Cattlemen's Capitol Concerns: October 21, 2004

Cattlemen's Capitol Concerns

October 21, 2004

The CCC is a weekly report from Washington D.C. giving an up-to-date summary of top policy initiatives concerning the cattle industry; direct from the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA).

Election Countdown Continues: With 12 days and counting until November 2, the 2004 Presidential Election is all anyone is talking about, with polls continuing to show a close race.  For the cattle industry especially, this is a historic election. Never before has an election been so important to our own future. NCBA’s Political Action Committee (PAC) publicly endorsed the candidacy of President Bush at our 2004 Summer Conference. Domestically, U.S. cattle producers have a champion advocate in President Bush, who understands our livelihood and supports our right to manage our land. NCBA urges that this vote is crucial- please don’t waste it, and make sure that you encourage friends and family to make their votes count as well. NCBA has created a new website with information on the election for producers to use over the next 12 days.  Just go to http://hill.beef.org/election for more information or for a link to state-specific details.

Disaster Relief Update:  Producers hurt by late summer hurricanes can apply for assistance through the Emergency Conservation Program (ECP) and the Emergency Watershed Protection (EWP). NCBA has prepared "tip sheets" for producers to help them in applying for the funding under these programs.  These are posted on NCBA’s website at  http://hill.beef.org/disaster/default.asp or contact NCBA’s Washington office at 202-347-0228.  More information is outlined below.

Emergency Conservation Program (ECP):  The ECP, administered by the USDA’s Farm Service Agency (FSA), provides emergency funding and technical assistance to ranchers and farmers to rehabilitate agricultural land damaged by natural disasters.  Producers can receive assistance of up to 75 percent of the costs of implementing emergency conservation practices such as removing debris and restoring fences and conservation structures.  Other activities may be authorized by county FSA committees, with approval from state FSA committees and FSA’s national office.  Producers should check with their local county FSA offices regarding ECP sign-up periods. Your local FSA office can be found by choosing your state from the drop-down menu at http://hill.beef.org/disaster, or call the Florida State FSA office at (352) 379-4500 or the Alabama State FSA office at (334) 279-3501.

Emergency Watershed Protection (EWP):  The EWP, administered by USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), provides emergency funding and technical assistance to help reduce imminent hazards to life and property caused by floods, hurricanes, and natural disasters.  Public and private landowners are eligible, but they must be represented by a project sponsor such as a public agency of a state, county, or city government, or a special district such as a water or conservation district, and the projects must benefit more than one person.  An investigation of the proposed project must be made by NRCS, but EWP work generally includes debris removal from stream channels, road culverts, and bridge abutments; reshaping and protection of eroding banks; repair of damaged drainage systems; repair of levees and structures; and reseeding of damaged areas.  EWP cannot be used to solve problems that existed before the disaster.  NRCS can pay up to 75 percent of EWP activities, and the remaining 25 percent comes from the local sponsor and can be in the form of cash, in-kind services, or a combination of both. Producers should check with their local county NRCS office regarding EWP sign-up periods.  Your local NRCS office can be found by choosing your state from the drop down menu at hill.beef.org/disaster, or you can call the Florida State NRCS Conservation Engineer, Jesse Wilson at (352) 338-9557 or the Alabama State NRCS Resource and Program Manager, Mason Dollar at (334) 887-4574.

Mexican Trade Tariffs: Upon NCBA Trade team’s return from Mexico, new announcements surfaced this week regarding to the long-standing Mexican anti-dumping tariffs on certain U.S. beef exports to Mexico. In years of cooperation with Mexican cattle producers on a wide variety of trade issues, U.S. cattle producers have become extremely frustrated with the continuation of so-called ‘anti-dumping’ tariffs on U.S. products going to Mexico. 

A new report says these duties will be dropped on certain types of U.S. beef, eliminating tariffs on ‘select’ and ‘choice’ U.S. beef for some companies, but not others. According to the USMEF, the ruling will: (1) Eliminate duties on exports of U.S. beef carcasses (in 2003 the U.S. exported only 1,899 metric tons of beef carcasses to Mexico); (2) Remove the requirement that U.S. beef can only be exported to Mexico within 30 days of slaughter; (3) Allow U.S. beef companies to resume exporting ungraded beef to Mexico, although they will have to pay the duties previously assigned to them by the Mexican government; (4) Recognize name changes of several U.S. companies, allowing them to export to Mexico under their new names and pay the duties previously assigned by the Mexican government instead of the $0.63 per kilogram assigned to all U.S. companies which didn’t receive specific duty rates; and (5) Confirm the imposition of antidumping duties on both bone-in and boneless products.

