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| Upcoming Dates |
October 26, 2016:
CGFA and NGFA Joint Grain Safety Seminar
DoubleTree, Fresno, CA
2017
January 11-12, 2017
Grain & Feed Industry Conference
Embassy Suites, Monterey Bay, CA
April 26-29, 2017
CGFA Annual Convention
Hyatt Regency Lake Tahoe Resort, Spa & Casino
May 10 - 11, 2017:
California Animal Nutrition Conference (CANC)
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Benefits of Belonging to CGFA
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- State & Federal Legislative Advocacy
- Industry & Small Business Issues
- Business Advocacy
- Weekly Updates on Current Issues
- Networking Opportunities
- Industry Specific Directories
- Advertising Venues
- Social Media Sites
- Cost Saving Insurance Programs
- Environmental and Safety Resource
- Continuing Education and Training
- Political Action Committee Administration
- Annual Convention
- Education Programs
- District Meetings
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CGFA at the California State Fair Sale of Champions
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Last Friday at the California State Fair, Chris Zanobini, the CEO of CGFA presented the Champion Challenge award to Ellie Slick.
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| | Ellie Slick, Champion Challenge winner. |
Congratulations to the youth exhibitors who took home first prize at the California State Fair Junior Livesstock show! CGFA purchased the Supreme Champion Market Steer, shown by Carley Wheeler, as well as the rabbits exhibited by Nic Albiani who had the Reserve Champion Rabbit Meat Pen.
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| Carley Wheeler, Supreme Champion Market Steer.
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Nic Albiani, Reserve Champion Rabbit Meat Pen.
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Vacancies on the Fertilizer Inspection Advisory Board
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The California Department of Food and Agriculture is announcing three vacancies on the Fertilizer Inspection Advisory Board. The board advises the secretary on the department's Fertilizing Materials Inspection Program, which works to ensure that consumers receive fertilizing materials that are safe, effective, and meet the quality guaranteed by the manufacturer.
As part of the Fertilizing Materials Inspection Program, inspectors and investigators located throughout the state conduct routine sampling and inspections; respond to consumer complaints; and enforce the laws and regulations that govern the manufacturing and distribution of fertilizing materials. The program is funded by fertilizer license fees and assessments. Vacancies are available for two board positions and one public member. The term of office for board members is three years. Members receive no compensation, but are entitled to payment of necessary traveling expenses in accordance with the rules of the Department of Personnel Administration. The two board member applicants must hold a current fertilizing materials license or be a representative of a licensed firm; the public member vacancy is not subject to this requirement. For further information on the Fertilizer Inspection Advisory Board and vacancies, you may contact program staff at (916) 900-5022.
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UC Davis College of Agriculture & Environmental Science Welcomes New Animal Science Faculty Members
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 MAJA MAKAGON
Assistant Professor, Animal Science Focuses on the behavior, welfare, and management of poultry, including ducks, turkeys, laying hens, and broilers.
RICHARD BLATCHFORD
Assistant Cooperative Extension Specialist, Animal Science Focuses on the husbandry, behavior, and welfare of small- to large-scale poultry production.
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FDA Shifts Rules on Food Facility Registration
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The final rule on how "food facilities" - including feed mills - must register with FDA under the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) will include additional information requirements the agency deems important, the goal being to reduce fraud and misrepresentation and to make it easier to find facilities when inspections come due. The agency has scheduled an August 3 webinar on the new rule.
In addition to modifying the legal definition of "facility" to reduce the number of companies which must register, major changes from the proposed registration rule include email addresses from all registrants; registration renewals would be every two years on even-numbered years; an "assurance" FDA can inspect a food facility under FSMA requirements; allowing electronic records submission by 2020, and requiring "unique food facility identifiers" - information to ensure correct company information is registered - by 2020.
The agency wants to be sure that both the domestic and overseas databases are as accurate as possible. The registration requirements apply to U.S. and foreign companies which "manufacture, process, pack, transport or hold" food for human or animal consumption. FDA also said it would be issuing a guidance document, in addition to the Federal Register notice, to facilitate compliance.
More information on the final rule, how to register for the webinar, etc., can be found here.
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Congress Recesses Until September, Longest Break in 30-plus Years
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Congressional lawmakers this week headed to Washington, DC, airports to begin a "recess" which will keep them out of town until at least the second week in September, the longest summer break in over 30 years.
House Democrats used the waning hours of this week's session to blast majority Republicans for voting to recess while "the people's work remains undone." Democrats cited unfinished bills on zika virus funding, gun purchase eligibility and action to begin rebuilding U.S. infrastructure as abrogated responsibilities.
