Office of Communications (202) 720-8138 AgNews Summary for USDA Executives Wednesday, Feb. 4, 2009 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * COPYRIGHT NOTIFICATION * * * * * * * * * * * * * * AgNews is intended for use by authorized government personnel only. Redistributing AgNews by any means to any unauthorized person violates copyright on the source material. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * To access AgNews on the USDA Intranet, go to http://agnews.usda.gov MARKETING & REGULATORY PROGRAMS BIRD FLU VIRUS STILL CAUSE FOR CONCERN (101 Reuters 2/3) The H5N1 bird flu virus, which has now sickened more than 400 people globally, is infecting birds and people all across China, and is still a cause for serious concern, flu experts said Tuesday. Recent cases are the expected winter seasonal surge seen for many types of viruses, they said, and there is no evidence that H5N1 is mutating into a more dangerous form. Chinese officials confirmed a new case Monday. All the patients were around chickens, so there is little concern that people are passing the virus to one another, the flu experts told a news briefing at a meeting in Washington of the Infectious Disease Society of America. ANIMAL WELFARE GROUPS SUE RINGLING, ALLEGE ABUSE OF ELEPHANTS (102 L.A. Times 2/4) The article leads with allegations by a former Ringling Bros. employee who says he regularly saw handlers abusing the circus’ endangered Asian elephants when he worked there in the 1990s. Ringling denies the allegations, saying it has never been cited for animal cruelty. But today, a nearly nine-year-old legal case over the elephants’ treatment will come to trial in U.S. District Court. Using the Endangered Species Act instead of animal cruelty laws, animal welfare groups will testify that Ringling abuses its elephants by using a hooked pole that the suit says sometimes punctures the animals’ hide. The animal rights groups also allege that trainers chain the beasts together for as much as 70 hours at a time. An attorney for the circus said the elephants are “healthy, alert and thriving,” and that the circus routinely passes federal, state and local inspections. She said the lawsuit is part of activists’ “long-running crusade to eliminate animals from circuses, zoos and wildlife parks. See AgNews 2/2 #108. RESEARCH, EDUCATION & ECONOMICS DRY CONDITIONS RAISE CONCERNS FOR U.S. WINTER WHEAT (103 Reuters 2/3) Winter weather has not been friendly to the new U.S. hard red winter wheat crop, and concerns are mounting this week about poor conditions that could significantly limit 2009 production. The good news is that in Kansas, the top U.S. wheat-growing state, most of the crop was rated this week in good to excellent condition. But to the south, in the key growing states of Oklahoma and Texas, dry soils are stressing young plants struggling to emerge from dormancy. “Overall, it’s bleak,” said a Texas A&M agronomist of new wheat fields through key growing areas in Texas, which has an estimated 5.9 million acres seeded to winter wheat and is second only to Kansas in planted acres. Recent rains were beneficial, but more was needed to boost crop prospects as topsoil moisture remained mostly very short to short across the state. Things were only slightly better in Oklahoma, where farmers have planted an estimated 5.4 million acres to winter wheat. RURAL DEVELOPMENT CRITICS SAY BROADBAND PLAN ATTACKS WRONG PROBLEM (104 Des Moines Register 2/4) Two versions of the stimulus bill each contains billions of dollars to extend broadband to rural areas. But some officials question the emphasis on expanding the high-speed Internet access when many Americans cannot afford the service that is already available to them. House and Senate versions of the economic stimulus bill provide $6 billion to $9 billion to carry out President Obama’s campaign promise to extend “true broadband to every community in America.” In Iowa, broadband is more widely available in rural areas than in urban areas, according to a state survey. But industry officials say that existing service could be upgraded to faster speeds, and pockets of the state without high-speed options could be served. Critics say the program is a poor use of taxpayer money. Equipment manufacturers will pocket a lot of the broadband money simply by raising their prices, and money is likely to be wasted because of the speed with which the grants and loans must be dispensed, said a representative of the Cato Institute, a conservative research group. USDA -- MULTI-MISSION NEW USDA OFFICE TAKES LEAD ON CLIMATE CHANGE (105 Christian Science Monitor 2/4) The Obama administration is off to a running start on climate change, pushing to let California and other states set tougher restrictions on greenhouse gases and accelerating higher gas mileage standards for cars and trucks. But those are just the most obvious early moves reflecting a philosophy