.

MR. FRIANT: Yes. So I think you're 
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right, John, it probably should come out. But 

that was the wording right out of the MOU where 

it lists, you know, rye, wheat, rice and pulses.

MR. MORGAN: Yes, our major 

remediation plan is to re-nova rice, and 

typically once we re-nova, they can go into 

almost any channel unless we have an aflatoxin 

issue or something like that. Thanks.

MR. KERRIGAN: That's good to know. 

Thanks, John. We thought we caught all of them. 

MR. NEAL: So speaking of that, I'm 

trying to think of a decent time for us to target 

having a meeting with the different components of 

FDA around this topic, hopefully face to face 

such that we can, you know, begin that dialogue. 

I'd like it to be done with all of the sectors 

that we service.

So I know that, John, when you all 

have an opportunity to look at the remediation 

plan and the work that the subcommittee has done,

it may be good to get an idea of when rice could 
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be able to have a plan, that when we talk to FDA 

everybody can be at the table at the same time.

MR. MORGAN: Thank you, Arthur. I'll 

reach out to our representatives, and we're 

meeting in July, so hopefully we can come up with 

something pretty quick.

MR. KERRIGAN: Any other questions 

for our Subcommittee Chairman Nick on the draft 

plan?

Okay, with that, let's go ahead and 

break for lunch. We'll come back to, well, we 

have one more topic to begin initial discussions 

on regarding the grading soybeans of other 

colors, as well as coming back to see if there's 

any more information and discussion points on the 

other three, primarily the Grain Inspection 

Advisory Committee alternates as well as the 

shuttle train data, specifically regarding 

furthering those conversations.

So let's go ahead and take a full 90 

minutes here. Be back at just after 1:15 or 
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right at 1:15.

(Whereupon, the above-entitled matter 

went off the record for a lunch recess.)

MR. KERRIGAN: Okay, we'll go ahead 

and reconvene here. We are in the middle of our 

industry issues section. Again, a reminder, we 

do have at least a hard stop at 3:45 to make sure 

that we don't have any public comments via 

online.

But the one area that we have not 

discussed yet is grading soybeans of other 

colors. I would like to turn this initial 

request discussion point over to Barb with the 

expectation that Dr. Jhee will probably be pulled 

in pretty quickly.

MS. GROVE: You might as well come up. 

I think the majority of the people in here have, 

in some way, shape or form, been pulled into 

conversations or had conversations within, you 

know, whether your own companies or other 

agencies or committees concerning this.
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Because it is across the board. 

Grading soybeans of other colors, the issues, 

domestic receipt, movement for export shipment. 

Before commission, so many different variations 

of this. Because we wanted to make sure that, 

as a committee, we had the ability to really talk 

about what can we truly do?

So to be too specific wasn't going to 

help the conversation and to help us come to some 

conclusions. That the last three to five years, 

a particular trait traded soybean has shown to be 

more susceptible to viral stress. So in that end 

use of that comes, it comes out as soybeans of 

other color.

And more considerably, the smoky gray 

type of coloration. Or we'll call that, that's 

our new phrase, I guess, or new coloration term. 

This is whole only. So when dissected, it's a 

quality -- soybean. So we just wanted to 

facilitate discussion here.

And what do we feel we can do for the 
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industry? How can we help? We all know, I guess 

you know, as you do studies and research, we all 

know research takes time to fix this, this issue 

or correct whatever the deficit is in this trait. 

So, you know, what are those things that we can 

do short-term and long-term for SBOC? 

MR. KERRIGAN: Dr. Jhee, I'd ask you 

to step up. I'm not sure if you are aware, I 

guess, of this coming up. If you had any advance 

notice or not on it. Is it going to be a yes or 

a no?

DR. JHEE: I'm getting briefed.

MR. KERRIGAN: Okay, so what I 

needed Dr. Jhee was the comments that were 

submitted officially from an elevator operator. 

Obviously, with your previous work and current 

work with genetics and different USC trials, 

GMOs, things of that nature, there's a lot of 

things moving --

DR. JHEE: Right.

MR. KERRIGAN: -- and it does appear 
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that there is a specific trait that, you know, is 

impacting it, and I think where the industry's at 

is a couple fold. Is, we want to make sure that 

there, if we go down the route of pushing for 

either different grading characteristics, 

standards, quality; you know, whatever that may 

be, that there's, obviously, no ill harm 

scientifically.

You know, before we go down that, I 

think we all want to be educated on what's 

happening. Is it a side effect or is it a real 

issue, which is what soybeans of other color, the 

grade factor was based on, right? So that's kind 

of the first tier where we're at.

The second tier, then, would be you 

know, if it truly just is a discoloration with 

no, you know, no other, I don't want to say 

downside, but no negative impacts to the quality 

content of the bean itself, enter into that 

discussion of, you know, what can or should we be 

doing? Because this is impacting grade search 
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for export as far as that goes.

So I know you're not fully up-to-speed 

on it, but I would, I guess ask, you know, your 

opinion; what you know, what you don't know. And 

if there's anybody else, maybe, in the room, the 

attendees group or something, that may be seeing 

it has some comments.

DR. JHEE: Okay, I know there have 

been extensive conversations with the industry, 

as well as with the developer of this certain 

product. Going back to, I guess, my previous 

role with the Animal and Plant Health Inspection 

Service, I'm pretty aware of this trait and the 

stacks of herbicides that are in this trait.

While I would not run the risk 

analysis or risk assessment team that actually 

reviewed this for non-regulated status, I think 

based off of its current non-regulated status, it 

would not pose a risk to the environment or any 

other human health impacts.

I think what we're dealing with is 
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probably and environmental issue, meaning some 

sort of stress is put on the beans, and it could 

be a leading to the discoloration. I think 

that's what I'm hearing from the industry.

Another question I think that would be 

something to explore, perhaps in the long-run, is 

you mentioned the quality. Now are we talking 

about the subjective quality or are we looking at 

protein oil, those types of qualities? Because 

I think, I think that's what the buyer would be 

most interested in, wouldn't it?

MR. KERRIGAN: Yeah, and that's, 

typically, when we get into discoloration issues, 

is it's been my experience that the quality 

starts to be impacted by streaky oil. I, and 

again, this is purely in the hulls. The hulls 

are removed prior to the crushing, so the oil is 

not impacted irregardless.

You know, the quality beyond that is 

just making sure that, again, it's part of the 

grade standard currently. So obviously there was 
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something that went into that of why we're 

characterizing soybeans of other color, you know, 

as a designated unit.

So if there's a quality that went 

along with that gray factor initially, I guess 

the assessment in my mind would be does this meet 

that definition, you know, of an SBOC; of why 

it's identified initially?

If it doesn't, but just has, you know, 

could be confused or, because of the testing 

standard or grading standards of how we're 

calling out SBOC versus this, is there a way that 

we can differentiate between the two, if there is 

not a quality, because it is showing up on grade 

certs and certain applications as it's being 

graded.

You know, we're not aware of any 

characteristic quality issues to protein oil, 

things of that nature that I'm aware of. It 

seems to be how it's being identified, and I don't 

want to say confused because I think that the 
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grade standards and procedures are accurate.

Other than we have this issue that it 

looks like what the standards, you know are 

there. So, you know, we definitely, as a 

committee don't want to make a recommendation, 

push the Federal Grain Inspection Service into 

changing something if there is, you know, another 

issue or hazard that could be there.

But it's also how do we identify this? 

How do we separate it? Because the standards, 

obviously, take a tremendous amount of time to 

change, and require a lot of effort to make sure 

that they are being changed for the right reason.

DR. JHEE: Right, understandable.

Brian, could you speak more about the 

recent engagement that we've had with the 

industry?

MR. ADAM: Yeah, so generally what 

we're seeing is is it the SBOC. So it only 

affects the seed coat; it does not penetrate into 

the endosperm or the meat of the kernel, and it 
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is a little bit different than some of the 

traditional SBOC we've seen in the past.

Generally, SBOC is expressed, the vast 

majority of the time the whole kernel is 

discolored solid, either a black or brown. What 

we're seeing with this particular type, whether 

it's the environment or a new variety, is kind of 

a brown, and sometimes it is expressed as a smoky 

gray discoloration.

A band that generates from the hilum, 

generally, all the way across, and back into the 

other side of the hilum, and then some 

discoloration on the side of the soybeans. So 

part of the requirement from soybean of other 

colors, a minimum discoloration which is shown or 

expressed are visual reference images SB 12.0.

The other requirement is 50 percent 

coverage. So what we're seeing is the decision 

that has to be made by our inspectors in the 

field, generally, is the coverage. Because the 

discoloration more than meets or exceeds the 
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level of discoloration required for SBOC.

And so generally what we're seeing, at 

least for the Board of Appeals review, that the 

board appeals we're seeing about an average of 

roughly about four percent in our samples that 

we're getting. And, generally, we're only seeing 

that right now from one location. So we're only 

receiving board appeals from one location right 

now.

We're been in discussion with, let's 

see, the last one was USSEC, the U.S. Soybean 

Export Council. We've been working with our 

quality assurance specialist. We are currently 

toward the end of our annual meetings, and we're 

really working on getting everyone aligned.

I know when I first heard of this I 

was concerned that maybe this was something that 

we were over-assessing. Because, historically, 

this has not been an issue. I've graded for 

around 30 years, and I don't, thousands of lots 

of soybeans, and I don't think I've ever 
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downgraded a lot of soybeans due to SBOC.

So this really is something that is 

new, and we've been working with both our quality 

assurance specialist and inspectors. We feel 

that there is good alignment. Maybe a little bit 

of bias to under-picking. So not quite maybe 

getting everything; that's kind of across the 

board, yeah across the board.

So we're kind of working on that but, 

yeah, the major concern that I first had was maybe 

we were over-assessing it. That doesn't seem to 

be the case. It is out there, and now we have 

to find a way to deal with it.

MR. NEAL: So from the FGI's 

perspective, when talking about grading, it seems 

as if grading the soybeans is occurring in a 

fairly consistent manner. The challenge that we 

think we have is now just, and when I say we, is 

the marketing of the soybeans.

I'm not quite sure how fast this SBOC 

issue will go away; you know, the greenish, 
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grayish color, smoky-colored soybeans. But from 

a marketing standpoint, soybeans moving the way 

that they should, I think some consideration has 

got to be given to that aspect of it.

We're doing what we can to ensure that 

official agencies, Federal inspectors are grading 

according to the lines. We're also trying to 

make sure that we've having conversations with 

different groups to understand that we've not 

changed the grading standards.

But we're open to working with all 

groups to figure out how do we minimize impact. 

That's just kind of where we are, and I think the 

group thought will really be around the marketing 

side of the house.

Because some contracts are already 

established for '22. But the word on the street 

is that more of these soybeans will be planted 

this year at a larger rate that will impact '23. 

And so that's kind of where I think we are at the 

moment. 
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And we don't, we're all in this for 

different reasons, but the core is really the 

American farmers, you know, farmers are producing 

the soybeans. We want to move it, but if the 

farmers start getting penalized at the farm gate 

because of soybeans, that's going to even be a 

bigger issue.