The first stop for some Republicans will be next week's national party nominating convention in Cleveland. The following week the Democrats' national convention will be held in Philadelphia. The rest of the seven-week recess will be taken up by reelection campaigning for the full House and one-third of the Senate.
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WOTUS Opponents Want Federal Court to Review EPA, Corps Memos, Materials
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This week, challengers of EPA's "waters of the U.S. (WOTUS)" rulemaking of all political stripes filed three petitions, asking a federal appeals court to review "memos, reports, maps and other information" used by the agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in developing the rule. The separate petitions were filed on behalf of states, industry and environmental groups challenging the rulemaking before the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
The goal is to get before the federal court by including them in the administrative record Corps of Engineers' memos which strongly opposed how the WOTUS rule was written by EPA, and advised the agency against moving forward with the WOTUS rulemaking for fear of weakening Clean Water Act (CWA) protections.
The states contend the requested information should properly have been part of the original administrative record of the rulemaking, and said the agencies failed to provide the information last November despite instructions to do so.
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House Easily Approves GE Labeling Bill 320-117; Obama Pledges to Sign
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Legislation to federally preempt all state and local genetically engineered (GE) labeling laws while creating a program within USDA requiring on-label options for consumer access to ingredient information was overwhelmingly approved this week by the full House on a 320-117 vote.
The bill goes to President Obama, who this week pledged to sign the legislation, despite an 11th-hour request to the White House by the Rev. Jesse Jackson that Obama veto the measure.
The new federal law protects animal food manufacturers by including feed and pet food products under the preemption section, but exempts animal foods of all kinds from any new labeling requirements by limiting the scope of the mandatory ingredient disclosure requirements to food for human consumption only. Also exempted from the new law are meat and dairy, while only USDA-certified organic food products could label themselves "non-GMO."
The House action ends over 18 months of battling by the agriculture and food industries to head off an emerging patchwork of disparate state GE labeling laws. Critical to the effort was the Coalition for Safe Affordable Food (CSAF), a partnership of production agriculture, input industries, including feed and grain, and commercial food companies, co-chaired by the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives (NCFC) and the Grocery Manufacturers Assn. Active in the CSAF effort were the American Feed Industry Assn. (AFIA), the National Grain & Feed Assn. (NGFA), the Pet Food Institute (PFI) the Corn Refiners Assn. (CRA) and the National Oilseed Processors Assn. (NOPA), among others. The coalition swelled to over 1,100 national, state and local ag and food associations, as well as hundreds of individual companies, which pushed for swift congressional action.
All state laws become null and void when Obama signs the bill, including Vermont's controversial food labeling mandate that went into effect July 1. Reports from Vermont indicate stores have removed "thousands of products" from grocery shelves for not meeting the labeling law, but these products will likely go back on sale with Obama's signature. Other states with variations of GE labeling no longer in effect include Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Alaska. Further, no state or locality will be allowed to enact labeling laws which don't conform to the federal law.
The House put aside a far more comprehensive federal GE labeling preemption bill it approved nearly a year ago, and accepted the Senate version as approved by that chamber last week on a similar lopsided vote. The bill represents a negotiated compromise between Senate Agriculture Committee Chair Pat Roberts (R, KS) and committee ranking member Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D, MI). In both chambers, the most supporters of the Just Label It! coalition, led by the Environmental Working Group (EWG), could muster was floor opposition pushing for mandatory GE food labels, while touting "the consumers right to know."
One media report indicated Just Label It! "threw in the towel" on the labeling wars after the Senate approved the bill 63-30 last week. The group publicly warned food companies which currently label for the presence of GE ingredients to "think twice before they remove the GMO labels from their packages."
In addition to preempting all state and local GE labeling laws, the new federal mandate gives USDA two years to craft a program under which food companies will provide consumers means by which they can learn more about a product's ingredients. These options include a straight declaration of GE ingredient use; the use of a symbol to be designed by USDA indicating the use of biotechnology; the use of smart phone scannable quick review (QR) codes and website addresses. Small companies would be allowed a longer time to come into compliance with the new program once it's finalized, while very small companies would be exempt from the on-label disclosure.
Also included in the new law is a first-ever federal definition of "biotechnology," and language protecting new and emerging technologies developed using biotechnology and genetic engineering.
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Pompeo Reveals Death Threats over Labeling Bill
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When two years ago Rep. Mike Pompeo (R, KS) agreed to be the lead author on the original House bill (HR 1599) designed to preempt state genetically engineered food labeling laws, it's likely he didn't expect that authorship would lead to what he said this week "attracted more death threats" than any other issue on which he's worked during his three terms in the House.