likely to be seen throughout the federal government, involving rural as well as urban areas. Already, first steps are being taken to engage farmers, woodlot owners, and the federal land management agencies that oversee hundreds of millions of acres of public land – areas with the potential to capture considerable amounts of carbon dioxide that would otherwise escape into the atmosphere and accelerate warming of the planet. Taking the lead is a new bureaucratic mouthful called the Office of Ecosystem Services and Markets. It’s part of USDA, which not only works with farmers and ranchers but also includes the Forest Service and its 193 million acres. Heading the new office is Sally Collins, a former Forest Service ranger who reports directly to Secretary Tom Vilsack. Collins believes the approaches of her office may open a new era in which urban industrial emitters of carbon dioxide will partner with private landowners to plant new forests or crops to soak up CO2, or in which revenues generated from a carbon tax will pay for planting trees in federal forests lost to wildfire. DeLAURO TO PROPOSE OVERHAUL OF FDA (106 New Haven Register, Conn. 2/4) With as many as eight deaths and more than 500 illnesses attributed to peanut products, Rep. Rosa DeLauro will introduce a bill today calling for the Food and Drug Administration to be split into two agencies, one overseeing food safety and the other regulating drugs and medical devices. “I think this peanut butter crisis may be – it remains to be seen – the straw that broke the camel’s back,” DeLauro said Tuesday. Her bill would address what she called “the dysfunctional nature of the FDA.” “The fact is, there is no one at the federal level, there isn’t one significant official...who is accountable for food safety,” she said. EX-EMPLOYEES SAY RODENTS, ROACHES COMMONPLACE AT PLANT (107 Chicago Tribune 2/4) The article leads with brief quotations from interviews with former employees of the now-closed Peanut Corp. of America plant in Blakely, Ga. The employees cited unsanitary conditions and one said his simple rule was that he never ate the plant’s peanut butter, or allowed his children to eat it. The article reviews the recall of more than 1,000 food products that include peanut butter or peanut paste from the Peanut Corp. of America plant, and the possibility of criminal charges resulting from the investigation into plant operations. The case is emblematic of the Food and Drug Administration’s troubles in protecting the food supply. President Obama plans to announce a new FDA commissioner and other officials who will implement a “stricter regulatory structure” to improve oversight in food safety inspections, a White House spokesman said. PRODUCERS WANT MORE ETHANOL IN GAS (108 Washington Times 2/4) Despite being pinched by the economic downturn, ethanol producers are expanding so rapidly that they are pressing the government to overturn its 25-year-old rule that limits to 10 percent the amount of corn-based ethanol that can be put into a tank of gasoline. The effort comes as the industry finds itself well ahead of its federally mandated schedule to produce, by 2015, 15 billion gallons of ethanol each year for use in U.S. vehicles. Federal environmental rules now limit to 10 percent the amount of ethanol that can be added to a gallon of gasoline. On Tuesday, ethanol industry representatives told reporters and editors of the Washington Times that they plan to lobby hard to expand that amount to as much as 15 percent. ADM SAYS 21 PERCENT OF U.S. ETHANOL CAPACITY IS IDLE (109 Reuters 2/3) Ethanol producer and grain processor Archer Daniels Midland Co. said Tuesday that nearly 21 percent of U.S. ethanol production capacity has been shut due to weak demand and poor margins. U.S. ethanol plants with a production capacity of 10.2 billion gallons per year are currently operating, down from a peak of 12.9 billion sometime mid-to-late last year, an ADM executive said in a conference call with analysts. JATROPHA THE NEXT BIG BIOFUEL? (110 Time 1/29) If President Obama’s green- energy rhetoric is on the level, this should be the year the U.S. gets clued in to what much of the rest of the world is already betting: that jatropha – a tree that produces seeds that produce clean-burning diesel fuel – will help revive a biofuels movement battered by charges that it diverts too many crops from too many mouths. India has set aside 100 million acres for jatropha, and expects the oil to account for 20 percent of its diesel consumption by 2011. Australia, China, Brazil and Kenya have also embraced it. In December, a Boeing 747 was successfully test flown by Air New Zealand using a 50-50 blend of jatropha and aviation fuel. A University of Florida researcher plans to publish findings this month that jatropha trees thrive so well in Florida that they may yield up to eight times as much oil as they do in places like India and