So I think that's kind of what we're 

dealing with, and we've got to try and figure out 

how to maneuver this current situation.

MS. GROVE: You know, your comment on 

the marketing side is very, very definitely, you 

know, a thought. And, you know, again, the 

market share of this particular traded bean, 

again, for 2022, was larger.

And a question asked from somebody is 

if the producers know if it has a tendency towards 

this trait, will they stop using it? No. 

Because right now the return on investment of 

what they get out of using this trait; the 

efficiency in their operation when the majority, 
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I want to say the country is not discounting.

So there is no reason to not plant, 

and I'm not advocating that anybody do. I know 

from a personal cooperative perspective we are 

discussing it. What do we do? Because we have 

had, we had shuttles all through last fall and in 

December, when this first came up, sitting.

They're loaded, and the only factor 

that's causing them to be outside of that 

contract a No. 1 soybean was SBOC. So they were 

sitting, waiting for a buyer to determine will I 

even take it. 

So when you have something sitting 

there, you know, it goes back to that whole supply 

chain, back to the issues with rail. If that 

train has to sit 24, 48-hours for somebody to 

make a decision, then plus taking monetary 

discounts, that's, I think, where we're sitting 

right now.

Because, again, you're paying, if you 

want to say, not necessarily a premium; you're 
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paying a standard, a good standard price for a 

number one bean if we are not discounting for it, 

but we are paying for it on the outbound.

And that's, that is where we feel what 

can we do? What can we do, both short-term and 

long-term to help, say, minimize that impact? 

MR. SINNER: One of the concerns I 

have is that it sounds like this isn't, 

necessarily, genetic, but it's environmental. 

It's environmental that caused it, even though 

it's something genetically about that variety or 

that event.

So the question from the customer is 

always going to be well, how is this going to 

affect my end product? On the food side, is this 

going to affect my taste? Is this going to 

affect the performance of my final retail 

product?

In SBOC, you look at brown soybeans, 

and those are yellow in the middle; that's a 

genetic mutation, and the black soybeans, they're 
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grown as black soybeans. So do we know enough 

about how this end use is affected, if at all? 

I mean, this is the first time I've seen this.

DR. JHEE: We, how do we characterize 

the engagement we've had with the developer in 

terms of getting information from them, and 

they've looked into this issue themselves?

MR. NEAL: So they have research on 

the issue that I believe has been shared with 

various groups. They have participated in some, 

they've not necessarily been vocal, but they've 

been participating in the meetings with our 

industry around the issue.

So they're engaged, and I think 

there's even future engagement coming down the 

pike in which they will be participating. I 

think Bob asked a great question around end use 

which we won't be able to answer, not FGIS.

I think that's where hard work comes 

in, in my opinion, between buyer and seller to 

guarantee the buyer that there's no change in 
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what you're getting, other than the fact of this 

SBOC, but knowing what the buyer intends on using 

the soybeans for.

MR. SINNER: Well, and then you get 

into is this damage? Is it mottling, rather than 

SBOC? And I don't, I mean, they have to rely on 

your department to say well, this is the category 

it belongs. And so then environmental can be, 

can cause damage, right?

MR. NEAL: Well, it's a good question. 

So the developers go into problems that really 

need to confirm the cause. They created it, and 

they've probably done the trials and the like for 

that purpose of why this is happening.

But at the end of the day, regardless 

of why it's being caused, for contracting 

purposes for product flow, is it going to impact 

my final product? Whether it's meat; you know, 

whether I'm using it as feed for meat production, 

or if I'm using it for a processed product. 

Whether it's for oil.
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Somehow, someway, I believe there's 

got to be some type of documentation to help those 

buyers, whether they've already contracted or 

will be contracted in the future, to know this 

will not impact whatever it is you're doing.

MR. FRIANT: So I think a key question 

that I have for FGIS is there a role to play for 

FGIS in facilitating that research on 

functionality? Because I think that, I think, 

Bob, that's what you're getting at is, in my 

opinion, everything we've heard so far is 

anecdotal.

It doesn't impact functionality. It 

doesn't impact oil. It doesn't impact protein. 

But I'm not sure that there's been that what I 

would consider basic research to say, 

definitively, yes, functionality is not impacted.

And so is there a way for FGIS to help 

facilitate that research into the functionality? 

You know, is that a role that FGIS can help with 

between, because it gives, you know, there's a 
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level of trust in data that the developer would 

provide.

And then, there's another level of 

trust in data that would be work that's done in 

conjunction with or through a Federal agency like 

FGIS.

MR. NEAL: In short, yeah, think it 

through. The short answer is yes. We may not 

conduct the research ourselves but, yeah, we can 

definitely play a role to help facilitate the 

research around the impact of this particular 

SBOC on the quality of the soybeans.

I think what gets tricky, and could 

potentially lengthen the research, is if we go 

down rabbit holes of all of the potential uses of 

the soybeans, and trying to figure out how 

everybody's going to use it. I think that there 

could probably be some preliminary assessment and 

assumptions made.

But if there's going to be research 

conducted for every potential use, that's going 
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to take time. Think about how long you have to 

figure out whether or not the SBOC is going to 

impact the color of meat. It'll take a long 

time.

But if that's, you know, personally, 

the functionality of the soybeans in terms of the 

natural soybean itself, may be able to assess 

without the SBOC impact data, I think we can do, 

in partnership with someone very, you know, 

fairly quickly.

When we get into end uses, that could 

potential extend that research longer than what 

I think we want.

MR. MORGAN: I mean, Arthur, I would 

think you would turn to your research community 

for these answers. Universities. Research 

councils. It seems like it's more of an academic 

issue than a grade standards issue right now.

MR. NEAL: You're thinking along the 

same lines as we are. Like I said, we wouldn't 

do it ourselves. We'd partner with the land 
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grants, more than likely to help facilitate it, 

but I think the scope of the research has to be 

pretty clear, because we don't want to send 

anybody down a rabbit hole.

We want it to be very clear and 

focused on what it is you're trying to achieve. 

Not to shape outcome, but to make sure that they 

have clear instructions on what they should be 

trying to test.

And if end uses is included, we should 

be clear on what end uses we want to look at, but 

if we're trying to cover every possible use, 

that's where the challenge could be.

MR. FRIANT: You're definitely right, 

the scope of end use is huge. I don't have the 

firm numbers to back it up, but I suspect the 

vast majority of soybeans handled in the U.S. and 

export in the U.S. go into soy processing and 

oil. And a small percentage goes into food beans 

or other application.

So I think that's part of that 
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discussion is where it's done. Putting the good 

of the majority, right. And you're correct, the 

scope needs to be clearly defined. And I think 

that could be done if we look at soy processing 

as kind of a key focus area. That's the 

direction I would look at to your research.

MR. KERRIGAN: I just want to come 

back to something you had mentioned about the 

Board of Appeals. And you said roughly four 

percent of what you're seeing has come in 

associated with it.

Is that soybeans of other colors, in 

general, or soybeans of other color that appear 

to be this specific seed coat generated this 

year?

MR. ADAM: Okay, yeah, so we've 

received about 30 board appeals. And the average 

SBOC content has been four percent, and it has 

all been this what we call newer type of SBOC 

with the ring, and not the traditional all black 

or all brown soybean.
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So, yeah, so everything that we've 

currently seen roughly over the last year I would 

describe as this newer type. And the average of 

all those 30 board appeals that we've seen, the 

SBOC content has been four percent.

MR. KERRIGAN: And then, getting to 

the grading standard and, again, I'm just 

clarifying. Is that, do you feel that the way 

the standard is written currently, although 

obviously through the Board of Appeals, but that 

it is being graded accurately per the current 

standard for this new --

MR. ADAM: Yeah, yeah. So we've 

looked at it, and we've done a lot of testing of 

our inspectors. We feel that they're very 

accurate and tuned to this, though there is a 

slight bias to under picking.

So like, for example, for the 30 board 

appeals, if our average was roughly four, maybe 

the original was 3.5, 3.6. So close, pretty 

close.
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MR. KERRIGAN: All right, one of the 

other items I'm hoping that you can speak to a 

little bit, regarding the actual standard itself, 

is SBOC versus mottled. Can you speak to, maybe, 

how those are, those two items are viewed, tech 

graded. And maybe how it's different than what 

we're seeing now?

MR. ADAM: Yeah, so the purple 

model is not considered part of the SBOC 

standard. So that's depicted on a general 

appearance print, and it is assessed on 400 

grams. SBOC is assessed on 125 grams, and it's 

an actual grading standard. Purple mottled is a 

special grade.

So it doesn't affect the actual grade, 

but it would be noted on the grade line. And it 

would be something that would be, a buyer could 

discount.

MR. KERRIGAN: And I apologize 

because I'm not 100 percent versed in, I guess, 

the standard. Is that called as a separate kind 
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of section in the standard, then, for how that 

purple mottle is graded and why it's not?

MR. ADAM: Yeah, correct. It's a 

separate, distinct from SBOC, and its own 

standard, visual standard.

MR. KERRIGAN: Asking these 

questions, I guess, obviously, lead to, you know, 

some of those questions that, you know, if there, 

if it's found that, obviously, that there isn't 

a quality, you know, dysfunction to it, you know, 

for the end user and such, what the end game could 

possibly look like.

I guess, you know, from just internal 

discussions, if it is different than the 

traditional, you know, all black or all brown, 

you encounter something of that nature, you know, 

of what that could look like, I guess.

But I'm assuming that anything of that 

nature, since it's part of the standard, would 

have to go through the full standard review 

process, even if that were to come about; is that 
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correct?

MR. NEAL: Yeah, if we were to change 

the standard, it would engage the public process. 

MR. FRIANT: Timing on that, roughly, 

from when you took it to --

MR. NEAL: I mean, you're looking at 

minimum 18 months. That's minimum. Why? 

Because you're going through a proposal, public 

comment. And before you even get to the 

proposal, you've got to draft it.

It's got to get through the full 

Federal clearance process. That's internal. 

That's office of General Counsel. That's agency. 

That's office of program, office of budget and 

program analysis. The to the Federal Register.

We don't control some of those other 

folks' timelines. And then, you have, after the 

comment period closes, you have to assess the 

comments. Respond to the comments. Draft a 

final. And it goes back to a clearance process 

again.
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MR. FRIANT: All right, so I'm pretty 

confident I know the answer to this, but there 

might be folks in the room that don't know the 

history as much. Is there another example of 

dropping a grade determining factor, and dropping 

it from being grade determining to being 

informational or other criteria?

MR. NEAL: I'm going to turn to Brian 

on this. I think that there is, but you have the

history better than I do.

MR. ADAM: Yeah, test waste in 

soybeans, now 12 years ago. So, yeah, I mean, 

that's something that could be done with SBOC if 

it was determined that 90 percent of end use is 

not a concern.

If the industry thought it was 

appropriate, it could be pulled out of, out of 

the grade determining factor and be contractual 

or informational, yeah.

