Ag Stories for Wegmans Customers

Dave Corsi with Wegmans Encourages More Ag Stories to Bridge Gap with Consumers

 

By Laurie Greene, Editor, California Ag Today

Customers love stories and Agriculture sure has them. What could be better for the bag of broccoli florets, carrots or even pistachios and almonds to have an image of the farmer who grew them?

Ag needs to have this connection with consumers; ag stories help bridge the gap between the growers and consumers.

California Ag Today caught up with Dave Corsi at a recent meeting. Corsi knows something about customers connecting with agriculture; he’s vice president of Produce and Floral at Wegmans, a higher end east coast grocery store chain, which purchases a lot of product from California growers. He said it’s way bigger than farm local and buying local.

“The customer wants to know the face behind the name. It is important for the customer to know who the growers are, and what do they do? What is their food safety philosophy and food safety best practices? What kind of varieties are they growing? What are the flavor profiles of crops they are developing to provide a better experience for our customers?”

“All that is very meaningful. And it doesn’t matter if the farm is ten miles away, three thousand miles away, or even around the world. The customer wants to understand who the person is behind the product being grown,” said Corsi. “That’s the story we love sharing with our customers.”

He noted that customers are really interested in the knowledge learned from ag stories, “so they can feel more comfortable about their purchase because they know how dedicated our growers are to food safety, traceability, and food quality.  They even want to know about the social side of business, such as the growers themselves.”

 

2016-05-31T19:28:16-07:00May 18th, 2015|

Tasteful Selections Opens Cal Green Potato Facility

Tasteful Selections Opens Cal Green Potato Facility in Arvin, CA

By Patrick Cavanaugh, Associate Editor

Bob Bender, a partner with CSS Farms, in Watertown, South Dakota, came out to Kern County several years ago to grow many different crops including chip potatoes, garlic, onions and bell peppers, as well as black-eyed peas. “We were looking for an opportunity in California to diversify our company so that we were not so dependent on the chip potato income.”

Bender said he was always looking for crops in which he could diversify, and in 2007, he had the opportunity to grow some baby, bite-sized potatoes for a Canadian company. “This worked out well for a few years, and then we decided in 2009 to pack the baby potatoes under our own CSS Farms label,” Bender said.

“That business started taking off a lot bigger than we expected, and in 2010, we saw that the business was growing to be too much for us to handle. We needed some marketing help because we did not know  much about it,” said Bender. “Plus, we were packing everything in 50-pound cartons, and we knew there would have to be more margin to the product if we sold directly to retail.

Bob Bender, Tasteful Selections

Bob Bender, Tasteful Selections

“That’s when we teamed up with the Wysocki family, owners of the Bancroft, Wisconsin-based RPE Company and experts in packing and marketing,” said Bender. “The marketing took off, and they built our first packing shed in a leased facility in Bakersfield. They sold product in smaller mesh bags for the consumer retail market under the Tasteful Selection brand,” noted Bender, who is now president and general manager of Tasteful Selections.”

Fast forward to March. 18, 2015 when CSS, along with RPE, and Stevens Point, Wisconsin-based Plover River Farms Alliance, Inc. partnered together and opened a new, stainless steel, 200,000 square foot facility in Arvin, near Bakersfield—all dedicated to Tasteful Selections specialty potatoes.

The expansion increases Tasteful Selections’ production capacity from eight to 12 packaging lines, doubles the potato washing capacity and adds more shipping docks and improved refrigeration and storage to meet the company’s double digit growth (over the past five years), leading the specialty potato category.

In all, the company sells eight flavors of potatoes in one-, two- or three-bite sizes, plus offers a medley of flavors in each bite size. The potatoes have unique flavors, creamy textures and tender skins. The products are pre-washed, so consumers do not have to clean or peel the product. And the small sizes equate to faster cooking times.

“Fifty percent of our team is marketing, so we’re not just growing and packing the potatoes. RPE handles all of our marketing and sales, which has been so instrumental in our growth,” said Bender, who now oversees the day-to-day operations in California. RPE has been a tremendous asset to Tasteful Selections; the fact that we are in all fifty states, in 52 percent of all grocery stores, with growth in every store, says a lot about RPE,” Bender noted.