Africa. CALIF. WON’T PENALIZE ORGANIC FARMERS OVER SPIKED FERTILIZER (111 AP 2/4) California’s organic certifier, the California Certified Organic Farmers, said it won’t penalize farmers or revoke their endorsements in the case of two fertilizer companies suspected of peddling synthetic fertilizer as the natural stuff. But the situation has resulted in a blow to the integrity of the organic market, prompting new industry-wide efforts to test and verify fertilizers. The two products implicated had been popular fertilizers among organic growers. “This is a great example of a gross violation of the rules, in which case consumers aren’t getting what they expected,” said a scientist with the Consumers Union. The most recent allegations surround Port Organic Products Inc. near Bakersfield, where county environmental health experts found thousands of gallons of aqueous ammonia, an ingredient used in synthetic fertilizers, in 2005 and 2007. The Port Organic factory was the site of a Jan. 22 search by FBI and USDA officials. FARM GROUPS SUPPORT BILL TO HEAD OFF ANIMAL RIGHTS INITIATIVE (112 Tulsa World, Okla. 2/4) Oklahoma farm and livestock groups are making a pre-emptive strike against animal rights activists. On the heels of a California initiative passed by voters in November, a handful of farm groups – backed by many Oklahoma lawmakers – are trying to pass a bill that would give the state Legislature the exclusive right to make laws about farm animal treatment. “In an ag state like Oklahoma, the Legislature knows best how to take care of the animals,” said the chairman of the state House Agriculture and Rural Development Committee, who is also sponsor of the House version of the bill. The California law puts restrictions on the poultry industry, such as giving chickens more living space, and includes other measures related to the confinement of pigs and calves. Oklahoma agriculture groups fear that supporters of the California law will try to put a similar question on Oklahoma’s ballot. MILK PRICE SOURS FOR N.Y. FARMERS (113 Albany Times-Union 2/4) The global economic crisis has dramatically curbed demand for milk and cheese, leading to a crash in the prices received by New York farmers and fears that some small farmers won’t survive the year. The February price for beverage-class milk in the Capital Region plunged to $13.42 per 100 pounds – that’s $5 less than in January and a 40 percent fall from a year ago, according to USDA statistics. The drop is beneficial for shoppers, at least in the short term, but amid predictions that the price declines will continue into spring, many farmers are struggling to keep their bills paid. EDITORIAL AND OPINION FDA’S FULL PLATE ON FOOD SAFETY (114 Denver Post 2/3) An editorial says the salmonella outbreak “again exposes just how vulnerable our food system is, and how much we rely on an understaffed agency to keep us safe.” Modernization of the Food and Drug Administration is long overdue, it says, and it welcomes comments by President Obama that a “complete review” of the agency is necessary in the wake of the peanut contamination (AgNews 2/3 #108). The editorial says it is clear that FDA lacks the inspectors needed to address food safety problems. Nonetheless, contracting out inspections of the peanut plant involved in the salmonella case to Georgia state inspectors was no solution, it says, since the state’s 60 inspectors are responsible for inspecting 15,000 sites. The editorial notes that several federal lawmakers have pitched “a number of promising food safety reforms.” Still, it concludes, “what has been missing for the last eight years is not ideas, but the political will to make them a reality.” AUTHORITIES SHOULD DO A BETTER JOB OF PROTECTING THE PUBLIC (115 Las Vegas Sun 2/2) An editorial reviews the circumstances surrounding the contamination of peanut products from a plant in Georgia, and says the company should be prosecuted for its “irresponsible behavior.” However, that alone will not fix the problems, it says. It looks in particular at the fact that food processors are not required to report the results of internal testing for contamination. It calls for such testing to be reported, and it calls for more thorough inspections of processing plants. The editorial concludes: “It all adds up to a food safety process that continues to have plenty of gaps, all of which should be addressed immediately by Congress, the Food and Drug Administration and state inspection agencies.” FOOD SAFETY: POISONOUS PEANUTS (116 USA Today 2/4) An editorial wonders why the Peanut Corp. of America’s Blakely, Ga., plant was allowed to stay in business, given the unsanitary conditions found by government investigators. “Though the company bears primary responsibility for safe products, it’s the job of regulators to ensure that corners aren’t being cut,” the editorial says. “Why didn’t they crack down sooner in this case?” It notes