MR. FRIANT: And is that process, 

potentially, quicker than the full standard 
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review because there's a precedent, or does that 

change the process any?

MR. NEAL: Brian, how did that process 

work for dropping of the test waste -- 

MR. ADAM: I think that was done by 

policy. So I'm not really sure how long that 

took.

MR. NEAL: So if I'm not mistaken, if 

Pat's in the room, Pat you can come up, but if 

I'm not mistaken, it would follow the same 

process. And the reason being is because it 

still requires a change in the standard, but Pat, 

you can confirm that for me.

STAFF MEMBER: That would be the exact 

same process that Arthur described. It has to 

go through a Federal Register notification to 

notify the public about that. Comment period. 

Draft a final. Put that in the Federal Register.

And then, remember that grain 

standards, because we do this according to the 

Administrative Procedures Act, and this is in the 
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regs, grain standards have a one-year set-in 

before they take effect.

So we would try to publish that so 

that it would, that new rule would take effect at 

the time of the harvest. We try to do that that 

way. So 18-months to maybe get it to the point 

of appearing as a final rule in the Federal 

Register, plus a one-year set-in.

And that's so merchandisers and 

everybody in the game can get their inventories 

positioned. So that when we flip the switch at 

midnight, we don't destroy the value of 

something.

MR. FRIANT: Would there be any, 

again, assuming that this was the direction the 

industry wanted to go, would there be any path 

forward through some sort of emergency, I don't 

know if waiver's the right term or declaration.

But is there a path forward there 

through the undersecretary, Secretary level? 

Kind of analogous to the emergency declaration 
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with Hurricane IDA but, of course, a different 

situation. Is that a, is there any path forward 

through that process, while it works through the 

clearance process?

MR. NEAL: Great question. I think 

an interim final rule could be pursued, which 

allows for faster implementation. However, if 

I'm not mistaken, if comments on an interim final 

rule that oppose the change, it would require us 

to start the process all over again from scratch.

It would push us back further than 

where we would have been. And you can't control 

comments that come in from anybody.

MS. GROVE: So with that, what you 

just said, I think, Brian, you mentioned, you 

know, with changing it, if 90 percent of the end 

use was, and maybe it wasn't you, so I should 

say. But 90 percent; so if you tried to go 

through the emergency temporary standard, any 

negative comment could push it back.

Where, if we would just go with, let's 
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look at that possible 18-month, plus the one-year 

setback, at least if 90 percent agreed; okay, 

maybe I misunderstood that.

MR. NEAL: Go ahead, Brian. Then 

I'll clarify the other part of it.

MR. ADAM: Yeah, I was just using that 

as an example for end use. I don't know what the 

percent would be, or the percent of agreement by 

industry. So that was just --

MS. GROVE: Okay.

MR. ADAM: -- kind of an example of 

why it would possibly make sense to pull it out 

of the grading standard.

MS. GROVE: All right.

MR. ADAM: Sorry.

MS. GROVE: Right.

MR. NEAL: And just FYI, Barbara, 

there is no numerical threshold that has to be 

met in terms of comments agreeing on something 

before the Federal Government would implement a 

change.
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MS. GROVE: So I ask, well, I am going 

to ask. If you can answer has there been work 

on a new visual reference image? And you were 

mentioning it, and I was trying to write it down, 

and I missed a little bit.

But one showing this particular; I was 

just looking up online, and what I, the last I 

saw was 2016. And that didn't really even show 

that, that full black coat or brown coat. Those 

were really --

MR. ADAM: Yeah, so we've actually, 

with Digital Media Group, did produce a new image 

that we've shared with our -- at the seminar. 

And we're maybe looking at some other 

technologies, like video.

But for the actual grading, official 

grading, the only print that is approved is the 

SB 12.0, which shows the minimum amount of 

discoloration needed for the SBOC. And then, of 

course, the coverage is 50 percent or more 

coverage.
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So really what the inspector is 

looking for when he's grading, to make his 

determination, because the vast majority of these 

beans are dark enough, is the judgment of does 

this cover 50 percent or more of the bean?

MR. KERRIGAN: Moving a little bit 

forward to this, as well, we talk about, 

obviously you know, interior to the U.S. grades. 

Is that maybe going to export, things like that? 

Have we seen this come up on the export receiving 

nation country side of any direct concerns, 

complaints?

Obviously, we know that as we're 

exporting we need to meet our grade fact 

ourselves. I'm not saying that we're shipping 

something that's not properly graded, but have 

we, have you guys received any indication from 

them about it?

MR. NEAL: To my knowledge, we've not 

gotten any complaints about SBOC from other 

countries. I do think we've heard, anecdotally, 
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from shippers that they've had some issues. 

Well, the product's still on domestic.

It hasn't, it's still in England. The 

product had not been exported yet; having some 

challenges with their soybeans meeting contract 

specs. But nothing has sailed, that I'm aware 

of, to a destination and been rejected because of 

SBOC.

MR. REILLY: I haven't heard of any 

complaints --

MR. NEAL: That was Byron Reilly 

saying he has not heard any complaints from other 

countries, for the record.

MR. FRIANT: So I'd kind of like, Matt 

if we're okay, I'd like to take the discussion a 

little bit; a different question, but still on 

this topic.

One of the conversations I've had with 

folks is, and I do not know the feasibility of 

this, but because it appears to be a seed coat 

issue only, is there any sort of reconditioning 
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process that could be used to knock the seed coat 

off and be re-graded?

Either after grading, or remove the 

seed coat prior to grading. So I'll just throw 

that out there for some discussion.

MR. NEAL: Great, outside-the-box 

thinking.

MR. FRIANT: That's why I said it.

MR. NEAL: I think, I think, and this 

is me talking off the top of my head right now. 

Does that, is that sample now, a representative 

sample of the lot, because it no longer contains 

the seed coat? That would be my question.

Does it change the, change our 

procedure and our standard for taking a 

representative sample? 

MS. GROVE: So not particularly on the 

reconditioning, can we recondition a lot? But 

we do find that it happens naturally, in a sense, 

through movement through the elevator at harvest. 

Again, through the fall and December, a lot of 
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our shuttles that were held and highly 

discounted, hey this is fresh.

But as the beans are in storage being 

re-elevated and then loaded, you're seeing the 

hulls sitting in piles, you know, in a structure. 

They are knocking off as the beans dry. It's, I 

guess if need be, if that's our only alternative.

It's a somewhat expensive one because 

you look at re-elevation, if your knocking the 

hulls off most likely you're causing yourself a 

higher percent of slit and things such as that.

But I won't say that it's a process, 

but it occurs during elevation anyway. So if 

that's happening, in that somewhat naturally 

throwing movement, I wouldn't say that it's 

changing the structure of that bean.

Because then, as its being graded and 

loaded, it's not being graded as not a, not a 

whole kernel because the hull is no longer there. 

We're not, that's not a concern in the 

loading. I guess that's what I see.
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MR. NEAL: That is good rationale. 

We're just asking questions as the concept thrown 

out. The, and I lost my thought for a second. 

When we're talking about that seed 

coat, the question I think, also, that's still a 

challenge for us, even if we did do a 

reconditioning is the definition of U.S. No. 2 

yellow soybean, No. 1, because it's based on the 

seed coat.

If the seed coat's not there, and 

we're trying to confirm or attest to that soybean 

moving U.S. No. 1, No. 2 yellow soybean without 

a seed coat, I'm not quite sure how that all 

complies with the standard, and this is just me 

talking out loud.

MR. KERRIGAN: And, honestly, as 

you're talking about that, Arthur, to Barbara's 

point in knowing that seed coats do fall off now, 

I would say unintentionally. That could be the 

basis for a standard change of it being a notfor-classification, you know, but informational 
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only. Knowing that it happens already, right?

I mean, because I would say that if a 

samples comes and there's, you know, some beans 

without the seed coat on it, you're probably not 

looking for that or not viewing it any 

differently. You know, it's still yellow.

I mean, I could tell you what the 

percentage is, other than knowing when we look 

inside the bins, I'll agree with that. You know, 

all around the edges, that's all it is is like 

hulls, right?

MS. GROVE: To this, to add on to 

that, would it be different, is it any different 

than dockage in wheat? Dockage is not a grain 

standard, but contract factor. You know, FM is 

a grade standard in grading wheat, but dockage 

depends on what the end user wants because it can 

be mechanically taken out of it.

MR. KERRIGAN: Brian, and getting 

back to just kind of the existing standard with 

soybeans of other colors, can you maybe walk 
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through the process, I guess, of identifying it? 

Is it purely a visual? Do we cut them in half?

Do we confirm anything to the black 

ones versus dark brown versus the mottled? What 

standard, I guess, practice, process?

MR. ADAM: Yes, it's purely visual. 

So there's no cross section involved like for 

damage by heat or heat damage in soybean, and 

we're just assessing that outer coat. That's all 

we're looking at.

And we're determining whether it meets 

or exceeds the visual print for discoloration and 

50 percent coverage. So it's pretty 

straightforward. And readily identifiable in a 

sample. So you don't have to pull out suspect 

samples and cross section them like you do for 

green damage or heat damage.

MR. NEAL: This is a question for 

probably Tony or anybody who's been grading out 

in the field. Is it common for us, when we are 

looking at a sample, soybean sample, is it common 
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for us to find that the soybeans we're looking at 

at the time do not have seed coats?

MR. ADAM: Can I give my opinion, as 

well? Generally, the soybeans do have seed 

coats. They can break off sometimes, and 

sometimes we do; of course when that happens it 

usually expresses itself as a split, a split 

soybean. So it'll break off in two halves.

So generally you don't see a lot of 

soybeans that are still connected that don't have 

the seed coat.

MR. GOODEMAN: Yeah, same answer. I 

mean, once the hull comes off, it's not going to 

be intact for very long, I wouldn't think. And 

so we count the hulls and the split soybeans as 

split.

So, I mean, unless you find a way to 

segregate only the ones that were SBOC and try to 

de-hull them, potentially, you know, it would 

take an awful lot of; you're going to create a 

lot of splits, I would think.
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And those have a grade standard, as 

well, you know. So it isn't nearly as tight as 

SBOC, but the more splits you create, the more FM 

you're going to create. There's other, other 

outcomes. Yeah, considerations, yeah, thanks.

MR. FRIANT: I have a couple other 

ideas to throw out, but I don't want to leave 

this topic, this portion of it until we're ready. 

Is there any opportunity to look at the, either 

the waiver process or official inspection service 

process?

So in other words, today there's, I 

don't know if it's a waiver or an exemption for 

high quality, especially grain exported in 

containers. So is there a route; one of the 

things that we've heard is that container 

shippers are having a lot of issues with making 

grade because of SBOC.

Is there a route that the container 

shippers could use that exemption or waiver; 

sorry, I'm not looking at which section it's 
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under, to essentially have the sample, all 

factors graded except SBOC, and still get a 

certificate that says all factors meet U.S. No. 

1, you know, those soybeans? And SBOC simply 

excluded.

So, Arthur, that question, it kind of 

goes back to some of the discussions we had. 

