OMAHA (DTN) — Attorneys general in seven states and two agriculture groups will be allowed to file amicus briefs in a lawsuit challenging a USDA rule that eliminated line-speed limits at swine slaughter facilities.

On Oct. 1, 2019, the USDA’s Food Safety Inspection Service finalized a rule that cut the number of federal inspectors at swine plants by 40% and eliminated line-speed limits.

The United Food and Commercial Workers International Union filed a lawsuit on Oct. 7, 2019, asking the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota to set aside the rule. The plaintiff claims USDA did not consider safety issues and risks for line workers.

The court on Tuesday issued an order allowing the attorneys general of Minnesota, California, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan and Virginia to file a brief in support of a motion for summary judgment filed by the workers union.

In addition, the court will allow the National Pork Producers Council and the North American Meat Institute to file a brief in support of the USDA’s motion for summary judgment.

ROCKVILLE, Md. (DTN) — As the fall seed-buying season advances, EPA is facing a major time crunch on its dicamba herbicide decisions.

The agency had originally vowed to have a re-registration decision for four dicamba herbicides — Tavium (Syngenta), Engenia (BASF), XtendiMax (Bayer) and FeXapan (Corteva) — settled by early fall so farmers could buy their corresponding dicamba-tolerant seed with the certainty of in-season weed control options.

All four herbicides were set to expire in December 2020, but when a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals’ ruling vacated all but one of those herbicides, EPA’s timeline was thrown into disarray. (See more here: https://www.dtnpf.com/…)

The agency is now in the process of reviewing new products and new registration applications for two of those herbicides — Engenia and Xtendimax — while also still doing its planned re-registration review of Tavium. (FeXapan is the same formulation as XtendiMax, so any future registrations of it depend upon a successful XtendiMax registration, Corteva has informed DTN.)

OMAHA (DTN) — EPA’s decision last week to reject 54 so-called gap-year small-refinery exemptions to the Renewable Fuel Standard may have been a big victory for biofuels and agriculture producers.

Yet, leaders of biofuels and ag groups said during a press call on Wednesday the Trump administration has a long way to go to right the RFS ship.

EPA indicated it would reject another 14 gap-year exemption requests still with the U.S. Department of Energy for review.

Brian Jennings, chief executive officer of the American Coalition for Ethanol, said EPA action was needed but the administration still continues to fall short.

“I would say the unfortunate reality is that the Environmental Protection Agency has so badly mismanaged the RFS over the last three and a half years,” he said.

“You think about it, so many ethanol promises, promises to do right by this industry have collected dust that I think too many folks misinterpreted last week’s decision to reject some of these gap-year waivers is a significant turning point.

OMAHA (DTN) — A couple of separate but high-profile announcements on sustainability initiatives in agriculture are rolling out this week, focusing on ranches in the Plains states and cotton producers in the South.

A collaboration between companies and foundations is leading to more than $6 million for a new program called the Ranch Systems and Viability Planning (RSVP) network that will primarily involve ranches in Montana, Nebraska and South Dakota. The new project is led by the World Wildlife Fund, along with the Walmart Foundation, Cargill and McDonald’s.

The network will help ranchers with technical assistance, training and tools to help with grazing practices. One of the goals of the project over the next five years is to help avoid land conversion on grazing lands to cropland in that northern Great Plains region, the groups stated.

Under the network, the World Wildlife Fund will work with ranchers on private and tribal lands by providing Extension services and workshops for ranchers and landowners.

By Chris Clayton
DTN Ag Policy Editor
and
Todd Neeley
DTN Staff Reporter

OMAHA (DTN) — Short-term funding for USDA’s Commodity Credit Corp. has become a major political fight as House Democratic leaders put forward a short-term bill to fund the federal government that doesn’t replenish the USDA fund.

Language was released for a continuing resolution to fund the federal government through Dec. 11. Republican senators immediately denounced the bill for not including $30 billion for the Commodity Credit Corp.

“House Democrats’ rough draft of a government funding bill shamefully leaves out key relief and support that American farmers need,” tweeted Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., on Monday. “This is no time to add insult to injury and defund help for farmers and rural America.”