Speaking to the American Soybean Assn. (ASA) Legislative Forum in Washington, DC, early this week, Pompeo said, "We had security at my home for six months because of my effort to make sure we can feed the world. But these passions run deep."
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RFS Comment Period Ends, Battles Continue; Biodiesel Seeks Producers' Tax Credit
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By this week's Monday close of the formal comment period, more than 42,000 public comments were received by EPA on how the agency should proceed with its 2017 Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS). Those comments - expected to dramatically increase as final numbers are tallied - were pretty predictable, split between those who believe the EPA proposal on gasoline/biofuel blending levels remain too low, and those who believe the proposal sets those mandates too high, perpetuating artificial demand for the fuels.
In a related development, refiners of biodiesel and renewable diesel - designated "advanced biofuels" because of their relatively low carbon footprints - are pushing to convert an existing federal blenders' tax credit paid to gasoline refiners as an incentive to blend biodiesel, into a producers' tax credit paid directly to those who make the biomass-based fuel generally refined from oilseeds and animal fats and oils. Sens. Chuck Grassley (R, IA) and Maria Cantwell (D, WA) are leading a group of 14 Senators who back a bill introduced this week to maintain the current credit through 2019, then convert it to a producers' credit, limited to domestic production only.
The corn ethanol industry continues to rail against the 2017 EPA proposal because it doesn't match levels set in the federal law authorizing the RFS. The May agency proposal calls for a total of 18.8 billion gallons of renewable fuels to be blended with conventional fuels, with 14.8 billion coming from corn ethanol. The law says that level should be 24 billion gallons. EPA opted for the lower level citing its "waiver authority" granted in the RFS law; the industry has sued the agency over the move.
The American Petroleum Institute (API), no fan of the RFS, says the blend levels should be capped at 9.7% of contemporary gasoline demand to avoid hitting the "blend wall," that point at which EPA mandates would force fuel makers to blend at a higher percentage than the current maximum 10% set by the agency.
The API maximum limit is gaining ground. Seven Democrats joined 65 Republicans in sponsoring the Food & Fuel Consumer Protection Act (HR 5180), introduced by Rep. Bill Flores (R, TX).
Joining API in its opposition to the RFS was the National Chicken Council (NCC), which holds the corn ethanol RFS and puts fuel refining in competition with feed and food for available corn stocks, driving up poultry production cost and translating to higher food prices. NCC said the May RFS proposal is "overly aggressive and based on faulty assumptions about the fuel market."
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House Ag Panel Takes on Automated Trading
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The House Agriculture Committee this week held a hearing on the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) proposed rule on automated trading, and panel Chair Mike Conaway (R, TX) made it clear from his opening statement he's not convinced the CFTC got it right in its proposal.
Automated trading is an acknowledged evolution in futures and cash markets, where over 30 years computer-controlled trading systems have replaced traditional open call transactions and trading pits. Conaway said, "electronic markets allow computers to seamlessly input orders, giving rise to trading directed and conducted entirely by computer algorithms."
Conaway acknowledged in his opening statement that algorithmic trading is "essential to our futures markets." "However, the transition to computers has not been without its challenges. Computer algorithms sometimes interact in unintended ways and markets have suffered disruptions that remain difficult to explain," he said.
For the CFTC's part, it's held several meetings, heard advisory committee opinions, talked "concepts" and put forth what's called "Regulation Automated Trading" or Reg AT. It called its actions and the proposed rulemaking a "comprehensive approach to reducing risk and increasing transparency in automated trading."
However, Conaway said reducing risk and increasing transparency are laudable goals, but the CFTC effort "falls short of these goals." He told them he opposes part of the commission rulemaking that would force companies to provide on-demand access to sensitive market intellectual property, a move "fraught with danger" of cybersecurity risks. He also said he's very much aware the Reg AT rulemaking seeks to put the CFTC in charge of automated trading, and citing the millions of lines of computer code this would entail, said "the CFTC cannot perform even a fraction of that work in any meaningful way."
He says the rulemaking does not have to be as complicated as the CFTC has made it, and said many of the areas into which the commission has waded - source code rules, registration, reporting and "inflexible" risk controls - are unnecessary to get lower risk and greater transparency.
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FDA as Independent Agency Push Gaining Steam
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Efforts to create a single federal food safety agency, or failing that, establishing FDA as an independent agency like EPA, have gained steam in recent weeks as six former FDA commissioners and one of the nation's largest supermarket chains are on board with cutting FDA loose from the Department of Health & Human Services (HHS).
