With help from Catherine Boudreau, Helena Bottemiller Evich, Matthew Nussbaum, Doug Palmer and Jason Huffman
GRASSLEY BILL WOULD BAN MEATPACKERS FROM OWNING LIVESTOCK: Sen. Chuck Grassley was thinking of Tyson Foods' takeover of Hillshire Brands and JBS USA's purchase of Cargill's pork business when he reintroduced legislation this week to ban most meatpacking companies from owning the livestock they process. The Iowa Republican hopes his bill (S. 2911), if enacted, will reverse consolidation within the industry.
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"An effective and efficient marketplace is one where packers that control all harvest capacity of the industry do not also own a majority of the animals to be processed,” Grassley said in a statement. “The fact of the matter is that the market continues to become less competitive. It’s time to see if ending packer ownership of livestock will reverse that trend.”
Grassley, who is chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and also a member of the Agriculture Committee, cited several recent mergers, including the 2013 purchase of Smithfield — the largest pork producer in the U.S. — by the Chinese firm Shuanghui International. His bill includes exemptions for farmer cooperatives where members own, feed or control the livestock, and meat packers that are too small to be covered by the Agriculture Department's mandatory price reporting program.
The National Farmers Union gave Grassley’s bill a thumbs up Wednesday, saying livestock ownership among a few multinational firms restricts competition, puts farmers and ranchers on an uneven playing field and increases the chances of market price manipulation. Meat packers, meanwhile, are accustomed to criticisms that power is in the hands of too few players. The North American Meat Institute responded by arguing the industry is “dynamic and competitive” and cited studies (the most recent from 2013) that have found the entire supply chain benefits from the efficiency of the current market structure. Check out Grassley’s bill here and NAMI’s take on the issue here.
HAPPY THURSDAY, MAY 12, 2016: Welcome to Morning Ag, where your host is trying to shake off the gloom from this record-breaking 15 days of rain in Washington. You know the deal: thoughts, news, tips? Send them to ikullgren@politico.com or @iankullgren. Follow the whole team at @Morning_Ag.
LESSER PRAIRIE CHICKEN FIGHT OVER FOR NOW: The Obama administration has at least temporarily abandoned its effort to list the lesser prairie chicken as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act, and that’s just fine with Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Pat Roberts, Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman Jim Inhofe and several other lawmakers who have issued celebratory statements. The listing is reported to have threatened farmers, ranchers, oil and gas drillers and even wind-energy projects.
The Department of Justice announced its plan on Wednesday to drop the appeal of a ruling by the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas that U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service failed to follow its own rules in making the designation, the Fresno Bee reports. But the door seems ajar, as FWS is quoted as saying it “intends to reassess the status of the species” and “will continue working with states, other federal agencies and partners on efforts to conserve the lesser prairie chicken across its range.”
Inhofe, meanwhile, says in a statement that he “will be looking to put safeguards in place to block [FWS] from revisiting the issue until the states’ plan has time to develop and show its success.” Read the Fresno Bee story here.
AG APPOPS BILL MARKUP NEXT WEEK: The fiscal 2017 agriculture appropriations bill will be marked up in subcommittee next Tuesday and be in front of the full Senate Appropriations Committee by Thursday, meaning it could hit the Senate floor later this month, Sen. Jerry Moran told POLITICO on Wednesday. The text of the bill has yet to be unveiled, but it would provide $21.25 billion in funding, a decrease of about 2 percent from current spending. Pros can read more here.
CUBA GROUPS TOUT NEW AG TRADE REPORT: Engage Cuba and the U.S. Agriculture Coalition for Cuba, a pair of groups that favor lifting the embargo on Cuba, are out with a new report that examines the potential for six states — Alabama, Indiana, Iowa, Mississippi, Missouri, and North Dakota — to expand agricultural exports to the island. The report, produced in coordination with Brian Healy, an analyst in the USDA Foreign Agricultural Service’s Office of Global Analysis, concludes each of the six states could significantly increase exports if Congress were to loosen the embargo by allowing U.S. exporters to extend private credit to Cuba. A report released in March by the same groups highlighted market potential in 10 other states — Arkansas, Georgia, Illinois, Kansas, Louisiana, Minnesota, Nebraska, Ohio, Tennessee and Texas — for soybeans, cotton, feed grains, rice, poultry and a variety of other crops.
POULTRY INDUSTRY QUESTIONS BATHROOM REPORT: Oxfam America followed up on its report criticizing the poultry industry for not allowing its workers to have enough bathroom breaks in violation of worker safety laws by holding a protest outside of Tyson Farm’s Springdale, Ark., offices on Wednesday. The group additionally delivered a petition to the company containing 100,000 signatures that asks it to improve its working conditions. Workers throughout the poultry industry are wearing diapers and restricting their fluid intake "to dangerous degrees," according to the Oxfam report.
However, the National Chicken Council and U.S. Poultry and Egg Association are pushing back. "We’re troubled by these claims but also question this group’s efforts to paint the whole industry with a broad brush based on a handful of anonymous claims," the two groups say in a jointly released statement. "We believe such instances are extremely rare and that U.S. poultry companies work hard to prevent them ... Although individual practices vary by company, restroom breaks are planned for any production line. Most facilities also employ extra people to cover for production workers who request a bathroom break. In addition, medical-related situations are taken into account and accommodations are made."
