The USDA is spending $2 million to take pictures of what San Antonio school children eat for lunch.
usda
Another convert to the food vs. fuel debate on corn ethanol — former President Bill Clinton. In his speech on Thursday before the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s annual Agricultural Outlook Forum, Clinton said that farmers shouldn’t be putting so much of their corn crop into ethanol production rather than food. He cautioned that the diversion of the food and feed crop could increase food prices and lead to food riots in developing countries and urged farmers to look to the needs of the poor countries of the world.
The New York Times noted in an article yesterday that food prices are expected to rise this year as a result of significantly lower supplies of corn reserves — the lowest since 1996 — and a higher use of corn for ethanol. The food vs. fuel tug continues, with the ethanol mandate, the ethanol tax credit, plus massive subsidies causing more and more corn to be diverted to ethanol production rather than food. (See CEI colleague Brian McGraw’s post today.)
The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced February 9 that U.S. corn stocks are projected to be 70 million bushels lower this month, while the use of corn for food, seed, and industrial use will be higher than expected. USDA also said that corn for ethanol use is expected to be 50 million bushels higher — with a record ethanol production for December and January.
With corn prices almost doubling from six months ago, USDA is projecting that those food items most affected by corn used for feedstock will rise in 2011. Thus, pork prices are likely to rise 3.5 to 4.5 percent, beef prices, 2.5 to 3.5 percent, poultry prices, 2 to 3 percent, egg prices, 2.5 to 3.5 percent, and dairy, 4.5 to 5.5 percent.
Check out this and some of the extensive articles CEI has published on the unintended consequences of the ethanol program.
CEI Senior Fellow Greg Conko looks at the major provisions of the food safety bill that the Senate is voting on today. The bill would set in stone ever-evolving best practices. Changes to plant inspection and food recall policies are a mix of ineffectiveness and perverse incentives that could raise food prices. Overall, the FDA is too blunt an instrument to be effective on this sensitive issue.
Via former Congressman Bob Barr and sitting Congressman Collin Peterson, I’ve learned about some troubling new regulations on the livestock industry proposed by the USDA’s Grain Inspection, Packers & Stockyards Administration (GIPSA). GIPSA may not be as sexy a regulator as PCAOB or NHTSA, but this is one more example of obscure regulatory agencies run amok. What makes this particular proposal especially problematic is that the GIPSA Administrator, a former trial lawyer named J. Dudley Butler who made his bones suing poultry producers, seems to have intentionally introduced a level of vagueness into the rule that, in his own words, makes it a “plaintiff lawyer’s dream.”
Under the terms of the 2008 Farm Bill, Congress instructed GIPSA to promulgate new rules governing the contractual arrangements between cattle and poultry producers on the one hand and stockyards and slaughterhouses on the other, in order to “help ensure fair trade and competition in the livestock and poultry industries.” However, according to a letter from House Agriculture Committee Chairman Peterson to Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack, which was signed by 114 other members of Congress (for a total of 68 Republicans and 47 Democrats), the proposal strays “far beyond Congress’ intent in the Farm Bill” and “would precipitate major changes in livestock and poultry marketing”. In addition, the “analysis contained in the proposed rule fails to demonstrate the need for the rule”.
Like many federal regulations, the proposed rule would also have little impact on the three largest U.S. meat packers, but could wreak havoc on smaller, regional packers “who have carved their niches out by differentiating themselves by creating supply chains that allow them to hit differentiated, value-added markets more consistently.” It’s also based on a premise that has been tried before at the state level, but later abandoned as a total failure. According to Troy Marshall, a contributing editor for Beef magazine:
We all remember what happened when the state of Missouri enacted a similar rule – nobody wanted to buy cattle in the state of Missouri, and they quickly acted to rescind the law. Admittedly, if these GIPSA rules pass on the national level, the packing industry won’t stop buying cattle, but the results are predictable and almost the opposite of what proponents are arguing will happen.
Fortunately, some aggressive oversight by the House Ag Committee has caused GIPSA to postpone implementation of the rule and extend the comment period. But let’s not forget that a good part of the problem can be attributed to Congress’s willingness to enact vague legislation that leaves too much discretion in the hands of largely unaccountable bureaucrats. Of course, it was wildly inappropriate for the Obama Administration to put a fox in charge of guarding the hen house by installing a tort-happy plaintiff’s lawyer like Dudley Butler in a position to re-write rules that could make it way too easy to successfully sue meat and poultry producers.
The federal government is considering limiting, or even banning potatoes from school lunches. Officials fear the tasty tubers are causing childhood obesity. They would rather children eat more leafy greens instead.
The children are not pleased. One child told the Associated Press, “That would be so not cool. I love tater tots.”
Critics of the nanny state’s slow but steady mission creep often ask, “What’s next, a law saying eat your vegetables?” Well, apparently it is next. Freedom advocates need to find a new reductio ad absurdum.
