September 1, 2010
www.gfb.org
Vol. 28 No. 35
CHAMBLISS HOSTS CROP INSURANCE LISTENING SESSION Sen. Saxby Chambliss, the ranking member of the U.S. Senate Agriculture Committee, said last week during a crop insurance listening session that ad hoc disaster payment programs are becoming harder to push through Congress, making it more important for growers to buy crop insurance. “Crop insurance is something that we historically in the Southeast have not purchased a lot of,” Chambliss said. “I can tell you that ad hoc disaster programs are getting harder and harder to come by. We have one likely to pass in September, but it might be the last one we ever pass.” The listening session, held Aug. 27 at the University of Georgia Tifton Campus Conference Center, featured speakers from various commodity groups, including Georgia Farm Bureau Peanut Committee Chairman Wes Shannon, who runs a diversified farm in Tift County. The session was attended by Bill Murphy, administrator of the United States Department of Agriculture’s Risk Management Agency (RMA), as well as Michael Moore, director of the RMA’s Valdosta Regional Office, and Jeanne Lindsey, a technician in the Valdosta RMA office. Moore noted that the planting deadline for peanuts would be moved back to June 5 for Georgia’s peanut-producing counties except Jefferson, Johnson, Laurens, Montgomery, Richmond, Treutlen, Washington and Wilkinson, which will remain at the current May 31 deadline. The late planting period in all Georgia counties will end on June 15. The reduction to the insurance guarantee for late planting will be one percent per day. Shannon was one of several growers who made comments. He thanked RMA for supporting protection for honeybee producers under the Emergency Assistance for Livestock, Honeybees & Farm-Raised Fish Program (ELAP) and for extending the peanut planting deadline. He also asked RMA to consider a cotton replant provision, a poultry repopulation provision and moving back the Feb. 28 deadline for purchasing crop insurance. “Cotton is the only major row crop that doesn’t have a replant provision available in the federal crop insurance program,” Shannon said. “Georgia is one of the nation’s largest cottonproducing states and it is vital to our farm gate. The replant provision should be implemented for cotton as it is for many other crops.” Moore responded that cotton organizations throughout the country are not in favor of it because it would increase premiums, which he said are already high in Texas and the Mississippi Delta. “From a fairness issue, Georgia premium rates are much lower than those areas,” Moore said. “I don’t know if we could ever do [a replant provision] in one part of the country and not cover another part of the country.”
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GFB MEMBERS TELL TAX COUNCIL: DON'T TAX FARM INPUTS Georgia Farm Bureau members attending fact-finding sessions being held across the state by the Special Council on Tax Reform and Fairness for Georgians are telling the council how their farms will be negatively impacted if the inputs they use to produce their commodities become subject to sales taxes. The council, created by Georgia House Bill 1405 earlier this year, is charged with thoroughly studying Georgia’s current tax structure and submitting its findings and recommendations for changes to the speaker of the house and lieutenant governor at the beginning of the 2011 legislative session. Coweta County Farm Bureau Director Bud Butcher spoke at the Atlanta meeting Aug. 26. McDuffie County Farm Bureau member Mark Rodgers spoke at the Augusta meeting Aug. 30. Toombs County Farm Bureau Director Chris Hopkins spoke at the Savannah meeting Aug. 31. Berrien County Farm Bureau Secretary/Treasurer Tim McMillan is scheduled to speak at the Valdosta meeting Sept. 1. Crawford County Farm Bureau Vice President Leighton Cooley is scheduled to speak at the Macon meeting Sept. 2, and GFB President Zippy Duvall plans to speak at the Gainesville meeting Sept. 9. A GFB member will also speak at the Rome meeting Sept. 7. Butcher, who operates a 300-head dairy, told the council his annual cost of production would increase an average of $45,360 should the state decide to place a sales tax on the feed, equipment, seed, fertilizer, chemicals and vet services he uses on his farm. Butcher calculated this figure based on a seven percent sales tax on the yearly average he has spent on these input items the last five years. “If the state tax code is changed to charge sales taxes on the inputs to my dairy, that expense will be significant enough to jeopardize our operations,” Butcher told the council. “That number represents a cash expense for which there is absolutely no corresponding return, no increased efficiency, no added value. I don’t have any way to recover that cost.” During the Atlanta meeting, Georgia Rep. Chuck Sims (R-Dist. 169) recommended the sales tax on groceries be reinstated and collected at the distributor level rather than in retail stores using a system similar to the one the state uses to collect the sales tax on gas. “I think you need to exempt anyone over 65 and anyone on disability, but had we had this [grocery sales tax] we would not be in the financial situation we are in today.” Conservative studies show a grocery tax could raise more than $500 million a year in revenue. CHINESE COMPANY AGFEES TO BUY M2P2 AgFeed, one of the largest pork producers in China, has agreed to terms for the purchase of Ames, Iowa, hog production company M2P2 (Marketing and Managing Pork Production). According to a report on meetingplace.com, the deal is worth a total of $26 million, 49 percent in cash, 12 percent in AgFeed common stock and the rest in the form of a 10-year seller note. Under the agreement, M2P2 will build Western-style farms and two slaughterhouses in China. M2P2 Chairman John Stadler is expected to join AgFeed’s board of directors as a part of the transaction.