The fact that the facility was built with all stainless steel components is an invaluable addition to our operations and food safety protocols.  The facility’s design honors Cal Green Certification Standards. The Cal Green Certification ensures that we are maximizing our efficiency while reducing our environmental impact. Not only does this benefit us, it also helps the surrounding communities in promoting water savings, environmental responsibility, cost effectiveness and a healthier place to live and work for its currently 257 employees.

Tasteful Selections

Tasteful Selections

Milt Carter is CEO and President of CSS Farms, which grows all the potatoes for Tasteful Selections. “We are co-owner of the company, along with RPE, and the grand opening of our facility is a big day for us as we continue our journey to bring unique potatoes to the potato category and to the table,” said Carter.

“We particularly like the qualities of our baby potatoes, including unique flavors and better taste than the average potato. The uniform sizes we pack allow for uniform cooking times, making cooking easier for the consumer. And the growth we have seen reflects that consumers really like them.”

“When we started Tasteful Selections in 2010, we knew we had something amazing, and even we were surprised by the success that we had,” said Russell Wysocki, President and CEO of RPE. “The opening of this new plant shows that we are consistently investing in our future in specialty potatoes,” he said.

“The new plant will allow us to bring in new product lines, do a better job in precise-sizing, and maintain our high quality standard,” noted Wysocki. “On the farm, Bob and Milt bring us five separate crops a year; we have the ability to deliver the freshest potatoes with the best quality to our customers throughout the country and throughout the season.”

“The one-, two- or three-bite Tasteful Sections potatoes in the one pound or 1.5 pound bag are very popular with consumers.” said Wysocki. “It use to be that you would sell a lot of potatoes in a 10-pound bag, but that’s getting a lot harder to do. However, this product offers consumers a package from which they can get multiple meals, without taking five weeks to consume and perhaps resorting to the garbage can to get rid of them.”

“The baby potatoes are immature potatoes, before they grow bigger, but they still contain all the nutrients found in the larger potatoes,” said Wysocki.

Carter explained, “Our signature flavor Honey Gold baby potatoes are proprietary to Tasteful Selections, and they have a very unique flavor. A high percentage of people the taste distinctive in taste tests, and most like it very much.”

“It’s a great product,” noted Wysocki. “We basically took product that was being discarded in the market 10 years ago. We saw the quality of what was culled, and we felt it was something significant we could bring to the marketplace. So we considered the possibility, then brought it to market, and we have had phenomenal growth,” he said.

2016-05-31T19:30:24-07:00May 17th, 2015|

Bee Loss Update

Below Average Winter Bee Loss for U.S. Honey Bees

Edited by Patrick Cavanaugh, CalAgToday

There are still questions about how best to measure colony losses over winter months, during the spring through fall period, and on an annual basis. The USDA winter survey has been conducted only since 2006 and is based on beekeeper self-reporting. Since the survey’s inception, winter losses have averaged approximately 30 percent. Prior to the introduction of the parasitic Varroa Mite and other pests and disorders in the mid-1980s, losses in cold northern states  were typically the 0-15% range. Since then, colony losses over winter have been much higher. In warm southern states, honey bees seldom need to cluster, so they can continue brood rearing and foraging for most of the year. Therefore, it is important to define what is meant by winter, and these distinctions further complicate winter loss determination and calculation.

The latest report from the USDA is good news for all who care about the health of honey bee colonies. For the second year in a row, winter losses of U.S. honey bee colonies were well below the historic 30 percent average. More importantly, the long-term trend of overwintering losses continues to show improvement due to greater awareness of factors affecting honey bee health, particularly the varroa mite, and better pest management, including extensive use of the highly effective Varroacide, Apivar.

This report follows shortly after the USDA released its annual Honey Report, which showed that the number of U.S. honey bee colonies grew to 2.74 million in 2014, the highest level in many years, continuing a 10-year trend of steady growth.

Summer losses are expected and common, however, because of Varroa, other disorders, queen issues, and pesticide residues in hives, especially extremely high residues of bee-protecting Varroacides, beekeepers do face a challenge to keep these losses to a minimum. It is apparent that in recent years, beekeepers are doing a much better job of managing honey bees and the problems they face because colony numbers in the U.S. continue to grow. Some states, have seen substantial increases in colony numbers. Florida, for example has more than doubled the number of colonies since 2006.