Yeah, so for those we aren't aware, there was 

previous discussion around opportunity for buyers 

to buy No. 3 soybeans, but all factors for No. 2 

and No. 1 except SBOC, all right?

And there was some negative 

connotation to that from the industry that it 

would be a lesser product being sold, even though 

operational, we all know it's still going to meet

those grade factors for No. 2 and No. 1.

And so the thought process behind this 

is it kind of takes what appears to be a negative 

connotation to buyers and turns it to be a more 

positive. Where it would show all the grade 

factors meet whatever it is; U.S. No. 1, U.S. No. 
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2, and it just excludes SBOC.

And so is there a way to leverage 

that, that exemption that's currently in policy 

for this situation?

MR. NEAL: Great question. I will 

need to discuss that one, look at it closely, but 

it's a very interesting perspective. If you 

don't mind, Tony or Pat, what's your perspective 

on that?

MR. GOODEMAN: Yes. We do have an 

existing exemption in the regulations and in our 

instructions for high quality specialty grain 

export in containers. That's actually, I think, 

what Byron was referencing earlier for that SSGA 

program for high quality grain like for Japan for 

the FIDO issue there.

It has to be No. 1 or better or 

organic. And so the caveat here is it's not No. 

1, right? If, or, you know, if SBOC is high, 

then it wouldn't meet that criteria for better 

than No. 1, necessarily.
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So as it's written, you know the black 

and white of it, it might be kind of challenging, 

but I understand what you're saying there.

MR. NEAL: Not the specialty grain. 

It's the official commercial inspection. 

MR. GOODEMAN: Yeah, the official 

commercial we allow. It's a modified procedure. 

It was developed in I think the mid- to late-90s; 

Mr. Ayers might know off the top of his head.

So that official agencies, you know, 

they're not allowed to do anything unofficially. 

Once we give them that license, they have to 

follow all the rules for everything.

And so it was a way for them to compete 

with unofficials on like truck lines, for 

example, to use modified procedures, smaller 

portion sizes; to take some shortcuts that 

everybody was aware of. And then we could modify 

the certificate.

We don't allow that for export. And 

so that's kind of a caveat, at least for the 
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mandatory stuff. So, but again, I think with 

something strange and new like this, this is 

great discussion. I don't want to be like 

saying, you know, I'm just trying to describe 

what we have.

And then, talking about the grade 

line. So it's a statement that we allow already. 

If something is No. 2 or No. 3, we'll put in the 

remarks, if somebody asks for it, this would have 

graded No. 1 except for FM or for whatever factor.

And so we try to be very up-front 

about what the actual grade is. In this case, 

it might be No. 2 or No. 3; and not be deceptive 

and say oh, it's No. 1, but in the fine print say 

it was actually No. 3 but, you know, because of 

other things. But I definitely, I understand 

what you're saying.

PARTICIPANT: Sometimes it's kind of 

you. Can you get an official export certificate, 

and then turn around and get an official 

commercial, as well, disclude that factor?
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MR. GOODEMAN: The official 

commercial rules I think were set up to not try 

and circumvent the official export inspection 

weighing requirements. It's kind of, kind of 

different. I mean, it wouldn't prevent somebody 

from taking a submitted sample, you know, and it 

might be getting into some more gray areas there 

with -- but that's, it a fair question, yeah.

MR. KERRIGAN: Back to your comment 

about the fine print. I guess, you know, if 

there's a factor, you know, thinking a little bit 

to Nick's comment there, you know, about this 

grade factor met one, two, you know, it seems 

like the grades themselves.

Is there a better or different way 

that we can put them all on par. Even though the 

average grade is still the average grade. But 

instead of just calling out the one grade factor, 

you know, showing, you know, No. 1, No. 1, No. 1, 

No. 2, No. 3, No. 1, No. 1, you know, it would, 

in essence, show that slightly developing color, 
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you know, out there, but it maybe would show, 

basically, everything else there.

Just thinking for something, I guess, 

potentially interim here, you know, that is, you 

know, industry or grade inspection, whatever. 

All that testing that may need to be done, just 

to highlight a little bit better, you know, what 

is actually in that shipment?

MR. GOODEMAN: I think that so long as 

the grade line; I'm just looking at our current 

instruction. If we had this request right now 

for a shipment that went out, how would we 

approach it?

I think as long as the grade line was 

accurate, in this case it would be No. 2 or No. 

3, and then somebody asked us to delineate each 

factor in the remarks section and what it would 

have met. I think that's reasonable.

I think that's something we'd consider 

doing now. If that came up on a Friday 

afternoon, we'd try and work through that, and 
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try to find a solution there.

I think our biggest concern with out

existing instructions is that the grade line is 

clear and accurate and reflective of what the 

actual grade was. And then remarks you have a 

lot of flexibility on, or side letters, things 

like that. Whatever can help that, help 

facilitate the transactions.

MR. FRIANT: I guess the one thought 

that comes up in my mind is, you know, continue 

to have some discussion around ways to think 

outside the box and find solutions for the supply 

chain.

A thought that I just had now while 

Tony was talking about it, what I could foresee 

happening is the mandatory, have the mandatory 

inspection and contractually they'll sell thirdparty.

And so we have, I think we have 

potential to erode trust in the official system 

if we don't find a way to work through this. And 
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folks will start selling third-party grades and 

the official mandatory grades will go in a 

drawer.

And that's, we don't, we've heard that 

for years, right? FGIS is the gold standard. We 

don't want to undermine that. And so I think we 

need to be thinking about that when we think about 

potential solutions and ideas.

Is to make sure, you know, we don't 

unintentionally make things more difficult for 

the official system.

MR. NEAL: I would agree with that. 

And so you know that we are open and willing to 

sit down and try to figure it out. Because we 

don't want to see, we don't want to see disruption 

happen at any level.

Agriculture, you know, rarely gets, I 

say rarely, but anytime that we have such demand 

such that it is, we have to capitalize on that 

demand while we can, because we don't know what 

comes next to impact that. And while we have the 
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opportunity to continue to move U.S. grains, we 

need to do our very best to continue to support 

its movement.

So we'll continue to work with you all 

to think through it, not to be obstructionist 

about it, but to try to, you know, be as creative 

as possible within the framework that we have to 

operate in. That's the objective.

So we'll continue to listen at the 

creative ideas, sort through it and our reality. 

But also, you know, try to be as open-minded as 

possible.

MR. KERRIGAN: You have thoughts, 

discussion, comments from the table, back floor?

MR. GOODEMAN: I forgot to mention 

something else, too, kind of in the brainstorming 

category. Things, something we had kicked 

around, too, you know, we're talking about yellow 

soybeans. That's why we talk about soybeans of 

other color counting against that standard.

But you also have a class of soybeans 
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called mixed soybeans. So if somebody truly 

doesn't care about the color, and just wants 

mixed soybeans; they don't even look at soybeans 

and what colors are necessarily there, we could 

find some, I think an opportunity to help that 

fit with policy.

Our current definition for mixed 

soybeans is something in excess of 10 percent 

soybeans of other colors, but we do, in our 

instructions, allow for better on that. And so 

there could be an opportunity there.

If somebody truly doesn't care about 

the color, maybe we ought to, and again, it 

wouldn't yellow soybeans, it would be mixed 

soybeans. But there could be an opportunity 

there; you'd say mixed soybeans, and then have 

the soybeans of other colors report on the 

certificate still, and it could be No. 1.

MR. NEAL: Thanks, Tony. That still 

goes back to an earlier comment about the 

education process between buyer and seller. 
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Because you know that mixed soybeans, out of the 

house, they're not familiar with mixed soybeans.

We need to make sure they understand 

what it means. It doesn't impact their quality; 

it just gets impacted by the soybeans of other 

color factor that's currently being assessed.

And if there's anything that the 

industry needs from us on that educational 

process, we'll be willing to, you know, do what 

we can to participate in that. So that's just 

another aspect.

And I don't think we want, you know, 

there's nothing wrong with U.S. soybeans, so we 

don't want to create that perception. We just, 

we don't want the current standard to impact the, 

you know, the acceptance of soybeans that are 

being harvested and marketed today that reflect 

this trait.

We don't, we don't want the current 

standard to hamper the movement if we know that 

the quality of the soybeans, in terms of oil 
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content, protein content, you know, moisture and 

the like it meets U.S. No. 1, No. 2. We trying 

to figure out how to navigate that, this hurdle.

MS. GROVE: I think something to, you 

know, what Nick then said earlier about research, 

which you addressed you would have somebody else 

do that anywhere you partner.

Yes, the, if you want to say, current 

producer of this traded soybean, I'm sure, is 

doing or will be doing, or hopefully is doing 

their research on that functionality for the 

safety and quality piece of it.

And again, I think that goes back to 

the visual impact, or the industry impact of FGIS 

backing or validating a research thing. We feel 

this process; I think that's very important.

MR. NEAL: Listen, before you started 

talking, I was smiling in my head because I'm 

thinking to myself trust. Who are people going 

to trust? And whatever research is carried out, 

folks have got to trust it.
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And so that validation component 

becomes a big deal. Which adds a little bit of 

time, too. So we've got to think through the 

design of that so that we can do it effectively 

with a high level of trust.

Because the consumer of the research 

cannot feel that the research was done in bias 

with the intent to persuade or, you know, lead 

them astray. They have to, they have to believe 

it's unbiased research that has been validated.

MR. KERRIGAN: Anything else for 

the --

MR. NEAL: I'd like to say thank you 

all for the created ideas. Nick I think has got 

a book of magic tricks under the table, but no, 

thanks you all, for the discussion.

MR. KERRIGAN: Okay, very interesting 

discussion. Obviously, time is always is of the 

essence with things like this. As we go into the 

market year and have things come up. So I do 

appreciate all the, you know, the facts as you 
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guys have seen them, which is really what it's 

based upon; is just trying to figure that out.

So at this time I'm going to recommend 

we take a break. We are pretty good on schedule 

here. When we come back, I'll give everybody a 

little bit more time to kind of think about these 

issues, recommendations, further discussion or 

refinement before we get to the public comment 

period.

So let's go ahead and take 20 minutes. 

Be back here at 2:45.

(Whereupon, the above-entitled matter 

went off the record for a brief recess.)

MR. KERRIGAN: All right, we're going 

to go ahead and get re-started here again. We've 

got just under an hour before we need to break 

for the public comments.

So we've gone through all of the 

industry issues, in general, I guess. Obviously, 

a lot of good robust discussion around this 

latest topic. There's a lot of, lot of, I'd say 
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more questions than answers right now with where 

we're at.

What I'd like to do, and at risk, it 

sounds like we're on a Teams call; but I would 

like to circle back to the beginning, and work 

through these issues kind of one-by-one to kind 

of see where we're at, as a committee, as far as 

next steps.

You know, knowing that we'll have a 

little bit of time in the morning before actually 

finalizing any recommendations and moving on. 

You know, as well as leading to officer elections 

and things of that nature.

