HOUSE PASSES ELECTION-YEAR FARM BILL (YahooNews.com, 5/14) -- By a strong, veto-proof majority, the House passed a $290 billion farm bill with increased subsidies for farmers and food stamps for the poor amid rising grocery prices while sprinkling in pet projects that lawmakers can take home to voters this election year. The 318-106 vote for the five-year bill gave supporters 28 more than they need to override a promised veto from President Bush, who has complained the measure is too expensive and generous to farmers now enjoying record earnings. "A bloated, earmark-laden bill," his agriculture secretary said after the vote.

The Senate planned to vote on the bill Thursday. Rejecting a veto by Bush would be even easier in the Senate because farm states have greater representation than they do in the House. Congress has only overridden one veto, on a water projects bill, during Bush's two terms. The bill also would:
• Extend dairy programs.
• Cut a per-gallon ethanol tax credit for refiners from 51 cents to 45 cents. The credit supports the blending of fuel with the corn-based additive. More money would go to cellulosic ethanol, made from plant matter.
• Require that meats and other fresh foods carry labels with their country of origin.
• Stop allowing farmers to collect subsidies for multiple farm businesses.
• Pay farmers for weather-related farm losses from a new $3.8 billion disaster relief fund.

SENATE COMMITTEE APPROVES BUYOUT OF CATTLE RANCHERS (The Oregonian, 5/8) -- A Senate committee Wednesday unanimously approved a delicate agreement that would close 24,000 acres in Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument to grazing while paying ranchers to keep their cattle off the land. The action by the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee moves closer to reality a novel proposal that has been years in the making. The bill, which was sponsored by Oregon Sens. Gordon Smith and Ron Wyden, would provide federal protection to the property. In return, ranchers would be paid for releasing their grazing rights by a fund established by environmental and private groups.

LIVESTOCK COMPETITION ISSUES REMAIN ALIVE (Pork Alert, 5/13) -- The Senate Judiciary Committee Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights Subcommittee held a hearing last week on the merger between Brazilian beef producer JBS and Swift and beef industry concentration. However, Senate bill 1759 drew much of the attention, which the National Pork Producers Council notes would establish a task force on agriculture competition within the Department of Justice; establish an Office of Special Counsel to investigate livestock competition matters, including mergers; and require merging parties to prove that the union won t hurt competition. Douglas Ross, the Justice Department's Special Counsel for Agriculture, testified that the agency does not support carving out agriculture for special treatment under the antitrust statutes. One of S. 1759's sponsors, Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), told the antitrust panel that he was disappointed that provisions of his bill were not included in the 2008 Farm Bill, and that he would work to move it through the Judiciary Committee.

GIPSA NEWS (5/12) --

• W.L. Sawyer, dba Sawyer Livestock Co. is Assessed a Civil Penalty in the Amount of $5,500 (05/12/08)
• GIPSA Alleges Jimmy Hughes Owes Sellers $1,079,270.36 (05/12/08)
  

S. KOREA TO DELAY RESUMPTION OF U.S. BEEF IMPORTS (Meatingplace.com, 5/14) -- Amid mounting public pressure, Seoul said it will delay resumption of U.S. beef imports.Under a new trade protocol, South Korea was slated on Thursday to fully resume quarantine inspections of U.S. beef for the first time in four years.

"We are disappointed as we understand Korea is planning to announce tomorrow a temporary delay in implementing the protocol agreed to April 18th," Gretchen Hamel, spokewoman for the U.S. Trade Representative's office, told Meatingplace.com.

Protests from a public still not totally convinced about the safety of U.S. beef and opposition parties demanding the deal be re-negotiatied are apparently giving government officials the jitters. Even President Lee Myung-bak has admitted the government failed to educate the public on the beef deal and the safety of U.S. beef. Nevertheless, U.S. officials expect the deal to be fully implemented.

AUSTRALIAN AG DEPARTMENT SLASHES BUDGET (Brownfield Network, 5/13) -- Australia’s Department of Agriculture has cut their total budget by 25%, in anticipation of lower drought relief payment to farmers. However, according to Dow Jones Newswires, the department does say that production could still be short of expectations if there isn’t timely rainfall. Rabobank notes that dry weather has delayed the planting of many crops in eastern Australia, including the winter wheat crop. Australia has seen significant wheat crop loss in the past two years due to drought, going as low as 13 million tons in 2007. There aren’t any official production estimates out yet, but general market sentiment has this year’s Australian wheat crop at 23 million to 27 million tons. However, that is if the precipitation comes as needed.

CANADA IMPORTING MORE U.S. PORK AMID WOES (Meatingplace.com, 5/14) -- While Canada's pork industry struggles to sustain itself amid rising feed costs, shrinking inventory, declining hog slaughter and fleeing producers, the country's strong currency is resulting, ironically, in increased imports of pork from the United States. According to a report by USDA's Foreign Agricultural Service, U.S. pork sales to Canada rose 20 percent to 164,334 metric tons in 2007, compared with 137,302 metric tons in 2006. Most of the load consisted of fresh or chilled pork cuts, including back ribs and U.S. prepared pork including pre-packaged sausages.

