RAFI-USA

e-Bulletin #10

February 2003

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Disaster Funds Available

Strengthening  the Packers and Stockyards Act

Virginia turkey growers get help

Organic Certifier Challenges USDA Interference

Most Admired Corporation in U.S. - Tyson Foods

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Crop, Grazing and Livestock Disaster Funds Available

By Scott Marlow, Project Director, On Farm Research & Rescue

 

Over the past two years farmers have suffered widespread crop and livestock  damage due to the weather. In some parts of the nation there were severe droughts while other parts of the country were drenched with too much rain and  flooding. 

 

Disaster Assistance

Congress has passed the Agricultural Assistance Act of 2003 providing disaster assistance to farmers for 2001 and 2002 crops and livestock as a part of the Omnibus Fiscal Year 2003 Appropriations Bill.  This act provides payment for either the 2001 or 2002 crop for farmers who suffered crop damage of more than 35%.  Implementation of the program is expected to take well into the summer.

 

Unlike previous proposals, this program requires individual farmers to establish greater than 35% loss rather than simply being in a county that was declared a disaster. All producers are eligible, although tobacco and sugar cane farmers are paid under separate programs.

 

Payments will be calculated as covered loss of yield times the payment rate. The covered loss is 65% of the normal yield minus any harvested yield.  The payment rate is 50% of the applicable price if the farmer purchased crop insurance or CAT coverage, or if crop insurance was not available. 

 

Pushing Crop Insurance

If the producer chose not to purchase available crop insurance or CAT coverage, the payment rate is 45%, and producers must agree to purchase crop insurance or CAT coverage for the next 2 years. Disaster payments plus crop insurance payments plus the actual crop value cannot exceed 95% of the value of the crop if yields had been normal.

 

This legislation also increases eligibility for the 2002 Livestock Compensation Program (LCP) and re-establishes the Livestock Assistance Program (LAP) for producers suffering grazing losses in counties that were declared weather-   disasters. The LCP pays producers based on number and type of livestock, and does not require establishment of individual loss beyond being located in a county that has been declared a disaster. The LAP compensates farmers for grazing losses, depending on the severity of the loss.

 

Sign-up Time

USDA Secretary Ann Veneman has established a working group within USDA to oversee the administration of the program, but has not established a timetable for implementation.  There will be a sign-up period during which producers establish their damage levels in their local Farm Services Agency office; however, the sign-up period is not expected to start until summer.

 

For more information, including an overview of the legislation and charts of the amount of compensation per acre for cotton, corn and soybeans, go to the U.S. House Agriculture Committee web site:

http://agriculture.house.gov/disastercharts.pdf.

 

Sources for this article include the House Ag Committee web site and AgWeb reports (www.agweb.com.)

 

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Strengthening the Packers & Stockyards Act  - H.R. 582

By Laura Klauke, Director of Contract Ag Reform Project

 

Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur (D-OH) and Congressman David Price (D-NC) have introduced legislation H.R. 582, an amendment to the Packers and Stockyards Act (P&SA) providing USDA with administrative enforcement authority to stop unfair practices in the poultry industry.

 

The present P&SA makes it unlawful for a livestock packer or live poultry dealer "to engage in or use any unfair, unjustly discriminatory or deceptive practice". When violations of P&SA are discovered in the livestock industry, USDA's Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration (GIPSA) has always had the authority to take administrative actions including holding hearings and assessing civil and criminal penalties. However, GIPSA presently has no general authority to penalize poultry dealers for unfair practices.

 

H.R. 582 also extends protection to all poultry farmers, not just those who raise broilers.  In the past, the P&S Administration has interpreted the Act as not applicable to breeder hen or pullet growers due to the Act's reference to "raising birds for slaughter" in the definition of a poultry grower. H.R.582 will delete such references.

 

The amended definition accurately reflects the integrated nature of the modern poultry industry where the total supply-line for a processing plant, including pullet, breeder, and broiler farms, is tightly controlled by one company.*

 

A copy of the bill is available at  http://thomas.loc.gov/ . Type in the bill number and letters as requested on the forms given on the site.

 

* [ Pullets are young hens not yet mature enough to lay viable eggs. After pullets reach laying age, they are moved from the pullet farm to a breeder farm where the hens produce fertile eggs.  The eggs are collected on the breeder farm and trucked to the hatchery. Once the eggs hatch, the chicks are delivered to a broiler farm where they are raised until ready for processing.]

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Virginia turkey growers get help        

In March of 2002, some Pilgrim's Pride and Cargill turkey farms and a few chicken farms in  western Virginia had flocks diagnosed with low-pathogenic avian influenza, a fast spreading disease.  To stop the spread of the disease, 197 farms were quarantined and 4.7 million birds were destroyed (gassed) over the next seven months.

 

As month after month went by with no word about reimbursement for the lost income or about when they would be placed back in production, farmers suffered.  Some had to sell land, borrow more money, cash in savings and insurance policies in attempts to pay the bills, provide for their families and  stay on their farms and in businesses which had been in their families for over two generations. Others simply decided to shut the barn doors once and for all.

 

Early in the struggle, farmers called RAFI-USA for help in finding an attorney to look into suing companies that destroyed flocks which had tested negative for the disease. This action was put on hold when companies promised the growers that they would receive 100% reimbursement for all flocks destroyed.