The debate over CCC funds tied up a House Rules Committee hearing Monday afternoon as they heard amendments to the continuing resolution (CR) that may be added to the bill or debated on the House floor later in the week.

OMAHA (DTN) — When Congress conducts a postmortem of agriculture’s performance during the COVID-19 economic shutdown, chances are some segments of the industry could see structural changes, and the farm bill’s role in preparing for major challenges could be altered.

Disruptions in the food-supply chain back in the spring as meatpacking plants closed from virus outbreaks exposed weak spots in food processing. The disruptions put a spotlight on how the federal government comes to the rescue when farmers and ranchers sustain big losses.

Rep. Collin Peterson, D-Minn., said during the virtual Agri-Pulse Ag and Food Policy Summit on Monday, Sept. 21, that ag aid provided by the Trump administration has essentially changed direction on the philosophy of government assistance to agriculture.

“I am concerned about the potential backlash on all the money spent the last couple of years,” he said. “I spent 20 years of my life trying to get government out of this business.

OMAHA (DTN) — USDA Deputy Secretary Stephen Censky has been rehired as the chief executive officer of the American Soybean Association, replacing Ryan Findlay who stepped down in June.

Censky’s nomination was confirmed by the U.S. Senate in October 2017, after he served as CEO at the American Soybean Association for 21 years. According to a USDA news release Censky will start his new position on Nov. 9.

“There is no doubt that I personally, as well as the whole USDA family, will miss Steve’s experience, preparedness and steady leadership,” U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue said in a statement.

“During his tenure as deputy secretary, we accomplished a great deal in a short amount of time even in the face of serious challenges in American agriculture. Steve’s roots are in agriculture and he is one of the best and most professional public servants America has. His wise counsel helped us make USDA the most efficient, effective, customer-focused department in the entire federal government and I am forever grateful for his invaluable guidance and input.”

OMAHA (DTN) — A turn from very wet to very dry conditions in the central U.S. during 2020 is forecast to continue through the end of the year.

The official NOAA mid-September outlook calls for no drought easing in affected areas of the Midwest and Plains over the next three months. In fact, the outlook calls for drought to expand from the western Plains eastward to the Delta. In addition, no letup is expected in drought in the western Midwest and portions of the Northern Plains.

Brian Fuchs, a geoscientist at the National Drought Mitigation Center in Lincoln, Nebraska, said that drought conditions in the central U.S. are the highest in more than five years.

“We haven’t seen this extent of drought since 2013,” Fuchs said on a regional forecast conference call.

Going through the balance of 2020, Fuchs noted that forecasts have a strong signal for below-normal precipitation in the Southern Plains and Delta.

OMAHA (DTN) — EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler announced on Friday interim mitigation measures for atrazine and two related herbicides, propazine and simazine, during an agriculture event in Missouri.

Atrazine is widely used in agriculture across a range of crops, primarily corn but also sugarcane and sorghum, as well as a smaller amount of use in landscape care.

Specific mitigation measures were outlined in an EPA news release that coincided with Wheeler’s public announcement. The new measures are designed to address potential human health and ecological risks.

The agency will require a reduction of the maximum application rate for atrazine and simazine when used on residential turf in order to protect children who crawl or play on treated grass.

EPA added a requirement for irrigation immediately after simazine application to residential turf and required additional personal protective equipment for workers who apply atrazine and simazine.

The agency is finalizing label requirements for all three triazines to include mandatory spray drift control measures, to minimize pesticide drift into non-target areas including water bodies, as well as updating label directions to reduce weed resistance to atrazine.

DECATUR, Ill. (DTN) — The number 16 may be sweet for some, but farmer Ryan Jenkins will forever associate it with saturated, damaged crops. Hurricane Sally dumped anywhere from 15 to 30 inches of rain across his Florida Panhandle and southwestern Alabama farm on Wednesday, Sept. 16 — exactly 16 years to the day of when Hurricane Ivan, a Category 3 storm, made landfall at nearly the exact spot and nearly the same time of day.

“Ivan has been the hurricane everyone uses as a benchmark here — it did so much damage,” said Jenkins. “Now Sally has torn us up.”