So I want to start back at the 

beginning. We don't need to hammer them out, 

other than more of getting kind of a feel for, 

you know, what report we've just been given. 

What we've heard.

And where we may want to go, as a 

committee, from a concept standpoint so we can 

then continue to move everything forward here. 
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Sound good to everybody?

So let's go back to the FGIS 

technology review process. It looks like there's 

a pretty good framework in place, would be my 

interpretation of that. It sounds like they're 

working towards a Federal review, a Federal 

Register notice to start to get that formalized, 

as Dr. Jhee had mentioned.

Is there anything from the committee 

standpoint that anybody saw or wanted to publicly 

comment on, recommend, change, support, add; 

anything of that nature where we need to 

consider?

I know, you know, a lot of this had 

really started several years ago of getting this 

process around for equipment. I know, Arthur, 

there's been some discussion before about just 

overall software and just kind of how everything 

talks together.

You know, I don't know if we need to 

have any discussion about starting to kick that 
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off now that we're starting to get some good 

traction on the mechanics, frankly. Is a 

potential jumping off point here for some 

additional conversation? 

MR. NEAL: It's up to you all. What 

Dr. Jhee shared, that Federal Register notice is 

probably, it's almost like an any day now-type of 

thing. It's at the very last stages of getting 

signed off and approved.

But from a prospect standpoint, once 

it's published, I think the committee would need 

to decide on whether or not it wants to comment 

as a body on that document publicly, endorsing, 

making recommendations to enhance it, whatever it 

may be. 

But even, in addition or 

simultaneously, it would not hurt to begin dialog 

around what area or areas, or probably more area.

But what does the committee, in 

consultation with the various sectors or segments 

of the industry that they represent, what would 
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you want to see pursued through this Federal 

Register process as technology to be explored 

that would have the biggest bang for the buck in 

enhancing our official inspection efforts?

And it's not just really official 

inspection; just inspection and weighing, in 

general. I think that's a relevant conversation 

that needs to take place. And we've been having 

this conversation with different parts of the 

industry, as well to you know get them to start 

thinking, too.

You know, is it, you know, is it HVAC? 

Is it, you know, for soybeans, wheat and corn? 

I don't know. But that's the kind of dialog I 

think that you all can begin to have about, you 

know, what functions would you like to see be 

enhanced, or what technology? Because that 

process would help to facilitate a prioritization 

of that work. 

MR. SINNER: Arthur, I have a 

question. Is the agency actively researching new 
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technology? Or are we relying on the industry 

to bring it to you? 

MR. NEAL: It's a combination. 

MR. SINNER: Okay.

MR. NEAL: Some things, when you say 

actively researching, some things that we learn 

about from industry as a challenge, like with the 

rice imaging, we learned about that challenge 

through the rice industry in California.

And the impact of California rice not 

having that imaging technology available to them 

would create a disruption in rice grading, rice 

inspections for that region. And so that's a 

huge impact by the loss of that piece of 

equipment.

So we are actively pursuing, you know, 

replacement technology for them. We not hearing 

of that type of challenge in other areas. And 

so we're not necessarily going out and saying 

hey, let's go, let's; well, let me correct that.

We are actively working, too, because 
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we've been talking with our sister/brother 

program, the cotton program, as they use a lot of 

imaging technology to help them grade cotton.

And we started, they started 

conversations with the manufacturer that uses 

technology, imaging technology in the specialty 

crop industry for a host of products, that does 

it very rapidly; 360 degree imaging, and also 

internal.

To look at damage. To look at color 

and things of that nature. And so we're looking 

at that, but we still will have to facilitate a 

process that makes it fair and transparent. So 

the answer is yes.

And what spurred a lot of that is the 

fact that we have our elevators are saying hey, 

we'd love to have our grades faster. We're 

taking that into consideration. You know, we 

work with our staff and make sure that the can do 

what they can do as best as they can, but we also 

realize that we working them a lot.
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And so production times could be 

impacted by how long they're working. How do we 

assist them, not replace them fully. How do we 

assist them with technology so that we can do 

what we do faster, even more accurately.

So those are the things that we're 

actively pursuing, but we're going to try to put 

it through a process.

MR. GARCIA: Yeah, hi, Arthur. It's 

Phil. What about falling numbers? I know in 

the PMW it's kind of an ongoing problem. We 

haven't had it in a couple of years. Some of the 

things I hear from my stakeholders is a rapid 

test so they can, you know, a low, falling numbers 

during harvest.

Or, for the exporters, so we don't 

hold them up, are you guys pursuing any alternate 

technology outside of the present falling number 

machine?

MR. NEAL: I'm not going to be the 

expert on this particular answer, so I may get 
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some back-up. We're aware that there is some 

technology that's being developed to attempt to 

enhance falling number testing results.

I don't know if it's been requested 

for evaluation or anything like that for the 

physical system but, if so, it would be through 

the process that we're, we published.

MR. GARCIA: So, absolutely. I think 

speaking and representing the PMW, I think that's 

something that we're interested in. Not only as 

the official system but also stakeholders, 

specifically inland, during harvest.

I think they brought up something 

called stirring numbers of some sort. It was 

repeatable. It was 90 seconds. It worked really 

well. At least that's what they articulated to 

me, but ask FGIS would be the falling numbers and 

technology.

MR. NEAL: This is an aside comment. 

While we're talking about this process of 

evaluating technology, if anybody is aware of 
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scientists and engineers that are looking for

jobs, we need some people. 

MR. KERRIGAN: Just a little bit 

different comment, questions and just on the 

equipment standpoint, but we're seeing an awful 

lot of our bills of lading, different financial 

payments. As, you know, paperwork is 

transferring back and forth it is now moving to 

a industry accepted block chain.

Different sorts of universal 

language-type stuff; however, grades certs and 

even information in the interior as far as the 

research, things of that nature, are still very 

heavily paper-based.

Or we may, if we're lucky, have a 

screen, you know, kind of set up a duplicate to 

what's kind of being graded at the time so we can 

kind of, you know, work I guess on that basis. 

Are there any thoughts to, you know, kind of 

updating of that? I know we have talked before 

about the -- and even the weight and grade logs; 
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about those systems.

And, you know, they were designed 

quite a long time ago. I don't know if anybody's 

aware, but software is getting out-of-date very 

quickly. A lot of them, a lot of it is not 

backwards compatible.

You know, as we, at an industry 

standpoint, is, you know, it's our responsibility 

to keep that up and running. But with having to 

continually keep, you know, the older versions 

going to keep everything matched up is becoming 

more and more difficult.

MR. NEAL: That's a great observation 

and comment. So I'm trying to figure out the 

best way to provide perspective, but we do need 

to put this on the agenda and for dialog and 

collaboration. So at USDA we have undergone a 

significant consolidation of IT support. And it, 

it presents us with a number of hurdles.

However, I do believe that the issue 

that you've brought forward we do need to have 
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collaborative discussions around about approach 

so that we can begin to trot out our strategy for 

how we pursue it, and I think that's the main 

thing there. We do need to have that dialog; how 

to make the transfer and sharing of information 

more secure and efficient.

There's a comment that came in, or a 

question that came in from one of the other GIAC 

members, if you don't mind me sharing this one, 

Kurt Rosentrater, that's similar.

He asks, when we're talking about new 

technologies, we should also be considering 

cybersecurity. Several grain elevators have 

already been hacked this year. And so he's 

right.

And that goes along the same lines 

about sharing information; is that we do need to 

probably figure out how we elevate cybersecurity 

in our dialog. Probably may even been a regular 

discussion point for us, and what can we do assist 

in sharing information.
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I don't know, FGIS has been doing a 

good job of promoting cybersecurity training and 

information that's being shared by other 

partners. But we also probably could take that 

a step further, as well, with respect to FGIS 

data and figure out what we can do to enhance 

that.

MR. MORGAN: Yeah, -- rice mill in 

Louisiana, we got hacked. And it's scary, but 

we only lost about a half a day or a day because 

we have back-up systems. But we have all start 

back-up systems with 24-hour security, but is; 

when you lose your data, even for a day, it's 

frustrating, but it's real.

It's out there. I've experienced it 

so it's some we should be looking at. Also along 

those lines of keeping current technology up-todate, even manufacturers of equipment.

We went through a switch-over and the 

original manufacturer of a certain machine went 

bankrupt, and then we were starting to buy from 
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another company that was producing, supposedly, 

the same equipment.

And if it wasn't for FGIS stepping in 

and, once they adopted that equipment themselves, 

and get them to get everything within spec, we 

saw a tremendous increase in quality of equipment 

once FGIS got involved.

So I want to point that out, that 

thank you for that, but we were having a lot of 

problems with it because we were wearing out 

equipment faster than the -- and it really 

helped.

MR. NEAL: I appreciate that, John. 

I didn't know we had helped, but I'm glad to know 

that.

MR. MORGAN: Yeah, it's been a while 

but, believe me, it was a huge, it was a huge 

contribution to what we were doing.

MR. FRIANT: If I could build off of 

Matt's comment around the, I guess, what I'd call 

the IT systems. You know, I noticed we didn't, 
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there wasn't and hasn't been an update in a while 

on things like FGIS online, my FGIS.

And ensuring that the, because that is 

part of the technology, right? It's not just 

grading equipment, but it's also access to data, 

as users, how we can get it. Ease of access. 

Being able to ingest data into our own systems 

and facilities.

And so I think that's an area. I 

don't know if that's something that you need the 

recommendation from us, but some way to; and I 

understand the challenges with integration with 

AMS and whatnot.

But if there's something there that we 

need to help the agency, you know, through a 

public recommendation on it, don't forget about 

the IT systems piece.

MR. NEAL: So, great, another great 

observation. We've not talked a lot about FGIS 

online. We talked a little bit about it in '19. 

But I, personally, when I walked into FGIS, you 
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know, FGIS online and the modernization was 

already going.

And progress had been made, but as we 

make progress, things would always evolve. And 

Lee and his team, they're doing a great job, but 

we had to make a decision regarding funding, 

because it costs money to have contractors build 

systems.

And we don't have a lot of money to 

spend. And so we had to make a conscious 

decision on what do we focus our resources on. 

And so we made a conscious decision to pause 

modernization and focus on making sure what we 

have works.

And making sure that the security of 

our current system is up-to-date, patched up, and 

things of that nature. So we made a conscious 

decision to halt that until we can stabilize what 

we had and figure out where we need to approach.

I think we have the concepts of what 

we want to do, but how do we do that in a cost-
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efficient manner is a totally different story. 

Considering, you know, nobody's wanting to see a 

lot of increases. And you all have more 

flexibility than we do in terms of how you can 

use your revenue.

We've got a $55 million cap. So 

whatever we spend it on, it's got to be purely 

for core services. And so we will need to reengage that dialog, revision together, as well as 

trot that path regarding cost.

So that's the reality. So that's just 

an update. I appreciate you raising that. I'm 

sure Lee appreciates you raising it, too, but 

that's, that's the reality that we're in. And 

our current structure, too, makes it complicated 

for us to, I think, implement.