In fact, the USDA already has a temporary regulation in place disallowing food stamps to be used to buy potatoes. The rule may be made permanent next year. Poverty has more important indignities than losing some choice of what you buy at the grocery store. But what a way to treat adults.
Eat your vegetables. Or else. They’re good for you.
Sugar producers got a sweet deal in the 2008 Farm Bill. Now, with the next bill scheduled for 2012, some opponents of the U.S. sugar program are already positioning themselves for another battle over one of the most egregious examples of central planning that raises prices for consumers and costs jobs.
On September 29, 2010, Rep. Joe Pitts (PA-16) introduced a bill — The Free Market Sugar Act — that takes direct aim at the sugar program administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Here’s Pitts’ statement:
The USDA sugar program is a needless waste of government money that is actually counterproductive to the goal of creating jobs in the U.S. Using taxpayer money to back loans to the sugar industry and buy sugar should not be a function of our federal government. Since the program actually raises the U.S. price for sugar, we see some food industry jobs shipped overseas.
Sugar producers are using the public backing to pocket healthy profits. The American people are fed up with bailouts, and my legislation would stop public money from propping up companies that should be providing for themselves.
Other policy makers were taking their own steps to focus attention on sugar and the next farm bill. Congressmen Danny Davis (D-IL) and Mark Kirk (R-IL) sent a “Dear Colleague” letter to their fellow members of Congress asking them to sign on to a letter to the House Agriculture Committee leadership. The letter points out some of the major problems with the program that need to be corrected in the 2012 farm bill:
The U.S. Department of Agriculture is keeping sugar prices at all-time highs by limiting the amount of sugar that can be grown in the United States and imported each year to meet domestic needs. The sugar program is being run solely for the benefit of sugar growers and processors, with complete disregard for consumers and other sugar users. The net result is that consumers are paying more for food products and workers are losing jobs at food processing and manufacturing plants.
It’s good that they’re starting early to position this issue, because they will be facing the sugar lobby, one of the strongest lobbies on the Hill — that day-in-an-day-out focuses on this one issue and spreads their largesse in a bipartisan manner.
See some of CEI’s earlier articles on the sugar program here and here.
The Pentagon’s official brownie recipe is 26 pages long. If you don’t care to read document MIL-C-44072C in its entirety, here are some highlights:
-The water used in this recipe must adhere to EPA drinking water regulations.
-The eggs must comply with USDA “Regulations Governing the Inspection of Eggs and Egg Products (7 CFR Part 59).”
-The brownies must also comply with rules and standards from HHS, The American Association of Cereal Chemists (AACC), the American Oil Chemists Society (AOCS), the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM), the Association of Official Analytical Chemists (AOAC), and the National Academy of Sciences’ Food Chemicals Codex.
-The coating must be exactly right:
3.3.5 Brownie coating. The brownies shall be completely enrobed with a continuous uniform chocolate coating (see 3.2.14) in an amount which shall be not less than 29 percent by weight of the finished product.
-Like pecans on your brownies?
3.2.5.2 Nuts, pecans, shelled. Shelled pecan pieces shall be of the small piece size classification, shall be of a light color, and shall be U.S. Grade No. 1 Pieces of the U.S. Standards for Grades of Shelled Pecans. A minimum of 90 percent, by weight, of the pieces shall pass through a 4/16-inch diameter round hole screen and not more than 2 percent, by weight, shall pass through a 2/16-inch diameter round hole screen. The shelled pecans shall be coated with an approved food grade antioxidant and shall be of the latest season’s crop.
And so on.
By contrast, delicious recipes from allrecipes.com and cooking.com are less than a page each.
The Wall Street Journal reported today that the U.S. Department of Agriculture may increase the import quotas for sugar to address a tightening supply and possible shortages. Currently, about 40 countries can export a specified quantity of sugar to the U.S. under what’s called a tariff rate quota (TRQ). TRQ sugar has low or no tariffs, while above those amounts, sugar is subject to stiff tariffs. Only one country, Mexico, under the North America Free Trade Agreement, is not under the quota system.
Under the 2008 Farm Bill, the USDA had to wait until April 1, 2010 to decide whether to increase the quotas. Last week, the U.S. Trade Representative announced that it was reallocating some of the 2010 quota amounts that hadn’t been used by certain countries to quota-holding countries that are exporting sugar to the U.S. Brazil, the Dominican Republic, the Philippines, and Australia received the bulk of the reallocations.
The TRQ system is part of the U.S. sugar program that keeps the price of U.S. sugar generally twice as high as the world price through domestic supply constraints, import restrictions, and price supports for U.S. producers. It’s a central planning approach that raises the cost of sugar and sugar-containing products for consumers, causes job losses as confectionery firms are hit by higher costs, and harms poor sugar-producing countries that can’t compete with U.S. “subsidized” sugar. See some CEI ideas for terminating this program.
RSS Updates 
RSS E-Mail Updates 
Twitter 
Facebook 
CEI.org 
WorkPlaceChoice.org 
GlobalWarming.org 
CEI On Demand Video 
Liberty Week Podcast 