WASHINGTON OUTLOOK

By Robert L. Redding Jr.

U.S. Senate Agriculture Committee Holds Trade Hearing

USPF Testifi es About Peanut Trade Issues

U.S. Senate Agriculture Committee’s Subcommittee on Commodities, Risk Management and Trade Chairman Raphael Warnock, D-Georgia, held a hearing on “Agricultural Trade: Priorities and Issues Facing America’s Farmers”. Peanut grower Karla Thompson, JET Farms Georgia and Integrity Farms in Camilla, Georgia, represented the U.S. Peanut Federation (USPF) in providing testimony. Thompson discussed the primary peanut export markets and non-tariff trade barriers for U.S. peanuts entering the European Union (EU). Thompson summarized the state of peanut exports early in her statement. “Our primary peanut export markets are Canada, Mexico, Japan, the European Union (EU), and China. To fully understand our peanut trade markets, we need to look at the numbers since the 2002 Farm Bill. In the 2002 Farm Bill, peanuts went from a historical supply-management program to a marketing loan program similar to other Title I commodities. This new market oriented program, now the Price Loss Coverage (PLC) program, reduced the price of peanuts for U.S. growers and should have made U.S. peanuts much more attractive to other countries importing peanuts. After the 2002 Farm Bill reforms, U.S. peanut world market share did show a slight increase; however, since 2015 our U.S. share of the world market has been declining. The implementation of non-tariff trade barriers in the EU and United Kingdom (UK) have only exacerbated this problem. The U.S. peanut industry’s share of the world peanut market is less today than the U.S. market share in the 1990’s.”

Thompson provided more context in her comments to the subcommittee during the trade hearing.

“Why is there a struggle for U.S. peanut exports to the EU and, more recently the UK? Mr. Chairman, as you and Senator Tuberville and 17 of your colleagues noted in a letter to the U.S. Trade Representative, peanuts are susceptible to a naturally-occurring afl atoxin. U.S. peanut growers are subject to stringent testing by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to assure our peanuts are safe to enter the food supply, both domestic and international. The EU, and now the UK, however, are requiring expanded testing criteria for U.S. peanut imports. What does this mean? The EU, and now UK, select 20 percent of U.S. shipments (containers) for afl atoxin testing, and they test 100 percent of the selected peanuts. In contrast, they only select 10 percent of shipments from China and 5 percent of shipments from Argentina. These new requirements for the U.S. are far more extensive than those required of our competitors in the EU and are costing the U.S. peanut industry hundreds of millions of dollars each year.”

U.S. Senators Warnock and Tommy Tuberville, R-Alabama, have led the bipartisan Senate efforts to cure the peanut industry’s issues with the EU non-tariff trade barrier.

U.S. House Appropriations Committee Completes Fiscal Year 2023 Ag Legislation

Bishop Peanut Provisions Included in Bill

The U.S. House Appropriations Committee has approved the Agriculture, Rural Development and Food and Drug Administration appropriations legislation for fi scal year 2023. Included in the bill were peanut provisions proposed by Agriculture Subcommittee Chairman Sanford Bishop, D-Georgia, and supported by the peanut industry.

Chairman Bishop has been working with the peanut industry on two priority research initiatives, afl atoxin and nutrition. Total funding for Fiscal Year 2023 is $4 million for afl atoxin research at the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Peanut Research Laboratory in Dawson, Georgia, and $1.5 million for the USDA Agricultural Research Service (ARS) to work on nutrition priorities.

Peanut Research

The Committee provides an additional $1,000,000 above the fi scal year 2022 level to support research activities to mitigate afl atoxin contamination in peanuts. The Committee directs ARS to enhance ongoing collaborations with land grant institutions to further advance research efforts.

Peanut Nutrition Research

The Committee recognizes the need for more research to identify how peanut consumption contributes to overall health, wellness, and reduces chronic disease risk in various groups and across the lifespan. The Committee encourages research topics to include chronic diseases, nutrition and wellness across the lifespan, health disparities, dietary patterns for optimal health, and nutrition for the future. The Committee provides an increase of $1,000,000 to continue this peanut nutrition research.

The Appropriations legislation will now go to the House fl oor for consideration. The U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee has not passed their version of the Agriculture Appropriations bill to date.

