The Hagstrom Report | Ag News As It Happens hagstromreport Wednesday, November 13, 2013 | Volume 3, Number 191 Vilsack predicts farm bill passage, discusses Christie and Clinton in Iowa Loebsack writes, declines to offer motion to proceed Kass: First lady remains committed to ‘Let’s Move’ Vilsack to APLU: Help pass farm bill, educate about rural America Sequester takes toll on university research budgets National Milk chairman: House dairy provision puts taxpayers on the hook NCSL endorses Senate SNAP provision, opposes King amendment House members oppose trade promotion authority Farm Bureau economist: Tougher times may lie ahead Contreras named Harden assistant A clarification *** Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack addresses the Washington Ideas Forum today. (From video: The Atlantic) Vilsack predicts farm bill passage, discusses Christie and Clinton in Iowa Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack predicted today that Congress will pass a farm bill and also discussed Iowa presidential politics in 2016. “We’re going to have a farm bill because if you don’t have a farm bill you don’t have a budget,” Vilsack told the Washington Ideas Forum, presented by The Atlantic, the Aspen Institute and the Newseum. If Congress wants to tone down the impact of the sequester, it will need additional savings from the farm bill, Vilsack said. It will be “more feasible” to make cuts in the mandatory spending in the farm bill than in Medicare, Medicaid or Social Security, he said. There is no separation between the farm program and the nutrition title of the farm bill, Vilsack said, because the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, better known as SNAP or food stamps, creates a market for farm products and consumers need a stable supply of food. The farm program, he said, reduces the risk of farming. On changes to the SNAP program, Vilsack said Congress and the Agriculture Department should impose stiffer performance standards on the states in creating training programs and jobs for food stamp beneficiaries. The federal government sends $350 million to $400 million to the states each year for jobs programs. House Republicans’ proposals to impose work requirements when states have waived those requirements due to high unemployment are misguided, he said. On the increase in the number of people who get food stamps to 47 million, Vilsack said that when the Obama administration came into office, less than 50 percent of eligible beneficiaries in some states were participating in the program but that he is pleased that about 80 percent of eligible beneficiaries nationwide are now participating. Vilsack also said there should be a “rebalancing” of the U.S. international food aid program to allow more purchases in countries near emergencies and to provide more assistance to Third World farmers to increase production, but he declined to specifically endorse the food aid provision in the Senate-passed bill that accomplishes many of those goals. Conditions have changed since the food aid program was set up in the 1950s when the United States had huge surpluses and not so much of a market overseas, but “there are obviously vested interests that want to keep the status quo,” he said. There should be some changes, Vilsack said, but commodities should continue to be purchased in the United States and shipped from the United States “when it makes sense,” he added. On Christie and Clinton in Iowa Asked as a former Iowa governor for his views on the prospects for New Jersey Republican Gov. Chris Christie in the Iowa Republican caucuses and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the Democratic caucuses, Vilsack said “I am probably the last person in the world who should be opining about the Republican process because I am not a Republican.” But he added that the Iowa Republican Party “in terms of caucus goers appears to be more conservative than four years ago.” Christie, Vilsack said, might learn from now-President Barack Obama “to make the caucus like you would like it to be.” (Obama’s organizers turned out unexpected caucus participants in 2008.) Vilsack also said he believes that if Clinton runs “she would do well in Iowa.” In a broadcast aired on Iowa Public Television last Friday, however, when asked for his views on the decision of Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., to endorse Clinton when he visited the state, Vilsack said, “With due respect to Sen. Schumer, it is pretty early to be talking about 2016. We still have the 2014 elections to be concerned about and it seems like we just got over the 2013 elections.” “The decision to run for president is a very personal one,” Vilsack said. “Having myself made it I know the thought that has to go into it and I want to respect Secretary Clinton’s ability to make that decision on her own based on whatever criteria she decides.” “Obviously I have a great deal of respect for her. Obviously I think she would be a great president. But its a little early and hopefully folks recognize that and give her enough space and time to make that decision on her own. And I’m confident that whatever she decides, Democrats will be fielding very strong, a strong slate of candidates