NCBA is pleased to see progress of this manner, but will continue to fight for the removal of all long-standing anti-dumping tariffs. We believe this move does not actually fix the issue at hand, nor does it resolve a dispute that our industry has been facing for more than four years.  In addition, these tariffs continue to disproportionately and unfairly affect small and medium sized firms.  Although the tariff on all North American beef trade has been zero since Jan. 1, 1994, these egregious tariffs have continued for more than four years—even after a NAFTA panel decision disagreed with the anti-dumping claim— and lifting of these tariffs is long overdue.

Japanese Trade: This week, the USDA announced the fourth Japan-U.S. consultation on the BSE issue. U.S. officials are currently in Tokyo for meetings today and tomorrow with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs regarding BSE. According to the USDA, "at the Consultation, the two Governments will discuss issues related to the resumption of mutual trade of U.S. and Japanese beef, based on the progress made regarding the issues since the Third Consultation that took place on April 24, 2004." Japanese participants include: Kenichiro Sasae, Director-General, Economic Affairs Bureau, Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Takashi Toguchi, Director-General, Department of Food Safety, Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare; Hiroshi Nakagawa, Director-General of the Food Safety and Consumer Affairs Bureau, Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries; and other officials. U.S. participants include: J.B. Penn, Under Secretary for Farm and Foreign Agricultural Services, USDA; Chuck Lambert, Deputy Under Secretary, Marketing & Regulatory Programs; Merle D. Pierson, Deputy Under Secretary for Food Safety; Ellen Terpstra, Administrator, Foreign Agricultural Service; Stephen Sundlof, Director of the Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Veterinary Medicine, among others.

Five Nations Beef Statement:  NCBA was an integral part in the international Five Nations Beef Conference held this month in Mexico, which included the national producer associations of the U.S. (NCBA), New Zealand (Meat & Wool New Zealand), Mexico (Confederacion Nacional de Organizaciones Ganaderas), Canada (Canadian Cattlemen’s Association) and Australia (Cattle Council of Australia). A position statement has been released following this meeting. For a copy of the statement, go to http://hill.beef.org/fivenations2004.

NCBA is very supportive of this position statement, which was pulled together with efforts from all of the five nations in attendance. NCBA looks forward to working with the other countries' cattle producers to advance the idea of an international BSE summit, to work together at the WTO to break down barriers to trade for beef, to advance the idea of animal identification and tracking as a means to protect herd health around the world, and to work together to promote appropriate animal care guidelines as industry standards.

Conservation Programs:  Cattlemen land trusts from Colorado, California, Wyoming, Kansas, Nevada, and Oregon have joined together to form the Partnership of Rangeland Trusts (PORT).  NCBA is informally associated with PORT.  The purpose of the Partnership is to ensure that agricultural interests are adequately represented in land trust work.  NCBA staff met in Colorado this week meeting with many PORT members and staff from NRCS to discuss implementation problems with the Grassland Reserve Program, and the Farmland Protection Program.  Additionally, the group toured ranchland threatened with subdivision in the Steamboat Springs area, and discussed conservation tax incentives for cattlemen that would keep agriculture land in production and discourage the conveyance of additional land to the federal government. 

USAHA Meeting:  The Unites States Animal Health Association annual meeting begins this week, Oct. 21-28, in Greensboro, N.C.  NCBA Executive Director of Regulatory Affairs Gary Weber will be attendance, and on Oct. 26, he will facilitate a discussion on future activities at the Plum Island Animal Disease Center.  Plum Island is located off the northeastern tip of New York's Long Island. Activities at Plum Island are conducted by USDA staff within the Agricultural Research Service and Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service.  These efforts help protect our country against foreign animal diseases, such as Foot-and-Mouth disease.

Annual CCC Event: NCBA is coordinating and co-hosting the 19th annual "Corn, Cotton, and Cattle" (CCC) Party on Sunday, Oct. 24 at Beaver Dam Farm in Middleburg, Virginia.  Over four hundred Washington-area policymakers, members of the media, and representatives from the nation’s agriculture sectors attend the event each year, which is also hosted by National Corn Growers Association and the National Cotton Council. For more information, call 202-347-0228.

USDA Surveillance for BSE: In related news, USDA continues its BSE surveillance program which began on June 1. APHIS posts the test results on their website at: http://www.aphis.usda.gov.  To date, 85,812 tests have been conducted with no positives reported. 

Media Contact:

Tanya Augustson or Karen Batra at 202-347-0228; taugustson@beef.org or kbatra@beef.org

This publication is funded by cattle producers and other industry supporters through their voluntary membership contributions to NCBA. To join the tens of thousands of cattle producers from across the U.S. in working to preserve our legacy, contact NCBA Member Services at 1-866-BEEF-USA or Membership@beef.org.

For more information, please visit our web site at hill.beef.org.

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