Feed-a-Bee

Feed a Bee, Bayer CropScience

Even with this good news about overwintering trends, we must continue to focus on the challenges facing bee health. Bayer CropScience is developing new solutions to the problems caused by the invasive Varroa mite and is working to tackle another major issue facing pollinators today – lack of forage – through the Feed a Bee initiative. And we recently announced our Healthy Hives 2020 research collaboration with honey bee experts to identify tangible actions to help improve the health of honey bee colonies over the next five years. Although there is much work yet to do, this report validates the efforts of many stakeholders who are working to protect bees and promote sustainable agriculture.

Useful Links: Feed a Bee, Bee Health, Varroacides, Healthy Hives 2020

2016-05-31T19:30:25-07:00May 14th, 2015|

Sustainable Farming: Let’s Focus on a Farm’s Performance, Not its Size

In case you missed it, we are posting the article, “Let’s Focus on a Farm’s Performance, Not its Size,” with permission, from Environmental Defense Fund’s Growing Returns blog.

By  | BIO
Lettuce

Credit: Flickr user Dwight Sipler

What comes to mind when you think of a “family farm?” You’re probably picturing a bucolic spread of less than 100 acres, with a red barn, farmer in overalls, and cows grazing a big pasture. What about the phrase “corporate farm” or “?” Do you see a giant, impersonal and industrial-looking operation?

Unfortunately, these common (mis)perceptions are regularly promoted in everything from TV ads to online chats. But the reality is that “big” does not equate to “bad,” and “small” doesn’t necessarily mean “good” when it comes to sustainable farming. In fact, it’s the wrong debate altogether.

What really matters is performance, not size.

Today is National Agriculture Day, celebrated annually on March 18, and this year’s theme is sustaining future generations. If we’re going to meet the needs of a rapidly growing population, we’re going to need large and small farms alike. And no matter their size, they’ll need to minimize their impacts on the natural systems that sustain us all.

Addressing the myth

It’s a myth that large farms can’t be sustainable, just as it’s a myth that all family farms are small and better for the environment.

Take Christine Hamilton, for example, whose family farm produces corn, soybeans, winter wheat and cattle across 14,000 acres in South Dakota. For years she’s been participating in USDA conservation programs, using no-till practices, planting trees to limit erosion, and utilizing variable rate technologies to improve the environment and her yields.

There are also places like Fair Oaks Farms, which milks over 500 cows … an hour. To make their large operation more sustainable, Fair Oaks pumps methane from its livestock to an on-site natural gas station that compresses it into fuel for the farm’s fleet of 40 milk trucks.

Many small-farm operations implement sustainable practices as well. A perfect example is Full Belly Farms, a 400-acre organic farm in Northern California that won last year’s prestigious Leopold Conservation Award. But I’ve visited small farms where livestock roam freely into streams, soil erosion destroys riverbanks, and nutrient management plans are nonexistent.

Sharing responsibility4.1.1

In the U.S., agriculture already occupies 51 percent of our land, uses 80 percent of the [Nation’s consumptive*] water, and is responsible for 8 percent of our greenhouse gas emissions. And in the coming decades U.S. farms will be responsible for producing even more food. In order to make agriculture a plus for the environment, farm practices will need to change.

Of course, we have to keep in mind the context here. Mid-size and large-scale family farms account for 8 percent of U.S. farms but 60 percent of the value of production, so in order to bring sustainable agriculture to scale, they will have to do the bulk of the work. But small farms have a much higher share of production for specific commodities in the U.S. – they account for 56 percent of domestic poultry production, for example – so we’ll need their leadership, too.

Regardless of size, all farms need to:

  • Minimize the loss of nutrients and soil to air and water through nutrient optimization strategies such as conservation tillage.
  • Use water as efficiently as possible.
  • Improve soil health through strategies such as cover crops.
  • Avoid plowing up ecologically important lands.
  • Fence livestock out of streams and implement management plans to maintain healthy grazing lands and avoid overgrazing
  • Use strategically placed filters to capture excess nutrients.

It’s time we shift the public debate and get everyone on board the sustainability train. Arguing about a farm’s size won’t deliver environmental benefits. In the end, it’s all about performance.

_______________________________________

*“California Ag Today added “Nation’s consumptive” from the original USDA text and offers the following definitions:

“Consumptive water use” is a use of water that removes the water from the system so that it cannot be recovered for reuse by some other entity. Consumptive uses may be beneficial or non‐beneficial. A beneficial consumptive use would be crop evapotranspiration.