HOW FETA CHEESE COULD BRING DOWN TTIP: The U.S. and EU are both refusing to budge on what to call American-made versions of products named after European regions, like Feta and Parmesan cheese, and they're publicly more dug in than ever, report POLITICO Pro EU’s Hans Von Der Burchard and Emmet Livingstone this morning.
“There will be no deal” without recognizing GIs, Agricultural Commissioner Phil Hogan said at a POLITICO event last month, and French President Francois Hollande last week threatened to veto TTIP if this issue is not resolved. “We will never accept questioning essential principles for our agriculture,” he said.
U.S. trade officials are similarly resolute. “The EU has aspirations for changing the U.S. system that are not going to be met in TTIP,” a U.S. trade official told POLITICO recently.
The issue is both a cultural and an economic priority for Europe. Geographical indications are particularly important for small and medium-sized exporters, which don't have a huge distribution and marketing budget to access the U.S. market, a spokesperson for the German ministry for food and agriculture said. The European Commission, in its latest data from 2010, estimates the value of all protected European products to be €54.3 billion. Pros can read more here.
CATTLEMEN ASK FOR PRICE INVESTIGATION: The U.S. Cattlemen's Association became the second group on Wednesday to ask Congress to investigate beef prices. "The combination of algorithmic trading and anti-competitive buying practices, consumer confusion, continued block of funding for a final [Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration] rule, and added industry concerns, has placed the U.S. cattle producer at a considerable disadvantage in today’s market," Danni Beer, the group's president, says in a letter sent to Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Pat Roberts and ranking member Debbie Stabenow.
R-Calf USA, another group representing ranchers, has issued similar calls for a review of beef prices, suggesting meat packers are intentionally manipulating them. Last month, the Senate Judiciary Committee asked the Government Accountability Office to open an investigation.
CHIPOTLE HIRES ACHESON, THENO: Chipotle Mexican Grill continues to retain food safety experts as it looks to emerge from its bout with various foodborne pathogens. The 2,000-location burrito chain has begun working with both David Acheson, a former top food safety official at FDA and USDA, and also David Theno, the food safety consultant famous for helping Jack in the Box respond to its deadly E. coli outbreak in the 1990s, Reuters reported Wednesday. The wire service says a company spokesman confirmed the two consultants were hired last year, but declined to provide details.
Chipotle last year dealt with outbreaks of E. coli, salmonella and norovirus, contributing to a $6 billion loss in market valuation, Reuters notes. The company in March named James Marsden, a former meat science professor at Kansas State University, as its new executive director of food safety. Late last year it announced it would be using a testing regime set up by consultant Mansour Samadpour, chief executive of Lake Forest, Wash.-based IEH Laboratories & Consulting Group.
DIET SODA = FAT BABIES: Drinking diet soda and other artificially sweetened beverages while pregnant may increase the chance of childhood obesity, a new study published in JAMA Pediatrics finds. Canadian scientists studied 3,033 women who gave birth between 2009 and 2012 and noted that artificial sweeteners seemed to have little effect on the infants. However, after a year, children from mothers who drank diet soda were twice as likely to be overweight, the researchers discovered. The findings reinforce the idea that prenatal nutrition plays a key role in a child’s later health. Scientists noted that “weight gain trajectories are ‘programmed’ during early development, and prenatal nutrition plays a key role in this process.”
Meghan Azad, the lead author and an assistant professor at the University of Manitoba, told The New York Times: “This is an association, and not a causal link ... But it certainly raises the question of whether artificial sweeteners are harmless. It’s not time to ban them or tell everyone not to consume them, but there’s no great benefit to consuming these drinks, so there’s no harm in avoiding them.”
BITTMAN DEPARTS PURPLE CARROT: Last fall, Mark Bittman made a splash in food world when he left his opinionated perch at the New York Times to join Purple Carrot, a startup company aiming to bring vegan delivery meal kits to the masses. But now, six months later, Bittman has left his new gig, Mother Jones reports. Tom Philpott has the scoop: “In a phone conversation, he wouldn't say much about his reasons for leaving. "I wish the company nothing but the best," he said. "I did everything I could do to help [with its recent West Coast expansion], and now I'm ready for something new." Bittman told me he's still mulling what his next project will be.” Bittman retains a stake in the company, according to the report, which is here.
MA’s INSTANT OATS:
— Secondary recalls from March listeria outbreaks are beginning to pile up, Food Safety News reports.
— Hawaii might become the first state to give tax breaks to farmers who pay for organic certification, the Associated Press reports.
— U.S. sugar beet farmers are poised to reap record harvests next year despite increased competition from non-GMO sugar cane, Reuters reports.
— Is quinoa California farmers’ new Kale? The Los Angeles Times explores.
THAT'S ALL FOR MA! See you again soon! In the meantime, drop your host and the rest of the team a line: cboudreau@politico.com and @ceboudreau; jhopkinson@politico.com and @jennyhops; hbottemiller@politico.com and @hbottemiller; mkorade@politico.com and @mjkorade; and jhuffman@politico.com and @jsonhuffman; and Ikullgren@politico.com or @IanKullgren. You can also follow @POLITICOPro and @Morning_Ag on Twitter.