Jenkins, who has been reporting in each week as part of DTN’s View From the Cab project, had what he considered possibly his best cotton and peanut crops ever before Hurricane Sally hit. He often talked about the importance of “not counting his chickens before they’d hatched.”

Hurricane season came early this year and Jenkins had already watched 19 named storms work their way around him or fizzle this summer.

OMAHA (DTN) — Archer Daniels Midland asked a federal court to drop a lawsuit alleging one of the nation’s largest ethanol producers manipulated the ethanol market beginning in November 2017.

In July, Omaha-based Green Plains Inc. alleged ADM conducted a scheme to illegally depress the ethanol cash spot market, in a class-action lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Nebraska in Lincoln.

ADM filed two separate motions on Monday, one asking the court to dismiss the case and another to transfer the case to the U.S. District Court for the District of Central Illinois, where the company is based.

ADM argued in the dismissal motion the law does not allow Green Plains to sue for losses selling a commodity such as ethanol.

“The only permissible claim is for losses from trading in financial derivatives (such as futures or options) that are based on a commodity,” the motion said.

OMAHA (DTN) — USDA on Wednesday detailed some federal assistance available for residents, farmers and ranchers affected by wildfires in the Western states.

Addressing the issues with wildfire mitigation, the American Farm Bureau Federation and 13 state affiliates also are asking Congress to provide additional funds and programs to help prevent and recover from catastrophic wildfires. AFBF and the states sent a letter to Senate leaders supporting the Emergency Wildfire and Public Safety Act of 2020.

The legislation was introduced by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., but has three Republican co-sponsors, Sen. Steve Daines of Montana and Sens. James Risch and Mike Crapo of Idaho. AFBF stated the bill would help mitigate future fires, but it would not address the immediate losses and damage facing farmers and ranchers.

“The images of wildfires are heartbreaking when you watch a family’s livelihood disappear, but the damage continues long after the flames are put out,” said Zippy Duvall, president of the American Farm Bureau Federation.

WASHINGTON, (DTN) — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said Tuesday that the House will take up the Renewable Fuel Standard Integrity Act sponsored by House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson, D-Minn., just as the House Energy and Commerce Committee released the text of energy legislation that includes it.

The House will vote on the energy legislation, Pelosi announced in an online presentation to the National Farmers Union, a Democratic-leaning farm group that is particularly strong in the Midwest.

“I feel very blessed that Collin is leading our effort,” Pelosi said of Peterson, who is in a tight re-election race. The Environmental Protection Agency has been granting waivers from the Renewable Fuel Standard to oil companies “when they shouldn’t,” Pelosi said.

The bill that the House is expected to take up the week of Sept. 21 will contain provisions that Peterson has written that would set an annual deadline for refiners to request exemptions from the Renewable Fuel Standard and require EPA to publicly release the name of refiners requesting an exemption, the number of gallons requested to be waived and the number of gallons of biofuel that will not be blended as a result of the refinery exemption.

ROCKVILLE, Md. (DTN) — When Chase Brown started selling cover crop seed eight years ago, he saw it as a small side-gig to supplement his farming operation near Decatur, Illinois.

Now, like many farmers, he’s happy to discover it is a growing industry worth investing in.

“I started selling cover crops in 2012 for extra vacation and beer money,” he admitted. “But it has blown into a substantial business. It has gone from guys throwing some cover seed out each year, mostly for government programs, to really thinking about it and planning. They’ve seen the benefits and attitudes are changing.”

This year, cover crop seed demand for Brown Seed Sales was off the charts. “This year, a switch just flipped,” he said. A lot of factors might be at play: The stagnant spring and early summer commodity prices pushed growers to trim chemical costs, an August derecho flattened some Corn Belt fields, and in the midst of a growing herbicide-resistant weed epidemic, dicamba herbicides were abruptly pulled off the market in June.

One of the biggest wild cards in Friday’s USDA reports was their handling of the derecho damage incurred in August. Wind speeds were above 100 mph in some areas and 80 mph-plus over a broad section of Iowa. The winds slowed a little going into Illinois and Indiana.