(Source: Agricultural Water Use in California: A 2011 Update 3 © Center for Irrigation Technology November 2011)

Evapotranspiration (ET) is the amount of water transpired by plants, retained in plant tissues, and evaporated from plant tissues and surrounding soil surfaces.

(Sources: (1) California Water Plan Update 2009 Glossary. Department of Water Resources. Resources Agency. State of California; (2) Agricultural Water Use in California: A 2011 Update 3 © Center for Irrigation Technology November 2011)

If the basis for the discussion is water consumptively used by only agricultural, municipal & industrial users, then agriculture’s share would be estimated in the range of 80 percent of the total. However, if the percentage is based on dedicated water, which includes environmental uses, then agriculture’s share is more in the range of 40 percent.

(Sources: (1) California Water Plan Update 2009 Glossary. Department of Water Resources. Resources Agency. State of California; (2) Agricultural Water Use in California: A 2011 Update 3 © Center for Irrigation Technology November 2011)

Dedicated water – as defined by the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) is “water distributed among urban and agricultural uses, used for protecting and restoring the environment, or storage in surface water and groundwater reservoirs. In any year, some of the dedicated supply includes water that is used multiple times (reuse) and water held in storage from previous years. This is about 40 to 50 percent of the total annual water supply received from precipitation and imported from Colorado, Oregon, and Mexico.”

Context: Water Portfolio”1 (Source: Agricultural Water Use in California: A 2011 Update 3 © Center for Irrigation Technology November 2011)

Dedicated water includes water flowing in the Wild and Scenic Rivers. Many partially used or unrestricted rivers could have been significantly diverted for use by municipal & industrial and/or agriculture. However, these waters have been dedicated by law to the environment. Other examples of dedicated water are the 800,000 acre‐feet/year reallocated back to the environment by the Central Valley Project Improvement Act (CVPIA) and the 647,000 AF/year reallocated back for Trinity River restoration of that river’s fishery.

(Sources: (1) Record of Decision. Trinity River Mainstem Fishery Restoration. Final Environmental Impact Statement/Environmental Impact Report. U.S. Department of the Interior. December 2000; (2) Westlands Water District vs. U.S. Department of Interior. Case Nos. 03‐15194, 03‐15289, 03‐15291 and 03‐15737. Argued and Submitted Feb. 9, 2004 ‐ July 13, 2004, United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit)

_______________________________________

The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) works directly with businesses, government and communities to create lasting solutions to the most serious environmental problems. EDF’s Growing Returns Blog posts news about the organization’s goal of meeting growing demands for food in ways that improve the environment.

2016-05-31T19:30:26-07:00March 21st, 2015|

Ag Day 2015: A beautiful day to be a farmer

California’s agricultural community gathered yesterday on the west steps of the State Capitol to show, see and share the bounty of our state’s farmers and ranchers. It was a perfect day for such a celebration (although to be perfectly honest, the farmers would have preferred rain). In keeping with the United Nations’ declaration of 2015 as the International Year of Soils, the theme for Ag Day this year was “Breaking New Ground.”

Special thanks to the California Department of Food and Agriculture’s partners in organizing Ag Day, the California Women for Agriculture and the California Foundation for Agriculture in the Classroom.  Thanks also go to our emcee, Kitty O’Neal of KFBK Newsradio, as well as event sponsors the California Egg Farmers, the California Alpaca Breeders Association, the California Farm Bureau Federation, California Grown, the California State Board of Equalization, the California Strawberry Commission, the Farmer Veteran Coalition, Got Milk?, John Deere, the Kubota Tractor Company-California, and the University of California Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources.

 

2016-05-31T19:30:26-07:00March 19th, 2015|

Primary USDA Natural Disaster Areas in Oregon With Assistance to Producers in California

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has designated Grant and Jackson counties in Oregon as primary natural disaster areas due to damages and losses caused by a recent drought. Farmers and ranchers in Siskiyou County in California also qualify for natural disaster assistance because their counties are contiguous.

“Our hearts go out to those Oregon farmers and ranchers affected by recent natural disasters,” said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. “President Obama and I are committed to ensuring that agriculture remains a bright spot in our nation’s economy by sustaining the successes of America’s farmers, ranchers, and rural communities through these difficult times. We’re also telling Oregon producers that USDA stands with you and your communities when severe weather and natural disasters threaten to disrupt your livelihood.”