I think it makes it difficult for us 

to implement changes that we want to make 

because, okay, because of that, because of the 

consolidation effort. So we don't want to waste 

time or energy because we don't have a lot of 
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people that do multiple things at the same time.

And let me share another perspective 

on the FGIS online and improvements. Anytime we 

try to modernize our system, we've got to test it 

in the field. That means we've got to use our 

graders and our technicians and admin folks to 

participate in that.

And the more we have them do that, 

that means the less, you know, it's more work 

that we're asking them to do and they get 

frustrated, too. So whatever we pursue, we have 

to make sure that we know we're going to implement 

it.

We know that this is the right thing 

for us to do, so that we're not asking them to do 

a whole of things outside of what they're doing 

for you all.

MS. COOPER: Mr. Chairman, it sounds 

like, back on the topic of the technology review 

process; I know you were about to go there, 

weren't you? I believe the committee is strongly 
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on record in favor of that process.

And with giving the timing and the 

imminent release of that Federal Register notice, 

I just want to confirm that there would be a way, 

once that notice is out for comment, that we could 

somehow reconvene, maybe online, and put together 

some official comments on behalf of the 

committee. Is that possible?

MR. KERRIGAN: I believe any official 

comments need to be done in a meeting setting; is 

that correct?

MR. NEAL: So in case of responding 

to opening Federal Register notice, you all can, 

you know, get together just like you would for a 

regular, you know, offline committee meeting, 

draft your comments and submit them officially 

for the record. It does have to be done in this 

setting --

MS. COOPER: Okay.

MR. NEAL: -- because that's an 

official open comment period. And so as long as 
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you have your agreement and your signatures on 

that comment, it's an official comment on behalf 

of the Grain Inspection Advisory Committee. And 

it's going to the Secretary, and that's a public 

forum. That's why you can do it that way.

MS. COOPER: I know that, 

individually, as separate entities we can 

comment, but I thought it would be particularly, 

have an impact if a committee were to get together 

and submit comments. So I'd like to see if we 

can maybe have that as part of our intentions. 

Thank you.

MR. KERRIGAN: So I've kind of marked 

that down as a future I'll call it agenda item. 

Because it would be future meeting once, 

obviously, that does go public to reconvene.

A lot of the discussion around the IT 

aspect; everything from cybersecurity to software 

updates, whatever it may be, I think let's have 

that as a future agenda topic. That, you know, 

we can, if it goes along with technology, rather 
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than splitting those into two issues now, now 

that the first review process is well on its way.

Anything else? And then, obviously, 

you know, Phil's note. Like I said, 

unofficially, I don't know that we need a 

recommendation. You know, falling number is a 

major, major market item, as well as the timing 

for a good section of the country.

Obviously, if there's anything, you 

know, that down the gulf, you and Nick, Chris and 

anybody else, feel free, like I say, officially, 

unofficially to kind of start putting, you know, 

any area, obviously, on the radar.

I know that the, obviously, subjective 

qualities are always out there; to try and make 

them more objective, instead of subjective, but 

that's been out there for quite a while. So I 

know that if you guys heard of anything I'm sure 

you would probably be taking a look at it 

regardless.

MR. NEAL: And just for the record, 
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too, when we talk about new technologies, one of 

the things that we are definitely trying to be 

extremely cautious about is not introducing 

anything that's going to create instability and 

inconsistency across the official system.

So just because it's new technology, 

that doesn't necessarily mean that it's going to 

be what's best for us at that time, because I 

think the example that was shared is when we 

introduced the two moisture meters. And we had, 

you know, differing reading of results across the 

country, and the process to calibrate things was 

a challenge.

And so we want to make sure that 

whenever we do introduce technology to the 

official system, that we hedge against that as 

best we can. 

MR. KERRIGAN: Okay, I want to move 

on just to get this scratched off; the FDA/FGIS 

MOU. We wanted to give Nick some time this 

evening to make a couple of tweaks.
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And we will take a look at that first 

thing in the morning to see if that needs to go 

back to subcommittee or not. Instead of trying 

to push him today to actually work through that. 

So we'll take a look at that one.

Next --

MR. FRIANT: I do have one question 

from the committee. I didn't have, I don't 

recall if we got an answer to this. Did we say 

we feel that we need separate; well, I think Tony 

said it didn't matter, separate documents for 

aflatoxin and other actual items?

MR. KERRIGAN: I think what Tony said, 

and what I interpreted, was it doesn't matter how 

we present the document. It's the concepts on 

the reconditioning plan for everything 

individually that matters.

Whether it's a separate document, 

inclusive document, where there's some 

grammatical issues, things of that nature in 

there, that will get hammered out through FDA and 
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FGIS. It's really the plan itself that this 

committee needs to worry about.

MR. FRIANT: Okay, perfect.

MR. KERRIGAN: Thank you.

So next, let's go to the GIAC 

alternates discussion. There was a few things 

discussed regarding making recommendations for 

changes, either via the Farm Bill or the next reauthorization.

There's also the potential for our own 

internal policies and procedures, depending on 

how that's written with Roberts Rules of Order 

regarding if we do need to have two-thirds, or if 

that was self-imposed.

Does anybody have any thoughts, 

comments on what they would, or a recommendation? 

It seems like the committee understood the 

challenge. I guess it's more about how they go 

about it.

MR. ENGEL: Question. The alternate 

scenario, to the point made about not being 
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involved, not being interested, not really being 

connected to what was going on.

And someone, we talked later about 

having those that were rolling off stay on, you 

know, to keep the continuity and keep, you know, 

keep the committee functioning. And I think 

someone was going to see if that was, there was 

a precedent for that anywhere else in the Federal 

system.

But I, I think we should have 

something that addresses that in that manner as 

a proposal to go forward because, you know, the 

committee needs to function. And the Secretary 

needs to do what he needs to do, and sometimes 

they don't get in the same room.

MR. KERRIGAN: I believe, and correct 

me if I'm wrong, Arthur, but the time limits are 

pretty specific as far as somebody staying on, 

and that is in the Act. We tried to get those 

extended once.

MR. NEAL: Right, the Act says three 
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years. I'm trying to figure out how to phrase 

this. I hear what you're saying, Curt. I think

it would not hurt, for discussion purposes in 

USDA, that in case appointments are not made 

within, you know, required time, that the 

committee, that the committee shares what it 

believes should happen to sustain the work of the 

committee.

It doesn't hurt to say that. And 

Kendra would probably have to check for me to see 

what the recommendations said before, in 2019. 

I think the recommendation was mostly about the 

terms, the five-year terms.

So from the perspective of what you're 

raising that hey, in the case, you know, 

Secretary appointments aren't made in the 

timeframe that allows the committee to have 

enough members, you know, such members can, you 

know, should be allowed to stay on until they're 

replaced.

You know, I'm not sure --
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MR. ENGEL: Somebody here to continue 

to function until the --

MR. NEAL: Yeah. 

MR. ENGEL: -- or something like 

that. 

MR. NEAL: So I know what you're 

getting at. I don't think that hurts for the 

committee to go on record saying what they would 

like to see happen, and then we walk it through 

and see what can be done, but --

MR. ENGEL: Okay.

MR. NEAL: -- I would still check on 

precedent to see if it has been allowed. My 

assumption, purely assumption based on my past 

experience is that it's not been allowed, but I 

will definitely check again more formally.

MR. ENGEL: Thank you.

MR. KERRIGAN: How does everybody 

feel about the extension versus requesting formal 

alternates versus policy procedure change?

MR. AYERS: I don't see a real 
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difference as long as the committee has a 

functioning group that can actually do their job. 

Whether it's an extension or alternates. 

Alternates gives you a little more flexibility in 

case some, you know four people leave the 

committee for whatever reason.

So the alternates have a plus there. 

But either way, it's fine with me. I can live 

with either one. It's just give us an option to 

keep this a viable group.

MR. FRIANT: I would agree with Dave's 

comment. So I think if I had to rank them, I 

might rank extensions and then alternates. But 

to your point, Dave, if somebody's set to roll 

off the committee and say, for example, they say 

it's my last time, they may not want to be 

extended, right? 

And so we would still be stuck a 

little bit in the lurch without having a person, 

but I do think that that is a good alternative, 

being able to, if folks are willing, able and 
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interested, the option to extend them.

Again, and Arthur I think it gets back 

to is the precedent, is that a viable solution 

that might be an easier path forward.

MR. KERRIGAN: Question for Arthur 

and Kendra, in this event where we had two members 

that decided not to continue with their terms, 

could those vacancies be re-appointed mid kind of 

cycle? Or once they're off, there's no filling 

it again?

MR. NEAL: So, no, the vacancies would 

not be appointed mid-cycle; however, I do not 

think, so it looks like the running -- and 

correct me if I'm wrong, Kendra, would probably 

doing GIAC Committee nominations every year.

So if somebody falls off mid-cycle, 

and there's an opportunity for us to make the 

Secretary aware that, in addition to the five, we 

need two more, that could be possible, because 

we'll have a slate of nominations that's coming 

in. And he can make that, or she can make that 
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determination then.

So I think that's how it works 

because, otherwise, the process to get the 

nominees, the nominees and get someone appointed 

is lengthy. We definitely don't control that 

timeframe.

MR. KERRIGAN: Okay, any other 

discussion?

MR. MORGAN: I guess we're just not 

going to consider procedure change? Because that 

was one of your option --

MR. KERRIGAN: We need to take a look 

at it. So that's kind of a technicality that 

I've tried to look at on my phone here, and I 

can't seem to get to the right link.

So I think we just need to verify that 

as, obviously, the easiest path forward, knowing 

that we need to do a little homework to see if 

that's viable or not. Because that wouldn't 

necessarily be a recommendation to the Secretary. 

That would be internal rules, I believe, that 
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this committee develops on their own.

And I'm fairly certain that's what 

Arthur is trying to take a look at here, as well. 

And he's finding the same web pages I am, so --

MR. NEAL: Yeah, and I've got to look 

at the charter, because this quorum may be 

established in the charter. Because Roberts 

Rules of Order, if I'm not mistaken, says that 

the board, which in this case would be a 

committee, does not have the power to establish 

its own quorum. So I would look at that 

charter, too, to make sure that that's the case.

MR. KERRIGAN: But in any event, we 

will take a look at some language regarding 

either extension of appointments or alternates, 

actually, with the re-authorization obviously be 

the most difficult there at the last, I'd 

imagine.

So we need to take a look at that, and 

come back tomorrow. Hopefully, we have a little 

more information on that, okay? 
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Okay, now back to the fun ones. Realtime shuttle train data. We had a lot of dialog. 

Jimmy did a fantastic job of laying out the 

concerns, both in writing, as well as, you know, 

verbally.

I think, I think from what I'm 

gleaning from not only this committee, but also 

just in the industry, in general, is that there 

is a movement within the STB that they are hearing 

in industry. They're hearing different groups 

that there are issues.

And that we need to kind of, if we're 

having issues, as well, that's a little different 

than what's being presented, that now is the time 

to put it in front. So that way, as changes are 

being made, at least the voice is being heard.