 

Finally, USDA and the US Office of Management and Budget approved $51 million of which $13 million was to go to the farmers. The State of Virginia exempted farmers from having to pay state taxes on the indemnity payments. 

 

Again the farmers called on RAFI-USA to help get fair indemnity payments for the breeder flocks.  With the help of Farm Advocate Benny Bunting of Oak City, NC and Attorney Jill Kreuger of the Farmers Legal Action Group in Minnesota, the farmers learned that they were entitled to 100% reimbursement based on their last three flock average.

 

Turkey breeder growers make most of their money on the fertile eggs from mature turkeys.  Some growers had their young poults destroyed and were not being paid for what they would have earned from the fertile eggs as they grew to maturity.  Bunting was able to help one grower request his three flock average pay including the flocks' total egg production.  Instead of the $7000 in indemnity funds he was paid, with Bunting's help he received another $85,000.  

 

"He had one bad flock in the last three or he would have been eligible for over $100,000, but considering what they had paid him to start with, the $85,000 was a huge improvement," Bunting said.  "I don't think the underpayment was intentional. The authorities simply didn't understand that the loss incurred when young breeding stock is destroyed is much more than from a flock of  turkeys for the table."

 

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Organic Certifier Challenges USDA Interference

A Massachusetts organization responsible for certifying organic farmers has charged USDA with undermining the new organic program and lowering established standards for organic certification. 

 

Massachusetts Independent Certification, Inc. (MICI) filed a complaint February 26th to be heard by an administrative law judge alleging that USDA wrongly interfered in its decision not to certify a commercial egg producer.

 

George Bass and his Country Hen egg operation were denied organic certification because, contrary to the organic regulations that went into effect on October 21, 2002, the certifiers found that the chickens do not have sufficient access to the outdoors and direct sunlight.

 

Bass said that he gives them plenty of space inside with enough light, freedom to roam and 100% organic feed which, to his way of thinking, "is the backbone of an organic poultry farm."

 

On October 25, 2002, - the day after MICI denied the organic certification - USDA overruled MICI's decision and directed it to certify the commercial egg-laying operation.

 

Judith Gillan, an MICI Board member, said, "We communicated our concerns directly to USDA but have had no response.  Filing a formal complaint seems to be our only option.  We owe it to the organic community and consumers to make sure food that bears the USDA Organic Seal and our program name is consistent with their expectations and the intent of the organic regulations."

 

Michael Sligh, Policy Director for RAFI-USA and former Chair of the National Organic Standards Board, states "The outcome of this legal challenge will help determine whether the organic program will present consumers with a real choice in how their food is produced, or whether USDA will bow to pressure to dilute the standards,"

 

The Farmers Legal Action Group Inc. (FLAG) of Minnesota is representing MICI in the legal proceeding with FLAG attorney Jill Krueger handling the case.

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 Most Admired Corporation in U.S. - Tyson Foods

 

In its March 3, 2003 issue, FORTUNE magazine has ranked Tyson Foods Inc as America's Most Admired Company in the food production industry. According to FORTUNE, the criteria used to rank the companies included innovativeness, employee talent, use of corporate assets, social responsibility, quality of management, financial soundness, long-term investment value, and quality of products/services. Tyson rated top in seven of the eight catagories.

 

BUT…one must wonder how all this adds up with the following:

 

1.    In December 2001, a federal grand jury in Chattaooga, Tennessee returned a 36-count indictment against executives and managers of Tyson Foods for conspiring to smuggle illegal aliens into the U.S.

 

2.    The indictments came after a 2 1/2 year undercover investigation by the US Immigration and Naturalization Service which alleges that Tyson Foods hired smugglers to transport workers to the U.S. and helped provide them with false documents.  The evidence includes 422 undercover audio tapes, 36 video tapes, and 360,000 pages of documents subpoenaed from Tyson.

 

3.    According to the indictment, Tyson Foods maintained a corporate culture in which the hiring of illegal alien workers was condoned in order to meet production goals and cut costs to maximize profits.

 

4.    Of the 6 Tyson managers indicted, two former Tennessee plant managers have pleaded guilty and one committed suicide when the charges were made public.

 

5.    A former nurse at Tyson's plant in Missouri testified that Hispanic children, one as young as 9 yrs. old, were working in the deboning part of the plant; one worker in the plant aged 14 was injured by an auger.

 

6.    The former nurse testified that when news of a raid by federal immigration authorities was close, the Hispanic workers didn't show up and forced the plant to shutdown more than half the plant for a week.

 

7.    Tyson Foods cancelled contracts with 132 contract hog producers in Arkansas and eastern Oklahoma in a move the company said was to reduce operating costs.  When 80 contracts growers sued for  misrepresentation of the contract terms and false promises made to lure them into the business, Tyson Foods claimed that no court action was possible because of arbitration terms in their contracts.

 

8.    A Pope County Judge ruled against Tyson Foods and will allow the hog lawsuit to be tried in court.

 

9.    Tyson Foods is named in an environmental lawsuit accusing the company of dumping chicken waste into the Grand Lake watershed which covers portions of Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri and Kansas.

 

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