The storm swept through the Corn Belt after the August crop report data collection had ended, so it was well known that the corrections would have to be made this month. NASS indicated in August they would re-survey producers in the affected areas for their harvested acreage ideas. To complicate things, much of the Corn Belt saw unusually hot and dry conditions in August, with some states posting average temps or low precipitation numbers worse than the 2012 drought for that month (but not for the entire growing season). That was also a drag on yield. Western Iowa and a sliver of eastern Nebraska were in D3 or extreme drought, but all states north of the Ohio River had at least some D0 and D1 dryness.

OMAHA (DTN) — The Trump administration made it official on Monday, announcing in an EPA news release that the agency will deny all pending gap-year small-refinery exemptions to the Renewable Fuel Standard for 2011-2018.

“This decision follows President (Donald) Trump’s promise to promote domestic biofuel production, support our nation’s farmers, and in turn strengthen our energy independence,” EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler said in a statement.

“At the EPA, we are delivering on that promise by following the rule-of-law and ensuring 15 billion gallons are blended into the nation’s fuel supply.”

The EPA has yet to decide the fate of 31 pending waiver requests for 2019 and 2020, but the announcement ends what has been an agonizing period for the ethanol and agriculture industries. The ethanol industry stood to lose billions of gallons of fuel demand had the waivers been granted.

“Time and time again, EPA has demonstrated through action its commitment to our nation’s farmers,” EPA said in a news release.

OMAHA (DTN) — Free nitrogen fertilizer would be a cost-saving dream for most corn growers. Turns out, more may spill from the sky in the form of rainfall than farmers might expect.

New research from the University of Minnesota Extension shows more nutrients are falling in Minnesota’s farm fields in the form of rain or snowfall than previously thought.

In addition to more nutrients, the pH of the rain and snow was higher than researchers expected. This could have an effect on nutrient availability.

While the findings may not change fertilizer recommendations just yet, it is worth keeping your eye on the skies.

VARIATION ACROSS STATE

Paulo Pagliari, University of Minnesota Extension soil fertility specialist and lead researcher on the project, told DTN the study came to be from other research he was already doing. In the past, he did some work with biological activity in soil and looked at nitrogen (N) sources in the soil.

OMAHA (DTN) — A federal court is moving closer to temporarily shutting down Dakota Access pipeline operations until future court action plays out.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit gave the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers until Aug. 31 to detail steps taken by the Corps to resolve concerns with the pipeline. The Corps has indicated in court documents it expects to have a complete plan by mid-October.

In a court order issued on Sept. 11, however, the appeals court indicated the Corps is unlikely to call for the removal or closure of the pipeline. The court said it will consider an injunction to halt operations since the pipeline does not currently have an easement.

“Although the Corps has now submitted two reports in response to this court’s direction, it does not expect to have an initial answer for another month,” the court said in its latest order.

Even with all its ups and downs, the 2020 cattle market likely has some opportunity left in it for many cow-calf producers across the country.

Derrell Peel, Oklahoma State University Livestock Marketing Specialist, reported the futures markets are looking positive, and with that there are some added options for producers to turn a challenging year into a profitable one.

Asked to forecast the market, Peel noted he’s been “pretty impressed over the last few weeks with the way these markets have improved. We have a consistent signal across the industry right now, which is very good.”

Two areas he said cow-calf operators should pay close attention to right now are their cow culling decisions and retained ownership of calves.

Early weaning decisions can create more options in drought-hit areas, allowing producers to make culling decisions earlier rather than later when it comes to cow herds. “If you pull calves off now because forage resources are low, it makes sense to do some early culling” he said.

OMAHA (DTN) — The EPA has failed in its legal responsibility to clean up the Chesapeake Bay, two new federal lawsuits filed on Thursday argue.

In particular, the lawsuits filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation and the states of Maryland, Virginia and Delaware, along with the District of Columbia, argue EPA has failed to hold accountable the states of New York and Pennsylvania for not cutting nutrient runoff as part of the total maximum daily load, or TMDL, program for the bay.

In 2010, EPA issued a TMDL for the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries with jurisdictions in the District of Columbia, Delaware, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia.

Those states adopted caps on discharges of nitrogen, phosphorous and sediment in the bay region. Each state was directed to issue watershed implementation plans in three phases, in 2010, 2012 and 2019.