Questions about the meat industry dominated a Senate Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee hearing June 15, 2021, at which Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack appeared in person to discuss the Biden administration’s budget request for fiscal year 2022.
In an opening statement, Vilsack said, “The president’s budget for 2022 for USDA programs within this subcommittee is $192 billion, of which approximately $168 billion is mandatory funding and $23.2 billion is net discretionary funding. Its gives USDA a new set of tools, and builds on our existing capabilities, to address the urgent challenges of our time — containing the pandemic, responding to the nutrition insecurity crisis, investing in research, rebuilding the rural economy, strengthening and building markets for farmers and producers, and addressing the impacts of climate change. This is not a list of things we would like to do — it is a plan for what we need to do to get USDA back on track and to help the U.S. outcompete the rest of the world.”
In response to a question from Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., about the release of pandemic aid to farmers, Vilsack noted that USDA announced today it will provide aid to biofuels, dairy, poultry, livestock and organic producers and to small, family-owned timber harvesters and haulers.
Leahy noted that it was the first time in his memory that he had asked a Cabinet secretary to do something and “gotten the answer it is today.”
But most questions focused on the livestock industry. After Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., noted that JBS, the giant Brazilian-based meat company’s U.S. and Australian operations had been hacked and that it paid an $11 million ransom, Vilsack said he wants to be sure the meat companies know what they need to do and that USDA will convene a meeting of food companies on the issue.
Vilsack also said that USDA will come up with “a very creative way to expand processing in this country.” But when asked about expanding interstate sales of state-inspected meat, Vilsack said the inspection system has to be “equivalent” to federal inspection or there would be “chaos in the export markets.”
Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, R-Miss., said that cattle producers need “fairness” in the markets.
Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., the subcommittee chairwoman, told Vilsack the administration’s request to increase the discretionary budget by $3 billion is “ambitious,” but Vilsack said the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) needs the money and that more is needed for staffing, research and climate programs.
Vilsack said the staffing priorities are in “customer-facing” agencies such as the Rural Development mission area and the Natural Resources Conservation Service. Vilsack also said the Farm Service Agency is getting its job done, with most of its offices reopened. But he added that USDA is now surveying its staff about teleworking in the future.
Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., subcommittee ranking member, said he wants to be sure that carbon sequestration programs are “farmer-friendly, and we don’t get one size fits all.” He noted that corn and soybean farmers may not need to till, but that sugar beet farmers in North Dakota’s Red River Valley do need to till and could not sequester carbon in the same way as the corn and soybean farmers.
Vilsack said that a carbon market can’t be one size fits all, cannot be mandatory and cannot reward latecomers at the expense of early adopters. Vilsack also said that current carbon markets do not work for farmers, and a carbon market needs to be developed with reduced paperwork and a price that makes sense so that farmers benefit.
Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., noted that farmers and grain traders have lost confidence in the production estimates from USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) but that he would “advocate for” a $10 million increase in that agency if Vilsack would promise the problems would be resolved. If it doesn’t solve the problem, “then I’m not doing my job,” Vilsack said.
Baldwin complained that the administration wants to open a dairy business innovation program to other agricultural sectors, but Vilsack said she should be pleased that the program has been so successful it is a model for aid to other sectors that have waste products that could be converted into products.
Baldwin replied that the program has been good “because it is so focused.”
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, complained that USDA plans to end a potato breeding program, but Vilsack said funds would still be available through competitive research grants and that USDA wants to “blend” more research into the competitive grants program.
Vilsack said that if Congress wants to increase the percentage of Americans with access to high-speed Internet service beyond the current 64%, it will have to put a lot more money into it.
At the present rate, Vilsack said, “It will take many, many years” and “you are going to be asking this of me for the next four years, of other people for fill-in-the-blank years.”
“We, as a country, need to fish or cut bait on this,” Vilsack said.
USDA should have some information available on its reevaluation of the Thrifty Food Plan that governs nutrition benefits later this summer so that states have information on estimated costs before the fiscal year begins October 1, Vilsack said.
–The Hagstrom Report
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June 18, 2021 at 04:27AM
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Meat industry questions dominate Vilsack Senate Ag Approps hearing - Tri-State Livestock News
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