NPPC Says Trade Barriers Need To Fall

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WASHINGTON, D.C., July 26, 2012 – Pork producers and the U.S. economy are losing billions of dollars in exports because of non-science-based food-safety and health barriers erected by foreign countries, the National Pork Producers Council today told a House subcommittee.

Testifying on behalf of NPPC, Jim Boyer, a hog farmer from Ringsted, Iowa, told the Small Business Committee’s agriculture, energy and trade panel that so-called sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) measures are restricting market access for U.S. pork and are adversely affecting U.S. pork producers, particularly small ones like him. Read more

Study Supports Need To Reform Ethanol Production Mandate

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WASHINGTON, D.C., July 19, 2012 – In response to a new economic study on the impact of corn ethanol production on food prices and commodity price volatility, a coalition of livestock and poultry groups is urging Congress to reform the federal Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS), which mandates the amount of ethanol that must be produced annually.

Conducted by Thomas Elam, Ph.D., president of FarmEcon LLC, an Indiana agricultural and food industry consulting firm, the study found that federal ethanol policy has increased and destabilized corn, soybean and wheat prices to the detriment of food and fuel producers and consumers.

The RFS, first imposed in 2005 and revised in 2007, this year requires 15.2 billion gallons of ethanol to be produced. Most of that amount is blended into gasoline at 10 percent. Read more

EPA Withdraws Farm Database Rule

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WASHINGTON, D.C., July 13, 2012 – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today withdrew a proposed rule that would have required large livestock and poultry farmers to report information about their operations and undermined court decisions related to producer obligations under the Clean Water Act, a move applauded by the National Pork Producers Council.

EPA’s proposed Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO) Reporting Rule sought to have CAFOs submit to the agency operational information so it could “more effectively carry out its CAFO permitting programs on a national level and ensure that CAFOs are implementing practices to protect water quality and human health.” The information includes facility facts, such as contact information, location of a CAFO’s production area, permit status, the number and type of animals confined and the number of acres available for land application of manure.

The proposed rule was prompted by a May 2010 settlement agreement EPA entered with the Natural Resources Defense Council, Waterkeeper Alliance – represented by current Humane Society of the United States attorney Hannah Conner, who this week filed 51 notices of intent to sue hog farmers for alleged environmental paperwork violations – and the Sierra Club as part of a lawsuit NPPC brought and ultimately won over EPA’s 2008 CAFO rule. The 2008 rule required, among other things, that large livestock operations that propose to or that might discharge into waterways obtain Clean Water Act (CWA) permits. On NPPC’s suit, a federal court ruled that the CWA requires permits only for operations actually discharging.

“As we have consistently stated, the proposed rule was the result of a sweetheart settlement between EPA and environmentalists that would have provided no public health protections,” said R.C. Hunt, NPPC president and a pork producer from Wilson, N.C. “It would have been a duplicative and burdensome paperwork exercise for producers and clearly was an effort to undermine court decisions that said producers who don’t discharge into waterways don’t need a CWA permit.”

Australia, New Zealand, U.S. Uneasy Over Canada’s Inclusion In Trans-Pacific Partnership

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WASHINGTON, D.C., July 10, 2012 – The recent decision at the G20 summit to include Canada in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) has the United States, New Zealand and Australia up in arms over Canada’s open agricultural subsidy schemes, in particular its programs for Canadian pork production.

The TPP countries – the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Brunei Darussalam, Chile, Malaysia, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam – also voted to include Mexico in the TPP. The nine economies have a combined gross domestic product (GDP) of nearly $17 trillion, a GDP per capita of $33,546 and a population of 505.8 million people.

The inclusion of Canada and Mexico now takes the 11-member TPP group to nearly 30 percent of global GDP, a substantially larger trading power than the 27-nation European Union (EU) bloc. Read more

U.N. Body Approves Standard For Feed Additive

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WASHINGTON, D.C., July 5, 2012 – The National Pork Producers Council praised a U.N. commission for finally approving an international standard for a safe and approved feed ingredient.

The Codex Alimentarius Commission, which was established by the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization and its World Health Organization to promote food safety and fair practices in trade, yesterday adopted a science-based standard for ractopamine, a feed ingredient used to promote leanness in pork and beef. It was the fifth time the U.N. body considered setting a maximum residue limit for ractopamine.

“NPPC is pleased that the Codex commission finally approved this scientifically proven safe product,” said NPPC President R.C. Hunt, a producer from Wilson, N.C. “The commission, as it should, fulfilled its mandate to base standards and guidelines on science.” Read more