Beef producers worry about egg industry deal

Cattle producers have joined the pork industry in raising concerns about the agreement between the United Egg Producers and the Humane Society of the United States to seek federal standards for housing hens.

"Unlike the UEP-HSUS agreement, our cattle care programs should never be weakened by being misused or construed as the basis of a regulatory or government mandated program," said Colin Woodall, vice president of government affairs for the National Cattlemen's Association.

Under the legislation proposed by the UEP-HSUS, egg farms would be required to switch to a larger style cages for housing hens. The standards, if enacted, would be the first for on-farm handling of livestock.

Say what? Conservative plan calls for regulating farms

  

Soil-saving practices on Iowa farm. (USDA)

 Want to save money on the farm bill? Force farmers to control soil erosion and other environmental problems through regulations and fees rather than continuing to give them subsidies to do so. 

 That idea comes, believe it or not, courtesy a conservative group. It’s a central idea in a group of proposals released today by the American Enterprise Institute, which is trying to frame the debate on how to restructure U.S. farm policy and cut its cost. 

 It comes as no surprise that the papers prepared for AEI by agricultural economists argue that  the current the system of commodity subsidies and crop insurance is a waste of money should be dismantled. It’s also not surprising that the papers find that existing conservation programs are duplicative and too costly as well.  However, the economists go on to argue that in the long run it would penalize farmers who do pollute rather than paying farmers not to pollute. 

“A polluter-pays system would achieve conservation and reduce emissions at a benefit to taxpayers and would improve signals about the real cost of agricultural production. Conservation programs should also be integrated, reducing competition among programs for the same land, and farms should be evaluated for program participation based on the whole farm or conservation program.”

One suggested way to do that is to set up a system of tradable pollution permits. If that idea sounds familiar it's because it was the core concept of the cap-and-trade plan for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. To help farmers with the increased costs that they would face from addressing their environmental issues, the existing commodity and conservation programs should be merged into a single program that would provide payments to producers of all crops, argues Tomislav Vukina, an agricultural economist at North Carolina State University.

Vukina does allow that the reordering subsidies in that way “might cause substantial political difficulties on the road to implementation.” You think?  

The AEI's ideas come at a time when Congress and the White House are negotiating over deep cuts in federal spending that almost certainly mean steep reductions in funding for farm and conservation programs. Conservative lawmakers who see the AEI proposals as a roadmap for making those cuts in farm spending may want to take a look at the fine print. 

      

Landmark deal to remake how eggs produced

Example of new hen housing, made by Big Dutchman

A stunning, landmark deal between the largest animal rights group and the egg industry would change the way hens are raised in this country. It shouldn't be surprising that it's making others in the livestock industry nervous.

The agreement, announced today, marks a victory for both the industry and the Humane Society of the United States, which has been seeking to use a series of ballot initiatives, most successfully in California, to force some major changes in way that livestock are raised in the United States.

The egg industry has known for some time that the so-called battery cages that are now the standard industry practice would have to be replaced with something more acceptable to the public. But producers didn't want to go cage-free, as HSUS had been pushing, in part because cage-free operations require more and better trained workers. Cage-free hens also need more feed, further increasing production costs. The industry preferred instead to switch to a larger style of cages, known as "enriched colony" housing, that give the birds more room to move around and also include perches and nesting areas. (See photo) The deal announced today between HSUS and the United Egg Producers allows the industry to do just that and gives farms a decade and a half to phase in the new housing.

There's a big catch, however.  The two groups agreed to jointly ask Congress for a federal law that set standards and a timeline for the changes, and that legislation will have to pass for the deal to go through. If the bill doesn't pass,  "then the agreement would be off and we'd be likely to see more ballot measures, litigation, etc. Both sides want to work together to enact," HSUS' Paul Shapiro told me.

Most hens now have about 67 square inches of space in conventional cages. Under the HSUS-UEP deal that would increase up to 144 square inches.

As HSUS notes, such a law would mark the first time Congress has ever set standards for how any species of animals is raised on farms. No small achievement for HSUS.

The pork industry, which has tangled with HSUS for years over the way sows are housed, doesn't like the idea of federal standards for animal welfare. "It would inject the federal government into the marketplace with no measurable benefit to public or animal health and welfare," the National Pork Producers Council said. The group said it is "gravely concerned that such a one-size-fits-all approach will take away producers' freedom to operate in a way that's best for their animals."

Get some more details of the agreement here, in, of all things I thought I'd never see, a joint statement from HSUS and a major livestock producer group.

Senate deal kills ethanol subsidy

So this is how the ethanol subsidy is going to end.

Or at least it looks that way after key senators reached a deal to end the 45-cent-per-gallon subsidy at the end of this month along with the 54-cent tariff on imported ethanol. The House and the White House have to go along, but this is clearly the best deal the industry is going to get. Ending the subsidy early under this agreement frees up $668 million to extend tax incentives intended to encourage sale of higher blends of ethanol at service stations, as the AP's Mary Claire Jalonick reports. But that $668 million is far from what the industry wanted just a few months ago when it was backing a multiyear phaseout of the subsidy proposed by Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Ia.

Congress first created a tax incentive for fuel ethanol in 1978 and the subsidy has managed to survive ever since in no small part because of Iowa's pivotal role in the presidential nominating process.

What impact would ending the subsidy now have? University of Missouri economists recently estimated that extending the subsidy, which is curently set to expire Dec. 31, would increase ethanol production by a billion gallons in 2012 and increase the average price on next year's corn crop by 16 cents a bushel. Farmers would net an extra $25 an acre in 2012, according to the analysis.