Letter No. 3034 November 24, 1999 Happy Thanksgiving!
Letter No. 3034
November
24, 1999 Happy Thanksgiving!
NEW DISASTER RELIEF FOR LIVESTOCK PRODUCERS - Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman announced (November 18) that eligible farmers and ranchers can sign up to receive payments to compensate them for losses that occurred in 1999 because natural disasters either destroyed livestock or grazing resources for their livestock or both. The assistance is offered under USDA's Livestock Indemnity Program (LIP) and Livestock Assistance Program (LAP). The $200 million funding was authorized by the recently signed agriculture appropriations act for FY2000. The sign-up for LIP began November 15, 1999 and is available to eligible producers who lost livestock due to a disaster in an area that received a Presidential or Secretarial Disaster Designation. The sign-up period for LAP will vary by county. Producers will be notified of the sign up period by USDA's Service Center or Farm Service Agency (FSA) county office. Contact: Dann Stuart (202) 720-7961.
DISASTER RECOVERY GRANTS FOR FARMWORKERS - Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman awarded (November 22) $20 million in grants to help low-income migrant and seasonal farmworkers who face economic hardships. Grants will go to both public agencies and private organizations in Arkansas, California, Florida, New Jersey, Ohio, and Puerto Rico to pay for various emergency services, including housing, food, school supplies, transportation, medical and dental care, and rent or mortgage payments. Glickman said, "Crops in many parts of the country have been devastated by winter freezes, hurricanes, and severe drought conditions. As a result, the income of many farmworkers has declined by more than 50 percent." Funding will be provided by state USDA Rural Development offices. Contact: La Jaycee Brown (202) 720-9741.
PILOT QUALITY SAMPLES PROGRAM TO HELP BOOST EXPORTS - To develop and expand markets for American agricultural products, Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman announced (November 18) a pilot program that will enable exporters to get samples of their products to foreign buyers. The $2.5 million Quality Samples Program (QSP) will focus on products that are not branded, that benefit whole industries, and are unprocessed or semi-processed foods -- like grains and flour-- and other agricultural products that are not ready-to-eat. Glickman said, "Through this new pilot program, exporters will provide samples of U.S. commodities to foreign buyers who have not previously used them. This will encourage new purchases of American products." QSP participants must buy the commodity samples, export them, and provide technical assistance on their use to importers. When the project is finished, USDA will reimburse the costs of procuring and exporting the samples. Contact: Kent Sisson (202) 720-4327.
NATIONAL DROUGHT POLICY COMMISSION HEARING - The National Drought Policy Commission will hold its fourth public hearing Wednesday, December 1, 1999, from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. PST. The hearing will be located in the first floor Board Room of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California office building, 700 N. Alameda Street, Los Angeles, California. The Commission will hold a business meeting December 2 from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. PST, at the same location, to review and discuss the initial draft of the Commission's findings. Both the public hearing and meeting are open to the public; however, seating will be limited and available on a first-come basis. Contact: Steve Thompson (202) 720-7961.
LAND USE RESTRICTIONS RESCINDED- Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) Executive Vice President Keith Kelly announced (November 18) that certain highly erodible land-use restrictions have been rescinded for Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) participants. The Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriation Act, 2000, rescinds a special CRP highly-erodible land (HEL) provision that applied to participants who entered into CRP contracts after November 28, 1990. That provision prevented those participants from growing certain crops on land acquired after November 28, 1990 unless that land had a crop history. The Farm Service Agency (FSA) will notify CRP participants that this CRP HEL provision no longer applies. All State FSA offices have been instructed to suspend immediately enforcement of this provision. Contact: Dann Stuart (202) 690-0474.
MOTHER'S NUTRITION APPEARS TO AFFECT CHILDREN'S DIET - According to a new study by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Service, the more a mother knows about health and nutrition, the better the diet quality is for her preschool children, but not necessarily for her school-age children. Among the report's key findings are: maternal knowledge of health and nutrition influence children's nutrient and food component intakes and that such influence decreases as children grow older; the health habits of individual family members can strongly affect the entire family's diet; targeting non-White and Hispanic mothers for nutrition education is likely to increase diet quality of preschoolers; preschool children of mothers who smoke have significantly lower diet quality, although the mothers are as informed about nutrition and diet-health links as nonsmoking mothers; and, having a member in the household who is on a vegetarian diet appears to significantly improve preschoolers' diet quality. Contact: James Blaylock (202) 694-5402.
PUBLIC MEETING ON NEW SANITATION REQUIREMENTS - The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) is holding a public meeting December 8-9, to discuss technical aspects of FSIS' final rule on sanitation requirements for official meat and poultry establishments. On October 20, FSIS published its final rule on "Sanitation Requirements for Official Meat and Poultry Establishments." The rule consolidated sanitation regulations into a single regulation, eliminated unnecessary differences between the sanitation requirements for meat and poultry processing, and converted many highly prescriptive sanitation requirements to performance standards. The rule will become effective January 25, 2000. The public meeting will be held at the Double Tree Hotel, 1616 Dodge Street, Omaha, Nebraska 68102. The meeting will be from 8:00 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. on December 8, and from 8:00 a.m. until 2:30 p.m. on December 9. Contact: Beth Gaston (202) 720-9113.