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MAGAZINE NAMES DON McCORKLE GROWER OF THE YEAR Nursery Management & Production Magazine has named Georgia Farm Bureau Environmental Horticulture Committee Chairman Donald E. McCorkle Sr. as its 2010 Grower of the Year. The award was presented to McCorkle Aug. 26 in Portland, Ore., at a Horticultural Research Institute (HRI) reception during the Farwest nursery trade show. “I'm very proud to present this award to Don,” said Todd Davis, publisher of Nursery Management & Production. “I'm also glad I could present it at a Horticultural Research Institute event. Not many people have donated more to HRI and to horticultural research in general than Don has.” McCorkle is director of the rewholesale department of McCorkle Nurseries, a familyowned business in its 60th year. The company distributes plants to many stores along the east coast. He is a former president and Nurseryman of the Year for the Georgia Nursery Association. He has also served on the boards of the American Nursery and Landscape Association, the Georgia Nursery Association and the Georgia Green Industry Association. In 1996, McCorkle donated land adjacent to his family’s nurseries in McDuffie County for development of the Center for Applied Nursery Research (CANR), which in 2009 hosted 12 projects directed by researchers from the University of Georgia, Auburn University, the University of Florida, and North Carolina State University. McCorkle and his wife of 53 years, the former Patricia Tilby, have two children, D.E. “Skeetter” McCorkle and Beverly McCorkle Welch. He serves on the Board of Deacons at Calvary Baptist Church in Dearing, where he is also the music director. EGG RECALL LINKED TO CHICKEN FEED Officials with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said last week that chicken feed used at Wright County Egg and Hillandale Farms contained positive samples of salmonella. In a conference call with reporters, the FDA said this suggested that the feed or its ingredients could be the source of the outbreak of salmonella enteriditis that prompted a recall of more than 550 million eggs sold in 22 states, including Georgia. The recall has had expanding effects in several areas. The American Egg Board has launched http://www.eggsafety.org, a consumer Web site devoted specifically to food safety related to egg handling and consumption. Activist groups have pointed to the recall as evidence that modern animal agriculture creates a risk to public health, but numerous agriculture organizations refuted the claim. “Based on a summary of scientific literature from around the world for someone to say there is a higher prevalence of salmonella in cage systems they are in absolute disagreement with leading scientific experts,” said Dr. Jeff Armstrong of the Michigan State University College of Agriculture and Natural Resources. Russia has considered banning poultry meat imports from the United States in response to the egg recall, though the eggs were being produced in different locations from those used for carcass processing. A group of 30 U.S. senators, including Georgia Sen. Johnny Isakson, wrote a letter to Russian Ambassador Sergey I. Kislyak requesting that Russia honor its agreement to accept imports of U.S. poultry.
Leadership Alert page 4 of 4 UPCOMING EVENTS AG COMMISSIONER CANDIDATES’ SUSTAINABILITY DEBATE Sept. 2 Tull Auditorium, Emory University Atlanta Agriculture Commissioner Candidates Gary Black, Kevin Cherry and J.B. Powell will discuss issues related to sustainable agriculture. Debate runs from 7:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. The event will be available via webstream video. For more information, visit http://www.georgiaorganics.org. UGA COTTON AND PEANUT FIELD DAY Sept. 8 Coastal Plain Experiment Station Tifton Event begins at 8:30 a.m. and includes a sponsored lunch. For more info call 229-386-3328. PUBLIC HEARING ON BOLL WEEVIL RULES Sept. 8 Agriculture Building, 19 Martin Luther King Jr. Dr. Atlanta This public hearing, which begins at 9 a.m. in Room 201, will be held to consider proposed changes to rules relating to the Boll Weevil Eradication Program, including a name change to “Boll Weevil Quarantine.” A synopsis of the proposed rule changes can be found at http://www.agr.georgia.gov. GFB DISTRICT ANNUAL MEETINGS Sept. 14 3rd District Lithia Springs High School Sept. 16 10th District Jamestown Baptist Church Sept. 21 2nd District North Ga. Tech. College Sept. 28 5th District Thomaston Civic Center Contact your county Farm Bureau office for more information.
7 p.m. 7 p.m. 7 p.m. 7 p.m.
Douglasville Waycross Avalon Thomaston
UGA AGRIBUSINESS CONFERENCE Sept. 14-15 Athens Technical College Athens This conference, which begins at 9 a.m. on Sept. 14 and ends at noon on Sept. 15, offers cutting-edge information and networking for agribusiness owners. Registration is $65 per person and includes lunch, breaks, informational materials and optional post-workshop interviews or tours. For more information or to register, visit the Web site http://www.areg.caes.uga.edu. 24th ANNUAL GEORGIA PEANUT TOUR Sept. 14-16 This annual event begins with a “Hot Topics” seminar on Sept. 14 at 3 p.m. Tour starts Sept.15 and will conclude on Sept. 16. For more information visit www.gapeanuts.com or call 229-386-3470. DAWSON COUNTY FFA ANTIQUE TRACTOR SHOW Sept. 25 Tractor Supply Company 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Dawsonville Antique tractor enthusiasts are invited to bring their tractors for this free show. All makes and models of tractors are welcome! Anyone interested in participating is asked to contact Dawson County Farm Bureau Young Farmer Committee Member Seth Stowers by Sept. 20 at 706-429-6469, although driveups the day of the event are welcome. The event will also include a “slow-boy” race and a “blind driver” race. The Dawson County FFA will be selling concessions and taking donations to raise $1,000 to send FFA students to their national convention in October. The Dawsonville Tractor Supply Company is located at 6921 Hwy. 53 E, Dawsonville, Ga. 30534.