FDA commissioners going back to the Reagan White House through the Obama Administration told a think tank audience in Colorado last month FDA, which regulates about 25% of the U.S. economy, should be an independent agency to avoid "meddling" and reduce bureaucracy. Some of the former agency heads believe the agency should have cabinet status, identical to that enjoyed by EPA, while others favored setting up FDA as an autonomous agency, similar to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) or the Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC).
This week, Kroger, which claims to be the world's third largest food retailer, said it agrees with the former agency heads. "We believe that a more agile, effective and unencumbered agency would help FDA get information out quicker. We also believe an elevated profile would help FDA secure more funding, the company said in a media statement.
It's expected Kroger will not be the only major food, pharmaceutical, feed or device company - or these industries' trade associations - to jump on board the FDA independent agency bandwagon.
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WOTUS Battles Grind On; Clean Power Plan, Chesapeake Bay in Spotlight
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The House this week approved its version of the FY2017 EPA/Interior spending bill, including language that once again aims at blocking EPA's "waters of the U.S. (WOTUS)" rulemaking, and curtailing President Obama's Clean Power Plan. The problem is, the Senate is not expected to move on its spending bills - similar committee language was added in that chamber - meaning Congress will craft yet another omnibus spending package that will most likely not contain the EPA language.
While both the WOTUS rule and the Clean Power Plan, which calls for existing and new utility plants to recapture carbon emissions and reduce CO2 pollution, have been stayed by federal courts, President Obama promptly threatened to veto the bill if it ever reaches his desk.
A separate amendment successfully offered on the House floor by Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R, VA) would prohibit EPA from "retaliating" against any of the six states in the Chesapeake Bay watershed which fail to meet agency-set total maximum daily load (TMDL) goals. Goodlatte said his amendment stopped EPA from taking over a state's TMDL plan if it failed to meet the EPA goals and timelines.
During the floor debate this week, Rep. Scott Perry (R, PA) offered an amendment that sought to chop 17% from EPA's budget, forcing GOP floor managers on the spending bill to oppose the cuts because of their impact on other EPA programs which states rely upon. Under the House approved bill, EPA's FY2017 budget would be nearly $8 billion, $164 million less than this fiscal year and nearly $300 million less than requested in the President's budget.
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Both Conventions to Feature Ag Events - From production agriculture to input industries to global mega agribusiness and farm finance, every four years agriculture and food hold "The Great American Farm Breakfast/Luncheon/Cocktail Reception" depending on scheduling, facilities, etc. Every trade association and company willing to chip in to defray the cost of these events, which generally includes some kind of forum or roundtable, sends representatives to rub shoulders with members of the respective ag committees, their staffs, state ag secretaries/commissioners, party officials and the odd convention delegate or two. There are always prominent "guests of honor," but there's little meat on these bones. What results in both cases is a huge crowd, a lot of noise, and a chance to show your industry/company face and wave your particular flag.
"Plate of the Union" Debuts at Conventions - A group of celebrity chefs and other foodies calling itself "Plate of the Union" will also hold events the day before the agricultural events at each convention. Organizations participating include Union of Concerned Scientists; Food Policy Action, chaired by the head of the Environmental Working Group (EWP); Food Policy Action Education Fund, and the HEAL Food Alliance. The group says its focus is on "getting candidates running for president to talk about what they will do to fix our broken food system" and "examining the entire food system, and not just look at individual issues." The group says it's also sponsoring a "food truck tour" to battleground election states, and will be live and in person at the annual Farm Aid concert, September 17, in Bristow, Virginia.
Don't Expect Much on Ag in Party Platforms - National party nominating conventions rarely include food and agriculture as mainstream themes. At best, agriculture gets a smile and a nod, a commitment to helping small, independent, local farmers. However, there are all of those issues that affect ag that get more ink and more media attention. Immigration is a big topic for both parties seeking to woo Hispanic and other minority votes. The GOP draft platform document, according to reports, reaffirms the U.S. need to build a wall to hold back "pedestrian and vehicular traffic, calls for "special scrutiny" of immigrants "from areas associated with Islamic terrorism," and speaks to enforcement of federal immigration law. While Democrats haven't talked a lot about their draft platform, Hillary Clinton's campaign this week talked about continuing the Obama executive order battles over the children of undocumented immigrants born in the U.S. and the illegal parents of those kids as well. Trade is another hot button issue, with both Donald Trump and Clinton moderating public stances somewhat, acknowledging the importance of trade, stopping short of outright condemning the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), but calling for bilateral rather than multilateral agreements.
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