Farmers and ranchers in the following counties in Oregon also qualify for natural disaster assistance because their counties are contiguous. Those counties are: Baker, Crook, Douglas, Harney, Josephine, Klamath, Masher, Morrow, Umatilla, Union and Wheeler.

All counties listed above were designated natural disaster areas on March 18, 2015, making all qualified farm operators in the designated areas eligible for low interest emergency (EM) loans from USDA’s Farm Service Agency (FSA), provided eligibility requirements are met. Farmers in eligible counties have eight months from the date of the declaration to apply for loans to help cover part of their actual losses. FSA will consider each loan application on its own merits, taking into account the extent of losses, security available and repayment ability. FSA has a variety of programs, in addition to the EM loan program, to help eligible farmers recover from adversity.

Additional programs available to assist farmers and ranchers include the Emergency Conservation Program, The Livestock Forage Disaster Program, the Livestock Indemnity Program, the Emergency Assistance for Livestock, Honeybees, Farm-Raised Fish Program, and the Tree Assistance Program. Interested farmers may contact their local USDA Service Centers for further information on eligibility requirements and application procedures for these and other programs. Additional information is also available online at http://disaster.fsa.usda.gov.

2016-05-31T19:30:26-07:00March 18th, 2015|

SAGE Welcomes Poppy Davis as New Program Director, One of Our Own

SAGE’s New Program Director Poppy Davis to Expand Organization’s Capacity for Cultivating Urban-Edge Agricultural Places

Sustainable Agriculture Education (SAGE) welcomes Poppy Davis as Program Director to expand the organization’s capacity and develop and implement strategies for revitalizing urban-edge agricultural places that sustain and define cities. SAGE is a lean, entrepreneurial nonprofit organization headed by Sibella Kraus, recipient of the 2014 Growing Green Regional Food Leader Award from the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Sibella Kraus, SAGE President

Sibella Kraus, SAGE President and recipient of 2014 Growing Green Regional Food Leader Award

Working through multi-partner collaborations, SAGE develops place-based projects, toolkits and conceptual frameworks to demonstrate strategies for urban-edge farmland preservation, regeneration, and re-connection with healthy cities.  SAGE also provides agriculture-related technical services such as foodshed and agricultural economic viability assessments, implementation plans and business plans. Partners include public agencies, land trusts, agricultural enterprises and associations, planning and economic consultancy firms, public-interest organizations working in the area of public health, healthy food access, education and conservation, and community groups in urban and rural areas.

Sibella founded SAGE in 2001 to use her background in agricultural marketing, education and journalism, to help diverse stakeholders embrace urban-edge agricultural places as keystones of urban and regional sustainability. Bringing Poppy on board strengthens the organization’s capacity to work with the agricultural community, particularly retiring landowners and beginning farmers and ranchers who are eager to benefit from new opportunities at the urban-edge.

Poppy Davis, New Program Director at SAGE

Poppy Davis, New Program Director at SAGE

Poppy began her career as a California Certified Public Accountant specializing in family-scale agricultural businesses and associations. She translated her intimate knowledge of agricultural issues and farm-family decision-making to the policy arena, working for the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), first for the crop insurance program in the Western Region and most recently as the National Program Leader for Small Farms and Beginning Farmers and Ranchers in Washington, D.C.. While at the USDA she served as a member of the management team for Secretary Vilsack‘s “Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food” initiative,

Know Your Farmer. Know Your Food.

Know Your Farmer. Know Your Food.

and co-founded the USDA 4 Veterans, Reservists & Military Families, and Women and Working Lands workgroups. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Agricultural Economics from the University of California, Davis; a Masters in Journalism from Georgetown University, and a Juris Doctor with a certificate in Agricultural Law from Drake University Law School. Poppy is also a past fellow of the California Agricultural Leadership Program (Class 35) and has served on a number of nonprofit boards including the Farmer-Veteran Coalition, Center for Land Based Learning, and Community Alliance with Family Farmers.

