The following letter is being circulated by the Natinal Pork Producers Council in an effort to impact relevant legislation. We wanted to pass along in the event you are impacted by the discussion. Your Farm does not have a stated position on Pork Legislation, but we do want to make this information available to you.
Please utilize the following as you see fit.
June 13, 2007 — Annamaria Castiglia
The swine industry is under attack not only from animal-rights activists but also from legislators in Washington, D.C.
Sens. Edward Kennedy and Sherrod Brown and Rep. Louise Slaughter are sponsoring legislation (S. 549 and H.R. 962, respectively) that would prohibit the use in livestock of antibiotics that are necessary for maintaining our animals' good health when challenged by disease outbreaks; Rep. Gary Ackerman and Sen. Daniel Akaka are sponsoring bills (H.R. 661 and S. 394, respectively) that would keep fatigued hogs from the food supply; and Reps. Peter DeFazio and Christopher Shays are offering legislation (H.R. 1726, the "Farm Animal Stewardship Purchasing Act") that would prohibit the federal government from buying meat from farms that use individual sow housing systems.
We need the pork industry's voice to be heard loud and clear on these issues. NPPC is asking interested parties to sign on today to the Legislative Action Center of NPPC's Web site, and let your congressional lawmakers know about your opposition to these ill-conceived and ill-advised proposals. Here's how to send a letter to your senators and representative:
- Log on to NPPC.
- Click the Legislative Action Center button located on the left side of the screen.
- Click the link for "New? Register Here" and enter your profile information.
- Your log-in from this point forward will be your e-mail address.
- Choose your legislator.
- Once you have entered your profile, you can take action by clicking the federal issue tab.
- Here you will find the legislative letters already drafted.
- These letters have been developed for pork producers, so as veterinarians, nutritionists, etc. you will have to edit the letters or just write your own thoughts.
- If you decide to use the existing letter, highlight the second sentence in the producers letter to the last word in the text and copy the text.
- Choose the prompt for blank letter space.
- Paste the copied text into the blank letter space.
- Include your own personal introductory sentence.
Click send.
If you have any questions on this process, please don't hesitate to call Dr. Annamaria Castiglia at NPPC at (202) 347-3600 Thank you for taking action and making your voices heard.
We are excited to announce, and make available
The Farm Gate right here on Your Farm.
The Farm Gate is blog produced by the University of Illinois and the "head blogger" is Stu Ellis--long time farm broadcaster, commentator, and all around leader in Agriculture. (You can read more about Mr. Ellis
here.)
As many of you know, one of the items we highlighted when we launched Your Farm was a desire to bring together the best ideas and participants in production agriculture. That, in the end, is our mission. We are firm believers that there is a signficiant amount of very good information that comes out of Land Grant Universities and extension offices. The Farm Gate is a unique information source in that Mr. Ellis provides summary and insightful information--not only from the University of Illinois, but also from other University and Extension sources from around the country.
You can find The Farm Gate featured
here or in the "Land Grant Digest" Section of our news Category.
Take a look, and let us know what you think.
The Environmental Working Group ("EWG") is publicizing it's coming out party related to their "New 2007 Farm Bill Database." This database, we're told, is based on the same information we published here at YourFarm.com on May 15, 2007. That is, USDAs publicly available 1614 Database.
This has been a crusade for Ken Cook, and his colleagues at the environmental working group for some time as, among other things, they seek to shed a negative light on many farm subsidy payments in the eyes of the media and the American public.
We congratulate them on their personal milestone, but as we have discussed in this column previously, know that there are a lot of you out there in the fields, in the farm media, and in various corners of the farm policy spectrum that have perspectives that don't necessarily sync with those of the folks at EWG. (You can count us in that group.)
If you have a comment or want to partake in the discussion let us know. EWG's press release is provided below if you're interested.
Tens of thousands of people who have benefited from billions in federal farm subsidy payments have been shielded from public view for decades, behind layers of partnerships, joint ventures, corporations and other business structures that obscured their personal subsidy claims. Not anymore.
EWG’s new 2007 Farm Bill Database provides full disclosure, starting here at Mulch at 12 noon Eastern time, June 12.
Just as things are really heating up on the 2007 farm bill debate. And we're not just talkin' about Washington in July, either...
Our press conference is tomorrow at 10:00 a.m.
And look for a surprising new feature on the Web site when we light it up.
Some of you Midwesterners may be aware of the Crop Watch Blog--which produced by Iowa Farmer Today in conjunction with Iowa State University. They put out some excellent material--primarily agronomic as best I can tell. A farmer out of Williamsburg, IA first brought it to my attention, a while back. Another farmer, this one from Colorado, sent me a link to a story this evening. You can link to it
here.
We're always on the lookout for information that can be useful to you in the field, and Amy Asmus' articl provides such a nugget by linking to a chart listing some common chemicals and their "rainfast times." You can access the chart
here.
As Amy suggests, you should use this only as a reference and always read the product label. At any rate, good stuff from the folks at the Crop Watch Blog. We hope our passing it along is helpful in your operation.
The National Association of Wheat Growers reports the following in their weekly newsletter today:
After nearly two years of advocacy by NAWG and other grower organizations, President George W. Bush signed a supplemental spending bill late last week that included $3 billion in agricultural disaster assistance.
Many crop producers across the country have experienced drought, floods, fires or freezes in recent crop growing seasons, sometimes in successive seasons.
The funding bill, mainly intended to provide money for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, will provide crop production loss assistance for losses of more than 35 percent in either 2005, 2006 or 2007, with the losses for 2007 crops covered only if the crop subject to the loss was planted prior to Feb. 28.
Only producers with crop insurance coverage will be eligible for the assistance. Payments are to be made within 60 days of a producer’s application, and producers should contact their local FSA offices for more information.
A domestic spending bill including agriculture disaster assistance provisions passed the House May 24 by a vote of 348-73. A combined war funding/domestic spending bill was approved the same day by the Senate by a 80-14 vote.
Forecast is for some rain for the western Corn Belt Tuesday through Friday, with scattered rains expected in the eastern Corn Belt later in the week.
The National Weather Service six to ten day forecast calls for below-normal precip for Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota, Nebraska, eastern Kansas, the Dakotas, Missouri and Wisconsin. Above-normal precipitation is expected in some regions of the extreme eastern Corn Belt.
Temps are expected to be below-normal during this period across the Corn Belt with the exception of far northern and western locations.
Memorial Day, originally called Decoration Day, is a day of remembrance for those who have died in our nation's service.
To all who have served this great country and to thei families—we thank you.