USDA Releases Planted Acreage Report

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) released the planted acreage report on June 30, 2022. Peanut planted area is estimated at 1.54 million acres in 2022, down 3 percent from 2021. Area for harvest is estimated at 1.50 million acres in 2022, down 3 percent from last year.

In Georgia, the largest peanutproducing State, planted area is down 3 percent from 2021. As of June 19, sixty-six percent of the acreage was rated in good to excellent condition, compared with sixty-nine percent rated in these two categories at the same time last year.

In Alabama, peanuts are estimated at 190,000 acres, up 3 percent from 2021. In other crops, corn is estimated at 300,000 acres, down 15 percent from 2021 while cotton is at 425,000 acres, up 5 percent from 2021. Soybean planted area in Alabama is estimated at 350,000 acres, up 13 percent from last year and winter wheat planted area is at 180,000 acres, is up 3 percent from 2021.

In Florida, peanuts are estimated at 160,000 acres, down 6 percent from 2021. In other crops, corn is estimated

Peanut Area Planted and Harvested - States and United States: 2021 and 2022

State Area Planted Area Harvested

2021 (1,000 acres)

2022 (1,000 acres)

2021 (1,000 acres)

2022* (1,000 acres)

Alabama 185.0 190.0 183.0 187.0

Arkansas 36.0 30.0 35.0 29.0

Florida 170.0 160.0 162.0 150.0

Georgia 755.0 730.0 750.0 725.0 Mississippi 18.0 20.0 17.0 19.0 New Mexico 11.2 11.0 11.0 11.0

North Carolina 115.0 120.0 114.0 119.0

Oklahoma 16.0 15.0 15.0 14.0

South Carolina 69.0 65.0 66.0 62.0

Texas 180.0 170.0 162.0 155.0

Virginia 30.0 32.0 30.0 31.0

United States 1,585.20 1,543.0 1,545.00 1,502.0 * Forecasted.

at 80,000 acres, down 16 percent from 2021 while cotton is at 95,000 acres, up 3 percent from 2021.

In Georgia, peanuts are estimated at 730,000 acres, down 3 percent from 2021. In other crops, corn is estimated at 430,000 acres, down 10 percent from 2021 while cotton is at 1.20 million acres, up 3 percent from 2021. Soybean planted area in Georgia is estimated at 130,000 acres, down 7 percent from last year. Tobacco harvested area in Georgia is at 8,000 acres and unchanged from the previous year. Winter wheat planted area, at 210,000 acres, is down 5 percent from 2021.

Increase in planted peanut acreage was also noted in Mississippi, North Carolina and Virginia. 

USDA Announces New Emergency Relief Program

President Biden signed into law the Extending Government Funding and Delivering Emergency Assistance Act (P.L. 117-43), which includes $10 billion in assistance to agricultural producers impacted by wildfi res, droughts, hurricanes, winter storms, and other eligible disasters experienced during calendar years 2020 and 2021.

According to USDA, the Emergency Relief Program (ERP) covers losses to crops, trees, bushes and vines due to a qualifying natural disaster event in calendar years 2020 and 2021. For impacted producers, the Farm Service Agency (FSA) will be administering emergency relief to row crop and specialty crop producers through the following two-phased process:

• Phase 1 will leverage existing Federal Crop Insurance or Noninsured Crop Disaster Assistance Program (NAP) data as the basis for calculating initial payments. • Phase 2 will be intended to fi ll additional assistance gaps and cover eligible producers who did not participate in existing risk management programs.

This two-phased approach enables USDA to streamline the application process to reduce the burden on producers, proactively include underserved producers who have been left out of past relief efforts and encourage participation in existing risk management tools that can help producers handle future extreme weather events.

Eligible crops include all crops for which federal crop insurance or NAP coverage was available and a crop insurance indemnity or NAP payment was received, except for crops intended for grazing. Qualifying natural disaster events include wildfi res, hurricanes, fl oods, derechos, excessive heat, winter storms, freeze (including apolar vortex), smoke exposure, excessive moisture, qualifying drought, and related conditions. For ERP eligibility, “related conditions” are damaging weather and adverse natural occurrences that occurred concurrently with and as a direct result of a specifi ed qualifying disaster event. 