Farmer Veteran Coalition

Farmer Veteran Coalition

“We are delighted to welcome Poppy to SAGE,” says Kraus. “Poppy’s breadth of experience – providing services to farmers, working for ag-focused nonprofits and for the USDA – and the respect she commands in the California and national agricultural communities, make her the ideal person to help SAGE grow our mission to cultivate urban-edge places that model sustainable agriculture integrated with resilient communities.” For her part, Poppy says, “I have long respected Sibella’s vision and work, and I think we will make a great team. Sibella already has many forward-thinking projects in the works, and I’m looking forward to working with SAGE’s diverse partners, as well as bringing in collaborations of my own.”

California Agricultural Leadership Foundation

California Agricultural Leadership Foundation

SAGE’s areas of expertise, services and publications include:

  • Technical consulting and visioning on the agricultural components of land-use projects and policy documents
  • On-the-ground models and best practice toolkits that integrate farming with public engagement and natural resources stewardship
  • Foodshed  and local agriculture assessments  for land trusts, local and regional governments, associations and businesses
  • Conceptual frameworks that bridge sustainable agriculture and graphic models that depict the inter-relationship of urban and agricultural land uses
For more information, please contact Sibella Kraus or Poppy Davis at 510-526-1793 or via email at sibella@sagecenter.org or poppy@sagecenter.org, or see www.sagecenter.org.
2016-08-03T20:54:37-07:00March 13th, 2015|

Slowdown at West Coast Ports Stops, Restarts at Port of Oakland, and Stops. . .

Port of Oakland Work Stoppage Ends

By Laurie Greene, CalAgToday reporter

Despite the tentative 5-year coast-wide contract agreement reached on February 20, 2015, between the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) and its 20,000 members at 29 West Coast ports, and the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) , which represents management for the ports and shipping lines there, ILWU Local 10 has repeatedly engaged in illegal work stoppages at the Port of Oakland, according to PMA, and brought operations to a standstill yesterday at Oakland International Container Terminal, the largest terminal in the Port.

PMA reports that ILWU Local 10 has repeatedly refused to allow yard crane operators to work as directed, reports PMA. These workers are essential to the movement of cargo in and out of the port. The terminal in question follows standard industry practice of hiring two workers for every yard crane – the same as at every other terminal at the port. Yet, ILWU Local 10 refused to allow yard cranes to operate unless that number was increased to three. This is a demand that Local 10 made and dropped during negotiations that led to the tentative agreement.

PMA also claims that Local 10 also refused to allow longshore utility workers to lock and unlock connecting devices between chassis and containers. The use of steady utility workers to perform this work is a longstanding practice at every terminal in the port. And while Local 10 made a demand in bargaining to change this practice, they dropped it in the tentative agreement.

“These repeated work stoppages by Local 10 – which run counter to the tentative agreement reached after more than nine months of negotiations – are the sort of counterproductive activity,” according to PMA, “that has become commonplace in Oakland over the years. Local 10’s current actions are damaging to the PMA member companies, to the shippers whose containers are idled, and to the reputation and future of the Port of Oakland.”

According to a CNN Money report TODAY, Melvin Mackay, president of the ILWU Local 10 at Oakland, denied the union was engaged in the job action and blamed the shutdown on the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) sending workers home.

“It’s a ploy by the PMA. These members come to go to work,” said Mackay. “But the companies are telling the members to operate the machine with no safety man on the ground. The members want safety. That’s the bottom line.”

An arbitrator ruled the union was engaged in an illegal strike that shut down most of the Oakland operations yesterday, affecting the container terminal — the key operation at the port.

The Oakland port handles the third greatest volume of containers of all West Coast ports–linchpins to trade between the U.S. and Asia– after only the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, which are the nation’s largest ports. It is the sixth largest container port nationwide.

American Shipper reported TODAY, “U.S. container imports are down more than 5 percent in 2015, with the nearly the entire drop attributable to West Coast ports, according to statistics released Wednesday by the trade data firm Zepol Corp.”

2016-05-31T19:30:27-07:00March 12th, 2015|

Bipartisan Group of Former Agriculture Secretaries Urges Congress to Pass Trade Promotion Authority

A bipartisan group of former U.S. Agriculture Secretaries, representing all past Administrations from those of President Jimmy Carter to President George W. Bush, issued the following open letter urging Congress to pass Trade Promotion Authority.