in 2016.” The Atlantic — How to Pass the Farm Bill: Make it About Anything but Farm Subsidies *** Rep. David Loebsack, D-Iowa Loebsack writes, declines to offer motion to proceed Rep. Dave Loebsack, D-Iowa, today wrote a farm bill motion to proceed to highlight several issues but then decided not to offer it on the House floor, a spokesman told The Hagstrom Report late today. The motion to proceed would have covered the “need for a strong energy title to be included in the final farm bill” and “the importance to the future of the farm bill that the agriculture and nutrition reauthorizations remain linked,” the spokesman said. “After proposing the motion and speaking with his colleagues on the farm bill conference committee, Congressman Loebsack feels assured that strong work is being done regarding the energy title and keeping the agriculture and nutrition portions together and decided it was no longer necessary to pursue this route, but will continue to fight for the inclusion of these job creating initiatives,” the spokesman concluded. *** Kass: First lady remains committed to ‘Let’s Move’ Assistant White House chef Sam Kass, executive director of the “Let’s Move” program, speaks at the Washington Ideas Forum today. (Eddie Gehman Kohan/Obama Foodorama) First Lady Michelle Obama will continue to highlight her “Let’s Move” campaign against childhood obesity and is looking into encouraging children to cook, Sam Kass, the assistant White House chef and executive director of “Let’s Move” said today. When asked by The Hagstrom Report whether the first lady’s announced intention to encourage inner city students to attend college means that she will focus less on fighting obesity, Kass said of “Let’s Move,” “This is her life’s work. It’s not going away.” Kass made the comment before speaking at the Washington Ideas Forum presented by The Atlantic, the Aspen Institute and the Newseum. During the presentation he recounted the successes of “Let’s Move” and said “We are really starting to look into what does home ec of the future look like,” referring to the high school home economics classes historically offered to female students while male students took shop class. Corby Kummer of The Atlantic, who interviewed Kass, said it might help to have a “a high-profile bachelor who is now engaged saying ‘I cook.’” (Kass recently became engaged to Alex Wagner of MSNBC.) “Home ec of the future will have no gender differentiation,” Kass quickly. “Home ec will never be like the past.” He also noted that cooking food is much cheaper than eating in restaurants and praised programs sponsored by Share Our Strength, an anti-hunger group, to teach low-income people how to shop and how to cook. Kass, who cooks for the Obama family, said that children should be taught “simple, basic skills that can be translated into any culture, any style.” He said he was encouraged by recent reports that fruit and vegetable consumption was up 6 percent last year and that there is now a “systematic decline” in obesity in the country, rather than just isolated success stories. Kass noted that when the first lady recently convened a meeting of food industry leaders and nutritionists at the White House, Sesame Street announced that it would waive its licensing fees for two years so packers and retailers could brand fruits and vegetables with its Muppet characters. “Elmo will encourage children to choose broccoli over a brownie,” he said. He also noted the first lady’s “Drink Up” initiative to encourage children to drink water and that the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act requires schools to provide drinking water. Kass said he had been “floored” by the problems associated with that requirement such as infrastructure problems and drinking fountains that don’t work, but noted. “This is the law of the land.” He was also pleased with reductions in sodium, he said, noting that the first lady worked with Wal-Mart to reduce sodium by 25 percent store-wide. But Kass also noted that sodium reductions have to be done carefully and that some companies have experienced a consumer backlash. The Food and Drug Administration’s decision to phase out the use of transfats will be good for people’s health, Kass said, but noted that the handling of the transfat issue is not a model for encouraging a reduction in sugar consumption and other foods because no amount of transfat is good. “Everything else is much more complicated,” he said. Kass declined to comment on what changes the administration would support,to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, better known as SNAP or food stamps, but said he opposes the big cut that House Republicans passed as part of the farm bill. “As a proud American I think it is unpatriotic and against every thing we stand for to balance the budget on the backs of people trying to put food on the table,” Kass said. “I feel very strongly and I know the president does, everyone in the administration, that is the not the right path to go down.” ABC News — Michelle Obama Recalls Being Told She’d ‘Never Get Into’ Princeton *** Vilsack to APLU: Help pass farm bill, educate about rural America Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack asked the nation’s