that the resource-strapped Food and Drug Administration had delegated routine inspections to the Georgia Department of Agriculture, which cited the plant frequently for unsanitary conditions – although a Georgia official said the state saw only “minor” problems at the plant. Congress has reacted predictably to the latest crisis “with a flurry of proposals to give FDA more resources and more power to monitor food companies and order food recalls,” the editorial says. “That’s all fine, if belated, but one obvious fix stands out: Had the Georgia plant been required to tell safety regulators about those 12 positive salmonella tests, officials could have stepped in sooner and required the plant to clean up its act...If there’s one thing Congress should fix, and quickly, that’s it.” WE SHARE THE PUBLIC’S CONCERN (117 USA Today 2/4) The Peanut Corp. of America declined to provide an opposing view to the USA Today editorial above. USA today provided excerpts from statements the company released last week. In those statements, the company said it shared the public’s concern about the potential connection between the salmonella outbreak and its products. The company is “deeply engaged in the process of learning and understanding the facts and issues.” Its goal has always been to follow the Food and Drug Administration’s good manufacturing practices and to provide a safe product for consumers. The company “categorically denies” allegations that it sought favorable lab results in order to ship its products. It also notes that it does not agree with all of the FDA’s observations at the Blakely plant. It concludes: “We want our customers and consumers to know that we are continuing to work day and night with the FDA and other officials to determine the source of the problem and ensure that it never happens again.” EXCEPTIONS CAN BE MADE TO OBAMA’S EDICT ON LOBBYISTS (118 Washington Times 2/2) A commentary says some of President Obama’s biggest accomplishments in the field of ethics and lobbying rules come with a “but.” Lobbyists are banned, but exceptions can and will be made, the writer says; she also says orders on ending torture and secret prisons contain loopholes and provisos. The lobbying issue has drawn the most ire, she says. She notes in particular criticism from a liberal talk show host who blasted Obama for having former lobbyists in his administration. White House aides say the administration warned months ago that there would be exceptions to the lobbying bans for people they consider exceptionally talented. The writer says nearly two dozen executive branch hires have been registered federal lobbyists, with the most prominent being Secretary Tom Vilsack and William Lynn, the No. 2 man at the Pentagon. AGRICULTURE AND TRADE PRESS AGWEB.COM 2/3 (119) Peterson talks to beet growers; planned talk with Vilsack Tuesday (120) Meat groups oppose boost in ethanol blend percentage AGRICULTURE ONLINE 2/3 (121) Grassley back on ag competition warpath with new legislation BROWNFIELD 2/3 (122) Peterson says derivatives bill is “must pass” legislation (123) Grassley wants ag experts advising regulators DELTA FARM PRESS 2/3 (124) Obama should overturn lands rule (125) USDA seeks comments on six conservation programs USGNET 2/3 (126) Breakthrough announced in development of ethanol-powered fuel cells DTN 2/3 (127) Grassley backs higher ethanol blends AND ALSO… “THERE IS NO LEASH LAW FOR SNAKES” (128 AP 3/3) A 23-foot, 100-pound python can run, but it can’t hide. The orange reticulated python, the world’s longest snake species, and a second python escaped from a terrarium inside their owner’s home in San Luis Obispo, Calif., on Sunday night. Police quickly warned residents that the snakes, though domesticated, were large enough to make a meal of young children or pets. But both were captured in the neighborhood Monday afternoon. Police said the snakes’ owner will not be cited. “There is no leash law for snakes,” said a police spokesman. NETWORK NEWS Tuesday, Feb. 3 CBS: New revelations about Georgia peanut processing plant linked to the salmonella outbreak; former worker says he witnessed filthy conditions USDA RELEASES Tuesday, Feb. 3 0035 USDA Announces Planting Transferability Pilot Project in 7 States To obtain a USDA release, access USDA’s Home Page at http://www.usda.gov To access AgNews on the USDA Intranet, go to http://agnews.usda.gov * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * DISCLAIMER -- AgNews content is derived from major wires, news magazines and mass distribution press. Inclusion of an item in AgNews does not imply USDA agreement; nor does USDA attest to the accuracy or completeness of the item. * * * * * * ** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ACCESS AGNEWS ARCHIVES ON THE USDA INTRANET – AgNews archive files are available on the USDA Intranet at http://agnews.usda.gov. 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