The former secretaries note that boosting trade and exports is highly beneficial to America’s agriculture economy and that Trade Promotion Authority—which has been given to all previous presidents since Gerald Ford (with similar authority granted to all presidents since Franklin Delano Roosevelt)—is critical for successfully negotiating new trade partnerships that boost exports and create jobs. Congress could begin consideration of legislation to grant President Obama Trade Promotion Authority as early as next week.

The letter from the former Secretaries follows:

As former U.S. Secretaries of Agriculture, we know firsthand the importance of trade to America’s farm and ranch families. Access to export markets is vital for increasing sales and supporting farm income at home. Recognizing the importance of exports, we worked hard to open foreign markets, including negotiating new or expanded trade agreements with other countries. Trade agreements lead to expanded agricultural exports by promoting economic growth, removing trade barriers and import duties and developing mutually beneficial trade rules.

Key to our ability to negotiate and implement market-opening agreements has been enactment of trade negotiating authority. This authority, now called Trade Promotion Authority (TPA), ensures that the U.S. has the credibility to conclude the best deal possible at the negotiating table. TPA also ensures common negotiating objectives between the President and the Congress, and a continuous consultation process prior to final Congressional approval or disapproval of a trade agreement.

Every President since Gerald Ford has received TPA. Thanks to opportunities created by trade agreements, U.S. agricultural exports in fiscal year 2014 soared to a new record of $152.5 billion propelling farm income also to new highs. Trade helps farmers, their suppliers, distributors and customers. Exports support rural economies and the U.S. economy as a whole through agricultural processing, ancillary services and a host of related businesses. This was true when each of us served as US Secretary of Agriculture, and it is true now.

We are excited about new opportunities for U.S. agriculture in foreign markets. Opening markets helps farm families and their communities prosper. Other governments also recognize this and are actively forging their own trade agreements. If the United States stands still, other countries will quickly move ahead of us.

For us, the choice is clear: we encourage Congress to enact Trade Promotion Authority and support trade agreements that help U.S. farmers, ranchers, and producers thrive.

Signed,

Secretary Ed Schafer (2008–2009)

Secretary Mike Johanns (2005–2007)

Secretary Ann Veneman (2001–2005)

Secretary Dan Glickman (1995–2001)

Secretary Mike Espy (1993–1994)

Secretary Clayton K. Yeutter (1989–1991)

Secretary John R. Block (1981–1986)

Secretary Robert Bergland (1977–1981)

2016-07-31T22:33:35-07:00March 6th, 2015|

New National Network for Women in Agriculture

USDA Creates New National Mentoring Network for Women in Agriculture

By Agriculture Deputy Secretary Krysta Harden

To be a woman in agriculture is to face a unique set of challenges. And because I know all too well the trials that women can face as they look to take on leadership roles, I made it a goal as USDA’s Deputy Secretary to start a community for women leaders in agriculture.

This past fall, I held a White House discussion with farmers, agribusiness, academics and youth leaders about the opportunities that exist to help advance women in agriculture to leadership positions. Since that meeting, the response has been overwhelming. Women from all walks of life and every sector of the agriculture supply chain are empowering one another, and they’re sharing beautiful photographs and touching stories about how they’ve done it.

Today, I am announcing the creation of the Women in Agriculture Mentoring Network. This newly established network is designed to support and engage women across all areas of agriculture and to foster professional partnerships between women with shared backgrounds, interests, and professional goals.

We have created an e-mail address, agwomenlead@usda.gov, for you to share your suggestions, stories and other snippets on how we can build a new generation of women leaders in agriculture. By e-mailing us, you will automatically be added to the Women in Agriculture Mentoring Network.

I am truly excited by the passion and confidence I continue to see in women in agriculture across the country. In the office, on the road, I am constantly stopped by young women looking to find mentorship, or current leaders looking to lift up our next generation. Now, with our new network, you can.

This is just the first step in giving women the tools they need to be successful agricultural leaders. Keep sharing your stories using #womeninag and stay tuned for more information on the Women in Agriculture Mentoring Network.

Madeline Schultz, cofounder of the Women in Agriculture Learning Network, posted TODAY:

The online community at Women in Agriculture Learning Network looks forward to partnering with USDA on this new initiative! The Deputy Secretary’s commitment to rural women and to this new project further validates and recognizes the important roles women take on from leadership on cooperative boards to managing the family farm.

 

2016-05-31T19:30:29-07:00February 23rd, 2015|

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Website Designed by Desert Tech Pros

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