land grant university leaders Tuesday to help him convince Congress to pass the farm bill this year and to educate the people in their states about the importance of rural America and its needs. In a speech to the Association of Public and Land Grant Universities, Vilsack noted that the farm bill is a research bill and an energy bill and covers many programs besides the farm safety net and food stamps. “You have many reasons for wanting a farm bill,” he said. “I am here to today to ask for your help and assistance in conveying that message to Congress.” Vilsack noted there are still differences between the House and Senate versions of the bill, but said those differences “are dwarfed by the importance of passing the bill” so that it can be used to reverse trends toward poverty and population decline in rural America. “The answer to those questions lie in whether we get a farm bill done,” he said. He noted that the sequester has affected discretionary programs and that 50 percent of the discretionary spending in the Agriculture Department is for food safety, fighting wildfires, rental assistance and the Special Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children known as WIC. Agricultural research funding is part of that other 50 percent, Vilsack said, pointing out that agricultural research has had to take big cuts because it is impossible to reduce funding for the first four items. Only a new farm bill and a budget deal that addresses future sequester cuts can resolve these problems, he said. Vilsack also asked the university administrators “to better educate America about the importance of rural America,” which he called “a forgotten piece” of the country whose contribution is not appreciated enough. “You have tremendous megaphones in your communities,” he told the university leaders. “You can create opportunities for folks who support the universities to understand why it is important to continue to invest in rural America.” He noted that people know much more about football team records than they do about the research that goes on in the universities, acknowledging that he had known more about The Ohio State University’s football team than he did about its research program until he visited the campus. “I know you work hard, but we need to do a better job,” Vilsack said. “If we don’t, it gets harder and harder to have a farm bill. The result is less and less investment at a time when we need more and more investment.” *** Sequester takes toll on university research budgets The sequester has led to reduced research activity and personnel cuts at the nations universities, including the land grant colleges that conduct much of the agricultural research, according to survey released at the Association of Public and Land Grant Universities meeting this week in Washington. APLU conducted the study in conjunction with the Association of American Universities and The Science Coalition. The three groups collectively represent nearly 300 higher education institutions nationwide, including 171 research universities. Peter McPherson “Sequestration is a blunt and reckless tool that has chipped away at the core role our institutions play for the country in conducting critical research that leads to next generation, technological breakthroughs, said APLU President Peter McPherson. “Even in its earliest phase, sequestration is permeating every aspect of the work that our research universities do.” “These effects have occurred despite the efforts of our institutions to bridge the gap and cover some of the losses resulting from reduced or delayed grants,” he said. “These efforts can cushion the blow only so long. The survey trends today will worsen and then be deeply entrenched a year from now if sequestration remains in place.” “If Congress fails to reverse course and doesn’t begin to value investments in research and higher education, then the innovation deficit this country is facing will worsen as our foreign competitors continue to seize on this nation’s shortfall,” McPherson said. Survey on Sequestration Effects — Selected Results from Private and Public Research Universities *** National Milk Producers Federation chairman: House dairy provision puts taxpayers on the hook The dairy amendment sponsored by Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., that the House adopted would keep high levels of milk production and put the taxpayers on the hook for making payments to farmers, National Milk Producers Federation Chairman Randy Mooney said today in a speech at a National Milk meeting in Phoenix, Ariz. Randy Mooney Noting that under previous high support levels, the Agriculture Department had spent billions of dollars a year buying surplus milk, Mooney said, “And even as I speak today we are in the dangerous position of repeating history because certain people in Congress are forgetting the lessons of the past.” “The House has adopted a farm bill that creates margin insurance, without the means to signal producers to trim production when margins are poor,” he said. “The insurance payouts will insulate farmers from those market signals. That means the milk will keep coming and coming. It’ll be cheap milk for processors, with taxpayers on the hook to