There's a few different ways of doing 

that, and I think the best way is going to be to 

make a recommendation, laying out the points that 

Jimmy has identified. But also some 

considerations for the Secretary to, potentially, 
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submit for the STB to consider, as well, with 

that.

Some of the items that have been laid 

out, obviously you know, real-time, real-time 

tracking, whether that be on a car or that be on 

a train.

Better estimating, whether that be 

employee training, whether that be, you know, 

even just showing more, more information. 

Obviously, they're making estimates on it with 

crewing and any locomotives, but they're not 

showing us kind of, you know, what kind of delays 

would be in there as far as sharing that 

information versus just a day and a time.

There has also been some discussion 

around, you know, even a penalty in their own 

tariffs. That, you know, say if they're within 

24-hours of their estimated ETA, you know, should 

they have to pay? Should they vary by, by one 

way or the other?

You know, because of what that's doing 
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to staffing and being, obviously, home life and 

things of that nature. Those are the big ones 

that I had heard.

Are there others that had come up in 

discussion that we need to document, you know, 

and maybe try and recommend for consideration? 

MR. KUHL: I'm not sure on how this 

would work, but I was thinking of possible spot 

time leniencies. I don't think any of us care 

if it comes at midnight or noon.

But if it comes at midnight, if we had 

a four-hour leniency, six-hour, whatever it shall 

be. I think we're all up for doing the work; it's 

just a notification of all right, now it is here, 

you have the four-hours, six-hours for a start 

time.

MR. AYERS: We actually have a sixhour. When they notify us a train's been sent, 

we do have a six-hour current show-up, where 

we're required to be there within six hours, or 

they can go and have another agency come in and 
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do it. So that's already there.

MR. KUHL: That's on the inspection 

side, though, to the loading facility, correct? 

Not for the loading operation, as a whole, to the 

railroad, correct?

MR. AYERS: It is for when our 

customers notifies a train's ready to load, we 

have six hours to get there, and most of these 

on-sites are all grades. It's not just sampling, 

so it is already established.

The downside is if your customer has 

to wait six hours for your showing up, you're 

going to have a hard time. They're not going to 

like it. 

MR. KUHL: Well, and that might be, 

like I say, certain groups, I guess, on the 

grading to the customer, or certain states. I 

know this way if we had an agreement with our 

grading agency, and in Montana that's the same 

way, I think we'd be making a switch.

So which, to your point, which, you 
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know, the whole loading right? Obviously, this 

side of it is on the inspection side but, again, 

that six-hour leniency you're going to lose 

business, regardless.

MR. KERRIGAN: Any other 

considerations on anything else that Jimmy needs 

to add to his write-up before we take a vote on 

it tomorrow? Okay, I was really hoping that was 

going to take a little bit longer.

Kendra, it's 3:45. Have we received 

any requests for public remarks, public comments?

MS. KLINE: Only the written ones.

MR. KERRIGAN: Only the written ones. 

Do we need to wait until 3:45 to see if anybody 

joins who would like to make a public comment? 

If the answer's yes, it's fine.

MR. NEAL: Yes, we need to wait for 

that time. So you can either break or continue 

to work.

MR. KERRIGAN: Tony, I've got 10 

minutes. How many jokes do you have in your back 
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pocket there? All right, let's break for 10 

minutes here, so we can get to the public comment 

period before we jump back into the soybeans of 

other colors, please. Thank you.

(Whereupon, the above-entitled matter 

went off the record for a brief recess.)

MR. KERRIGAN: Okay, just as an update 

regarding the last item there for alternates and 

votes regarding the quorum. Kendra wasn't able 

to find the document that it's in. She is asking 

for clarification regarding if that's something 

that can be modified, cannot be modified.

Hopefully we'll have an answer back, 

hopefully in the morning. If not, we will be 

prepared either way for it. So appreciate that.

Kendra, I'll go to you. Do we have 

any members of the public that would like to make 

comments?

Kendra's shaking her head no, and says 

there are no members of the public who would like 

to make comments, so we'll move on.
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Soybeans of other colors. There's 

been a lot of, I'd say, just creative thinking 

about this issue. I think we all realize that 

there's an immediate challenge here. There's 

some steps that, scientifically, we don't have 

all the information on to go down certain paths.

We've got another path that would help 

from a marketing standpoint that would still 

provide the same information, but that is, at 

minimum, an 18-month lead time.

So, you know, that being said, I 

think, you know, really where a lot of the 

questions, comments come from; I'll open it back 

up to the floor is, you know, really just I want 

to discuss a little bit more with FGIS staff on 

the interpretation of the current wording.

So, you know, what I'm hearing is the 

seed coat, and Brian I'm going to attempt to 

poorly summarize what you have, what you have, 

you know, allowed us to, information to have 

there.
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Is that the seed coat is definitely 

discolored. It meets the more than 50 percent. 

It's not really a yellow. It's not really a 

brown. It's not really a black. It's not really 

a green. Dull gray. Again, a lot of variation, 

depending on the environment and on the seed.

It does not appear to penetrate into, 

or out of the seed coat into the actual bean meat 

itself. It's still a yellow meat inside. Would 

that be a fairly correct characterization?

MR. ADAM: Yeah, that's correct. We, 

color-wise, we do kind of see a brown or a 

grayish-green, but yeah, that's correct overall.

MR. KERRIGAN: Okay, so some of the 

discussion, and again, this isn't, I will say 

this for everybody as we're talking about it. 

This is not a critique. It's meant to, I guess, 

ask how we, how it's quantified what's brown, 

what's gray, what's black, what's yellow.

Obviously, there are reference 

charts. What's dark enough, what's not dark 
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enough, but then also in looking at the reg 

regarding a soybean of other color, you know, 

definitely specifically what type of seed coat 

defines the brown and black and green. There's 

not a reference to gray.

And, you know, how we classify that as 

a soybean of other color versus a mixed soybean, 

for instance, with the reasoning of a soybean of 

other color threshold is at one level for a No. 

1, 2 or 3. But going from a yellow to a mixed, 

that threshold is a 10 percent.

And so just kind of spit balling here, 

I guess, as to how you guys have determined, you 

know, that threshold for, I guess, a gray-brown 

versus a yellow, and why, I guess, it's 

classified as one and maybe not the other, either 

historically or currently.

MR. ADAM: Yeah, so I really can't 

speak, historically, to how these visual 

standards were set. We do reference our visual 

reference image, and we can send this around to 
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everyone, and this is the standard that all 

inspectors use at all locations that grade 

soybeans.

The depiction here is of a brown

soybean, a neutral or non-SBOC color blend. And 

then, I think this last one is the grayish-green; 

we kind of use that descriptor for it. I did 

bring some actual soybeans that we're actually 

seeing.

This kind of newer type are how it's 

expressed on the soybean itself. And I did bring 

an example because we asked, there was a question 

earlier about the purple or mottled stained 

soybeans, and this is print we use for that.

So I can definitely pass this down the 

chain, and in this box here is just an example of 

how we train our inspectors. So when our QAs and 

inspectors come down, this box is certified by 

the board.

So all six board members will actually 

vote on each kernel here, and assign it either 
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it's SBOC or sound. And then, the inspectors or 

quality assurance specialists would use this 

print and, to gauge which ones are damaged. And 

that's how we work on alignment for our 

inspectors out in the field.

MS. GROVE: I just was just curious; 

can I, would you have an idea of the current SBOC 

that we're seeing, how many types of steps do you 

have, how many inspectors, both Federal, state 

agencies do you feel are getting through training 

to help recognize what we're seeing right now?

MR. ADAM: So the Board of Appeals, 

we directly train the quality assurance 

specialists. So I would say right now we're 

probably on track to have 75 percent or more 

participation from the different agencies in that 

regard.

And then, it's really up to the 

quality assurance specialists to go back and 

train their inspectors. The bar, from time-totime, does provide training for inspectors. 
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That's generally for our Federal field offices.

And it just, a lot of it comes down 

to staffing, and we simply don't have the numbers 

and we rely on our quality assurance specialists 

to train the online inspectors.

MR. AYERS: Brian, do you have the 

movers which you guys are identifying as SBOC?

MR. ADAM: Yeah, so we would have it. 

I didn't bring that with me, but the bar would 

have a key for those, for that box, yeah.

MR. AYERS: Okay, I would be curious, 

as a licensed inspector who has not gone through 

the training, which ones you would consider and 

would not consider.

MR. ADAM: Okay, yeah. 

MR. KERRIGAN: I know there's been a 

lot of other conversation. Kurt, John, Ryan, 

anything that hasn't been discussed here as we're 

looking, I guess, talking, exploring.

MR. KUHL: As an official agency, the 

line is kind of set by FGIS. We're trained by 
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that line of how to inspect each factor, SBOC 

being one of them. We do send our QAs down for 

the training, and then our QAs come back to the 

agency to review what was done, completed at 

training. So the line of SBOC that is set is how 

we inspect.

MR. KERRIGAN: I guess for the group, 

you know, really we, there's still a lot of 

conversation, still a lot of kind digging into 

this. And there's not any apparent, immediate 

option in front of us right here without some 

significant research. Either testing, policy 

change, things of that nature.

Obviously, this is one of those areas 

where there's some subjectiveness; obviously, the 

color. You know, we all have high confidence in, 

you know, how those standards are out. How those 

reference charts, you know, how the consensus has 

come to be, as well as the training going down.

I don't know that anybody knows how 

big of an issue this is going to be, you know, 
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whether the genetics could even mutate. Whether 

they can commute to, you know, form with the 

environmental factors.

If it's a heat stress. If it's a 

drought stress, you know, as we know, there are 

climate changes happening. But definitely, 

something that is impacting currently our 

interior operations as they move throughout the 

U.S.

Specifically, then, to be looking for 

export. You know, and as we talked about 

different challenges with our destination 

countries, especially, you know, I don't know how 

we take a look at this.

So I don't know if there is an 

immediate answer here, other than making sure 

that we facilitate enough discussion here today. 

You know, we do anticipate having a little bit of 

time tomorrow. That if there's anything that 

happens overnight; any further discussion or 

research that we did, we'll have an opportunity.
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But I want to make sure that there is 

ample, you know, time here to put it on the table. 

Because, again, time is of the essence as we get 

into the middle of a growing season currently. 

You know, this will be on here before we know it 

for export again for the 2022 crop.

MR. FRIANT: I'm not sure if it would 

be useful to the group or not, but I know in some 

previous conversations, FGIS has had some 

analysis of grade results and the impact of SBOC. 

Is that some data that could be shared with this 

group either now or tomorrow on some of the 

statistics?

MR. NEAL: Tomorrow.

MR. FRIANT: Tomorrow, all right. 

And do we know; I think I know the answer to this 

question, but do we know how much of that is due 

to the slight discoloration versus an all-black 

or an all-brown seed coat situation?

MR. NEAL: I don't think that data is 

going to differentiate, but from what we're 
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hearing and what we're kind of seeing in some of 

the south what's coming into the barn 

through -- a lot of it is the newer variety, and 

not the common SBOC. We're not even seeing the 

common SBOC out in the field as much anymore.