U.S., RUSSIA REACH LIVESTOCK TRADE DEAL (AgWeb.com, 5/8) -- The United States will begin exporting breeding cattle, bovine embryos; breeding, fattening and slaughter swine; and breeding and sport horses to Russia, according to an announcement from USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS). Russia will accept cattle born on or after implementation of the United States' 1997 ruminant-to-ruminant feed ban. Russia is turning to the world market to import livestock and genetics to restore its livestock herd, which has been declining during the last 15 years. The value of these new markets for U.S. exporters is substantial. The new live animal protocols will allow U.S. exporters to participate in Russia's $300 million market for live animal imports, according to USDA.

CONGRESS SHOWING MORE UNDERSTANDING OF BAD CONSEQUENCES OF HORSE SLAUGHTER BAN, LMA MEMBERS (Livestock Marketing Association, 5/12) -- Members of Congress showed a growing understanding of the unintended consequences of the closing of America’s three horse slaughter plants, according to participants in Livestock Marketing Association’s fourth annual Washington, D.C. Fly-In. Since a series of legislative and judicial actions closed the three plants, LMA President Jim Santomaso said the industry is seeing “more and more reports of abandoned horses, and of horses turned out and left to starve, because owners can’t afford their upkeep, or have the means to properly dispose of them.”

Santomaso, the operator of a Sterling, Colo., market, said LMA members are also reporting that horses are being left at their facilities when they don’t sell, “because their owners don’t want them back.”

Lawmakers, he said, “are ready to listen to the argument that banning slaughter is creating huge problems. For example, the ban takes away individual property rights, when you tell a horse owner what he can and cannot do with an animal that may be at the end of its useful life.”

MDA INVESTIGATING HSUS’S COMPLAINT TOWARD LIVESTOCK AUCTION (AmericanFarm.com, 5/13) -- The Maryland Department of Agriculture (MDA) is investigating a report of inhumane treatment of a non-ambulatory cow at the Westminster Livestock Auction in Westminster, Md., on the evening of April 22 following a complaint by the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS). The MDA inspector on duty at the Westminster auction was advised that the animal was down, but the department said the inspector was not aware of any mistreatment. The inspector responded the next day when notified of the HSUS complaint.

During April and May, HSUS investigators visited auctions in Maryland, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Texas and videotaped downer cows at each stop — animals left to suffer for hours and in one instance overnight.

MDA has clear regulations governing the humane treatment of livestock at auction markets and each licensed market is provided a copy of the rules and protocols that they are required to follow. MDA has taken action to strengthen its penalties against anyone who violates state animal health laws and regulations. House Bill 227, proposed by MDA and passed by the 2008 General Assembly, gives the Maryland secretary of agriculture the authority to issue fines of up to $10,000 in cases where these laws and regulations are broken. In addition, MDA is currently reviewing its livestock market and dealer regulations to determine what actions are needed to strengthen them.

USDA: RED MEAT PRODUCTION TO DECLINE, PRICES TO RISE IN 2009 (Meatingplace.com, 5/12) -- Tighter supplies of cattle will force beef production to decline in 2009, and pork production will decline due to reduced farrowings later this year and next year, USDA said Friday in its latest World Agriculture Supply and Demands Estimates.Beef production in 2009 is forecast at 26.5 billion pounds, compared with 26.8 billion pounds in 2008. Pork production in 2009 is forecast at 22.9 billion pounds, compared with 23.5 billion pounds in 2008. Total red meat production in 2009 is expected to reach 49.8 billion pounds, down from 50.6 billion pounds in 2008. To view the entire report, go to: http://www.usda.gov/oce/commodity/wasde/latest.pdf

CLAIMS OF ID FRAUD LEAD TO LARGEST RAID IN STATE HISTORY (DesMoines Register, 5/12) -- The largest workplace raid in Iowa history Monday resulted in the arrest of more than 300 people and reignited the debate over immigration. As two law enforcement helicopters hovered overhead, dozens of federal agents descended on Agriprocessors Inc., the nation's largest kosher slaughterhouse.

The 300 people arrested represent almost one-third of the plant's 968 workers, and federal officials said the number of arrests could increase. The number is three times as many as were arrested in a raid 18 months ago at the Swift plant in Marshalltown.

RANCHER AGREES TO FINE IN DEAD LIVESTOCK CASE (Kearney Hub, 5/13) -- An Ainsworth, Neb., rancher has agreed to pay a $100 fine for failing to dispose of dead livestock in a case where the judge had to recuse himself because he faces a similar allegation. Mick Davis, 54, reached the plea deal on Friday. In exchange for entering a guilty plea to the one count of improper disposal of a carcass, a second charge was dropped, according to Brown County Attorney David Streich. In January, at least four dead horses were discovered in fields tended by Davis after a neighbor complained about dead and malnourished animals.

Davis was sentenced by County Judge Gary Washburn of Broken Bow after the initial judge on the case, Rock County Judge August Schuman of Bassett, recused himself. Schuman and two brothers have been under investigation since the Boyd County Sheriff's Office allegedly found about 100 dead cattle in March on a farm near Anoka, Neb., that is operated by the Schumans.