LESQUERELLA SCRUTINIZED AS OIL, GUM, MEAL SOURCE - Researchers around the country have nudged lesquerella - a native wild plant in the mustard family - a few steps closer to becoming a profitable new source of oil, gum and meal for industrial, home and farm uses. Scientists with USDA's Agricultural Research Service (ARS) in Arizona bred Lesquerella fendleri plants that boast yellow-coated seeds. These seeds have less of the troublesome natural pigments that can give lesquerella's oil an unwanted red-to-brown color. Pigments pose a costly obstacle to commercialization because they have to be removed for product uses like cosmetics. ARS Scientists David Dierig and Terry Coffelt made the yellow-coated seeds available to growers several years ago. More recently, they bred lesquerellas that are salt-tolerant or have more oil. Lesquerella oil is a promising alternative to castor oil, today imported for lubricants, coatings, plastics, paints, lipstick, shampoo and other products. Lesquerella's gum could improve the texture of frozen foods or serve as a thickener for paints or drilling fluids. Lesquerella meal may be an ideal "binder" to keep feed pellets from crumbling. Contact: David Dierig (602) 379-4356, ext. 265.
Edited by Leslie Parker
AGRICULTURE USA #2216 - From all indications, consumers are off to one of the hottest holiday shopping seasons ever. Gary Crawford talks with financial experts, shopkeepers and holiday shoppers. (Weekly cassette - five minute documentary).
CONSUMER TIME #1703 - A rockin' holiday shopping season. On-line shopping is big this holiday season. The fattening season. Food industry declared O.K. for Y2K. It's poinsettia time! (Weekly cassette - consumer features).
AGRITAPE #2205 - Syria resumes importing U.S. corn. A vegetable oversupply? Christmas tree exports. Tougher cotton fiber. Export training program. (Weekly cassette - news features).
UPCOMING ON USDA RADIO NEWSLINE - In addition to regularly scheduled USDA reports, the newsline will carry stories from the WTO talks in Seattle (November 29 - December 6). Brenda Curtis will be our on-site reporter. Wednesday, December 1, horticultural exports. Tuesday, December 7, crop/weather update. Friday, December, 10, crop production report, world agriculture supply/demand. These are USDA reports we know about in advance. The newsline carries many stories every day that are not listed in this lineup.
USDA RADIO NEWSLINES: (202) 488-8358 or 8359.
COMREX ENCODED (202) 720-2545.
Material
changed at 5:00 p.m., ET, each working day and 10:30 a.m. on crop report
days.
U.S. Food Aid to Russia Benefits Both. The U.S. food aid package to Russia is helping to feed and employ people and to cultivate relations with Russian importers that could pay off in the future. Pat O'Leary reports this second of a two-part look at this topic.
USDA Declares Food System O.K. for Y2K. Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman and food industry officials are telling people to treat the upcoming Y2K weekend like any other holiday - stock up on food supplies, but don't panic. Patrick O'Leary reports from a suburban Washington, D.C. grocery store.
Flame Retardant Cotton Fabrics. Flame retardant chemicals date back to the 1800's, but today's chemicals are costly and not very durable. USDA researchers are working to change that. Dave Carter has the story reports from New Orleans.
U.S. Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky says next week's World Trade Organization talks in Seattle (beginning November 30) are just the beginning of a three-year negotiation process. (Taped November 23 in Washington, D.C.)
SCRIPTS for TV features are available by FAX: Use your FAX phone to call 202-690-3677;
at prompt, press 1, 4, then 9270. Or visit: http://www.usda.gov/agency/oc/vtr/vtr.htm.
SATELLITE COORDINATES FOR TV NEWS FEEDS: Available Thursdays, 4:15-4:30 p.m. ET Galaxy 6 (C-Band), Transponder 11-Horizontal, Downlink Frequency 3920 MHZ, Audio 6.2/6.8.
Comments and suggestions are welcome regarding USDA broadcast services. Call Larry Quinn, (202) 720-6072, or write: Mail Stop 1360, USDA, Washington, D.C. 20250-1360. Internet e-mail: Larry Quinn @ USDA.GOV.
MONDAY TO MONDAY . . . radio coverage of the World Trade Organization (WTO) talks in Seattle begins November 29 and will continue through December 6. Brenda Curtis of our radio team will be there reporting news and developments from the international trade talks. Her reports will be available after 5:00 p.m. ET each day on our USDA Radio Newsline Service. Call 202-488-8358 to access these stories and actualities. Look for feature coverage in our weekly radio cassette service.
BACK HOME . . . describes the new assignment for Von Ketelsen who joined WMT Radio (Cedar Rapids, IA) in September. His hometown of Marion is a suburb of Cedar Rapids. He joins colleague Karen Schulte and replaces Rich Balvanz who moved into agricultural consulting. Prior to this assignment, Von was farm director for KOEL (Oelwein, IA) for more than 10 years. Before that, he worked in radio sales and agricultural public relations. During the Fall harvest, Von originated several reports directly from grain elevators and continued his live reporting while attending the recent National Association of Farm Broadcasters' (NAFB) convention in Kansas City. Von is planning chairman for NAFB's next Washington Watch scheduled in Washington, D.C., May 6-8, 2000.
RETURNING TO FARM BROADCASTING . . . after eight years in retail management is Jerry Passer who is the new farm director for KOEL (Oelwein, IA). KOEL celebrates its 50th year of broadcasting this year. Other big news in Iowa this week was welcome widespread rain. Many areas received between 1-2 inches quelling the fear of low soil moisture going into winter. Jerry says prior to the rain that 87 of the state's 99 counties were under a burning ban because of fire danger. Jerry served as WMT Radio's (Cedar Rapids, IA) farm director for 18 years until 1991.
FARM DIRECTOR WANTED . . . by WOW-AM/FM (Omaha, NE). Broadcast coverage includes six states. The FM station has just changed its call letters to KOMJ. To apply or obtain additional information, call Mike Hogan, Station Manager, at 402-573-5900.
LARRY A. QUINN, Director
Video, Teleconference & Radio
Center