keep the insurance money flowing. “And mark my words: if this approach were adopted, it would be the first, and last time, that a farm bill features this type of program. It’s not built on sound financial footing.” Mooney, who is also the chairman of Dairy Farmers of America, a major cooperative, continued, “In addition, it is high time we all face the facts: the days of asking Congress to provide financial support without taking some responsibility ourselves — those days are over. We are trying to lead by example. We’re not asking for a handout, we’re asking for a hand. And we are willing to do our part to make sure taxpayers aren’t on the hook for an open-ended, costly new program. That’s why we are fighting hard to enact the Dairy Security Act.” The International Dairy Foods Association, which represents dairy processors, has opposed the provision that dairy farmers call market stabilization and the processors call supply management on the grounds that it would constrain supplies and make growth through exports more difficult. National Milk Producers Federation — Mooney speech *** NCSL endorses Senate SNAP provision, opposes King amendment In a letter sent to farm bill conferees Tuesday, the National Conference of State Legislatures endorsed the Senate provision of the farm bill that would allow Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) to receive Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits only if states send them a payment of $10 or more, but oppose the elimination of categorical eligibility for SNAP beneficiaries on the grounds that it will increase state administrative costs and program complexity. NCSL also opposes the House proposal to eliminate the high-performance state bonus program. The letter also opposes the provision offered by Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, and passed in the House that would prohibit a state from banning a food product due to objections over how that product was raised or produced in another state. The amendment was introduced in reaction to a California law that would prohibit the sale of eggs produced under conditions different from those now required in California. “The sponsors of Section 11312 [the King amendment] argue that out-of-state producers of agricultural products are unfairly burdened by having to comply with the laws of other states; however, this is not case,” the state legislators wrote. “In the example that the amendment sponsors use to justify Section 11312, the state law applies equally and fairly to both home state and out of state producers,” the letter says. “This is not a commerce clause issue but clearly an effort by some in Congress to weaken the sovereignty of states to protect the health and general welfare of its citizens. NCSL urges conferees to uphold the 10th Amendment by not including Section 11312 in the 2013 farm bill conference agreement.” NCSL letter to farm bill conferees *** House members oppose trade promotion authority Twenty-two conservative House members have declared their opposition to granting President Barack Obama the trade promotion authority that would grant the administration power to negotiate trade agreements with the understanding that they would get an up or down vote without amendment in Congress, the Financial Times Online reported today. The legislators, led by Reps. Walter Jones, R-N.C., and Michelle Bachmann, R-Minn., said they refused to “cede our constitutional authority to the executive branch.” Letter to Obama on trade promotion authority *** Bob Young Farm Bureau economist: Tougher times may lie ahead The good times in agriculture in recent years may be coming to an end, American Farm Bureau Federation economist Bob Young said in a speech in Montana, according to a report in the Billings Gazette. Corn and soybean demand is slowing and interest rates are likely to rise, Young said. Billings Gazette — Agriculture poised for a decline, economist says *** Contreras named Harden assistant Nita Contreras has been named a confidential assistant to Agriculture Deputy Secretary Krysta Harden. A native of Los Angeles, Contreras joined the Agriculture Department in November 2011 as a staff assistant in the Rural Utilities Service, where she was responsible for stakeholder outreach on rural access to broadband, electricity and clean water. She received her bachelors degree in international relations with a focus on development and environmental issues at Connecticut College. She also interned at a grassroots development organization in rural India where she worked on water infrastructure and community development. *** Clarification Max Finberg, who was noted in a story Friday’s Hagstrom Report, is the senior adviser in the office of Agriculture Assistant Secretary for Administration Gregory Parham. Finberg is also director of USDA’s StrikeForce Initiative for Rural Growth and Opportunity, which targets rural areas of persistent poverty to increase awareness among state, local and community officials of programs available to promote economic development. © 2011 - 2013 The Hagstrom Report, LLC | PO Box 58183 | Washington, DC 20037-9997
Posted on: Fri, 15 Nov 2013 02:59:38 +0000
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