MR. FRIANT: Okay, thank you.

MR. KERRIGAN: Any further comment or 

discussion on this topic before we move on? Like 

I said, we'll come back to this in the morning, 

just know how fresh of a topic it is.

A couple housekeeping items here. 

I'm told that the notice of nominations is going 

to hit the press tomorrow, I believe. So put it 

out there, spread the word. Maybe somebody you 

want to see back on here, poke, prod, convince.

You can't volunteer them, but you can 

at least highly suggest. So that will be coming. 

That way this group does not have another 

alternate vacancy issue.

I will, I'm here to ask, again, 

nominations for officers tomorrow. Be thinking 
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about it. Again, you know, I am currently Chair. 

I will be rolling off. Janice is currently Vice 

Chair and Nick is currently Secretary.

Those are the three offices. We 

talked about them yesterday. They are in our 

policies and procedure manual. You can see how 

much work Nick is doing. You can see how much 

work Janice is doing. So just be thinking about 

that as far as time requirements and commitments.

Anything else from anybody? Peanut 

gallery, put some mics back on for you.

MR. MCCLUSKY: So as we talked about 

a couple things; we've had a couple conversations 

today about wanting various information sets; 

Service Transportation Board, grades. How do you 

get that data, the format you want it, is 

important to how you integrate that going 

forward.

The world is full of APIs right now. 

We might want to set up those APIs in grain yet. 

Something to think about. Service 
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Transportation Board, how do you want those rail 

cars? Just things to keep in mind.

MR. KERRIGAN: Thank you. We have 

still some time here. I will ask, you know, 

obviously, IT is one agenda item moving forward. 

There's obviously a couple other items here 

regarding SBOC. Obviously, you know, hopefully 

it's resolved from some of the training data set, 

some of the recommendations.

Are there any new topics that we know 

that we can't act on, from a recommendation 

standpoint, that we know that we'd like to either 

consider, talk about or, at least, get that 

conversation started to make sure that we're all 

thinking about it for the next meeting to make 

sure that it's effective, briefly?

MR. FRIANT: I'm not sure if this is 

new business looking forward, but I question back 

to Byron's presentation when we were talking 

about the intra-agency coordination.

Is there any sense of, one of the 
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things that I think that you mentioned, Byron, 

was some trying to work on a consistent approach 

across agencies and within FGIS. Is there any 

sense on who's taking the lead in those 

conversations? 

Is that you, or is it somebody else? 

And ensuring that those dialogs are happening 

between, you know, International 

Affairs Division, QACD, FAS, FDA? So who's 

leading that work?

MR. REILLY: It's been a coordinated 

effort between QACD and International Affairs 

dealing with registration. We've had several 

meetings identify SOPs between who does what.

And working with, my office has been 

working with Farm AG Service in China and in the 

U.S. to get them on the same playing field as 

what we are. And we've come to a decision to 

send monthly updates by the 27th of the month.

So we have established, realizing that 

we're getting requests from different exporters 
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saying oh, I just put two new facilities online, 

and they're not registered, but I want them in 

the GIAC website. So we've worked with FAS and 

working with QACD to get that going.

My other interaction with FDA had 

been, initially, with 248. I have not since had 

any communication with them since, you know, 

that's a food product-based versus our feed-base 

which is on 177.

But I have weekly conversations with 

FAS Plant Division in D.C., and they have weekly 

meetings with FAS in China. So we keep the 

communication flowing between us. So they alert 

me to new issues, and I also alert them to new 

issues that I have discovered.

MR. NEAL: And also just to add to 

what Byron is sharing, it's evolving. And it 

appears on the issues, you know, with USC it's a 

large organization, and our effort is to try to 

reiterate at the staff level and leadership level 

when issues arise, that whoever it impacts, let's 
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just get everybody to the table so we can discuss 

it at one time versus having discussions 

separately and rehashing the same issue 

differently. And maybe having conversations 

that exclude others, you know, unintentionally. 

So it's an evolving effort on this 

Board of Registration component. As you see, 

when the discussion occur we try to bring 

everybody to the table. That's the objective. 

So that everybody, whether they have something to 

say or not, hear it. So that they're part of the 

discussion and can contribute if need be.

So I don't want to put it as who's 

taking the lead because we try to make it become 

natural. That somebody's first response is that 

hey, if something comes up and you know it impacts 

FGIS and someone special is coming in to talk to 

you about it, then bring it to the table.

Let it be a natural response. That's 

the objective there.

MR. REILLY: Yes. So on other 
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issues, too, besides China, I have open 

communication with FAS and APHIS. So like Mr. 

Neal said, we keep the communication going. It's 

great when we have everybody in the same meeting 

so there's no misinterpretation of what was said.

MR. FRIANT: Well, I think, Byron, you 

made a great point. The discussion here is all 

predominantly around China and Decree 177 and 

248, but they're not the only country starting to 

ask more for registrations. So I think it's an 

awareness of, but this might just be the first 

one that we've had the most conversation about. 

Most likely not the last.

MR. REILLY: We've had notification 

that Saudi Arabia is also going that route; 

however, they want a lot more information than 

what China does. So we had enough push-back from 

USDA on that, FAS. So nothing more on that 

country, but that's what they're proposing.

MR. KERRIGAN: Anything else?

MR. SINNER: Matt, I think that 
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another issue that we've experienced with the 

difference in the determination or the 

interpretation of broken kernels on grain; 

there's a difference between FGIS and, for 

example, math in Japan.

And I think this was a surprise. Art 

and I talked about this. I think we'd like to, 

I'd like to see us, you know, try to get that 

resolved so that either way that we're 

consistent, and maybe we can talk about that in 

a future meeting.

MR. KERRIGAN: I think we can 

definitely note that down. And again, the intent 

here is exactly that. That way, moving into the 

next meeting, you know, I will give -- partner 

and his entire staff credit, taking this 

conversation and commentary in the meetings very 

to heart, as far as being prepared for the next 

one.

MS. COOPER: Depending where we are 

on the technology review, certainly would like to 
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keep that on the agenda for next time. And just 

whatever makes sense to discuss at that time, we 

can evaluate that as we get closer, but that's 

certainly on ongoing issue.

MR. KERRIGAN: Absolutely. 

MR. ENGEL: Is there any merit to 

engaging either TEGMA or NGFA relative to this 

shuttle train ETA issue? Because the customer 

is the only people are going to get the 

railroad to pay attention and, you know, 

everybody works for the railroad.

You know, so the grain companies work 

for the railroad and FGIS works for the grain 

companies as well, which work for the railroads. 

Now, NGFA and TEGMA, in particular, are two 

organizations that do represent the, you know, 

the bulk of the grain shippers.

And TEGMA, in particular, represents 

most of the terminal operators. So I don't know 

where I'm going with this, but if I think there's 

a path, at least in my head, that's the best path 
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to go to try to get some, you know, information 

and some resolution to this issue.

MR. KERRIGAN: I'll speak on my own 

here; not for the committee, I guess, but from 

what I've seen in my experience, you know, NGFA 

definitely has already provided comments to the 

STB directly.

And I think where the conversation 

around this is, especially with Secretary 

Vilsack already engaging with the railroads and 

STB directly, I think this provides an additional 

avenue.

On top of NGFA, who's representing the 

operators, but also representing the inspectors 

and inspection process, specifically, as a 

government-impacted avenue for Secretary Vilsack 

in addition to what NGFA has done, as well.

Not to take away from that, because 

several of us are members, NGFA members, and are 

in tune with grain grades and weights as well as, 

you know, their association as a whole, that I 
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wouldn't be surprised if we don't come up with a 

recommendation to the Secretary that they are 

more than likely to, additionally, support it, 

depending on what that may be.

Not necessarily a co-support, because 

we're separate, but anything that would go to the 

Secretary that they, they would support. I can 

also see them mimicking that support separately.

MR. NEAL: And just for perspective, 

AMS works closely with NGFA when we're developing 

our thoughts and gathering data for our comments, 

so that we have knowledge or one another. Since 

we're both, we're kind of representing the same 

stakeholder group.

The difference between the GIAC is 

that you make recommendations to the Secretary. 

So we'll be having, we'll have, as an agency, 

kind of feedback, insight to NGFA, but what the 

Secretary will not have is insight into GIAC.

So I can tell you, personally, the 

comments that are crafted for the Secretary's 
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engagement with the Surface Transportation Board 

did not, initially, have the input from the GIAC 

until it was inserted. And so that's the 

significance of your voice.

MR. KERRIGAN: Anything else? Great 

discussion here.

MS. GROVE: I think for future 

consideration, I've had some concerns or, you 

know, not just recently, but I'll say 

longstanding, of different, difference of not 

grading, per se, but difference of outcome from 

an inland origin to export destination grades.

And sometimes, in fact, if it's sold 

origin weights and grade to get to destination, 

you know, then there's a lot of, I don't want to 

say negotiation, but a calm word for that.

But I think looking at that and 

talking about that and how can we come together 

on that, because it's pretty significant 

sometimes. Some of it may be impacted due to 

sometimes the rail service.
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Something sitting in a steel box 

somewhere for weeks before it gets somewhere 

certainly impacts the quality, but where does 

that responsibility lie if it was loaded, graded 

officially on one end?

MR. KERRIGAN: I know what Arthur's 

comment is going to be is that's the market 

portion of it. I would actually throw some of 

this discussion into actually Phil's court 

because, you know, as part of WASDE, directly.

I know we've had a lot of discussions 

about, you know, the same sector, same grader. 

We're not talking about only Illinois. We're not 

talking about EQI, SGS, anybody in the other, 

Eastern Iowa. You know, we're talking WASDE to 

WASDE, and we've had a lot of those discussions, 

you know, on grades without timing as well.

And I think that, you know, it 

definitely is going to be an ongoing topic, but 

some of the strides that FGIS has been making the 

last couple years for training, especially with 
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our new employees, and a lot of the 

standardization has come a long way.

We can definitely put that on the list 

for updates. Obviously, Tony typically gives us 

implement and training updates. I think that 

that can be a subset of that, frankly, if there 

are some areas of concern, specific grades from 

specific areas. I know that they have dug into 

those, as a result of that, as well.

MS. GROVE: And I'm not saying that 

it's necessarily somebody grading something 

wrong, either. It is what it is at a particular 

moment in time, and how do we work with that? 

MR. KERRIGAN: Okay, I've cleared up 

as much as I can off of tomorrow's agenda. 

Unless anybody wants to make any officer 

nomination at this time, we will happily take and 

consider them. Otherwise, let's go ahead and 

adjourn for the day. We'll meet back here and 

start promptly at 8:30 to jump in.

I appreciate everybody's work today. 
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I appreciate everybody's comments from the bright 

light gallery back there. And like I said, we'll 

come ready to go in the morning to continue on 

with soybeans of other colors, as well as some of 

the recommendations.

(Whereupon, the above-entitled matter 

went off the record at 4:20 p.m.)
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