The Omnibus Spending Bill is over 2,000 pages- and includes appropriations for the US Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration, the Justice Department, the Commerce Department and multiple other agencies.

As signaled at the end of last week- language is in the Omnibus spending measure to remove beef and pork from the mandatory Country of Origin labeling law. It's interesting to note that no mention of "COOL" or "Country of Origin" is actually in the Omnibus- it just makes reference to the Agricultural Marketing Act of 1946- rearranging several paragraphs in Section 281 of that measure- and striking the words Beef and Pork- and Ground Beef and Ground Pork. 

Assuming the Congress does pass this massive package- and the President signs it- it is expected that Canada and Mexico will not begin to impose tariffs totaling a billion dollars on an annualized basis against the US. 

It appears that the House will vote on the Omnibus on Thursday- but the Senate will probably not get a vote until the weekend.

Beyond COOL- there is prescriptive language that the Secretaries of USDA and HHS will issue dietary guidelines  that are "based on significant scientific agreement and limited in scope to nutritional and dietary information."  Secretaries Vilsack and Burwell had already said they would be doing this- but the budget deal locks them into this commitment .

The measure does NOT have any environmental riders in the funding language for EPA- which means that there is no stopping EPA thru the budget process for implementing WOTUS if the federal courts remove their injunction in the days ahead.


If you want to review the 2,009 pages- it is online and you can click here to check it out.


There are also another 233 pages that have to do with tax extenders and more- you can read through this by clicking here.
 

 

The Federal Aviation Administration announced this week that recreational users of unmanned aerial systems (UAS), or drones, must register their systems with the federal government via a new website, which goes live Monday, Dec. 21.


"Unmanned aerial systems can make farms safer, more efficient, and more environmentally friendly - and that helps everyone," said Maryland farmer Chip Bowling, president of National Corn Growers Association. "If you're stuffing a stocking with a hobby drone this holiday, take advantage of the free registration window and get it registered."


Anyone using a hobby UAS that weighs from 0.55 pounds up to 55 pounds is required to register as a UAS operator. Operators who purchased a UAS prior to Dec. 21 must register by Feb. 19. Anyone who purchase a UAS after Dec. 21 must register before they first fly outdoors. Drone registration will cost $5 per operator; however, the registration fee will be waived for the first 30 days.

More details on the registration plans of the FAA are available here.

 

Food safety, healthy eating, food waste and big flavors are on the menu for 2016, as Oklahoma State University's Robert M. Kerr Food & Agricultural Products Center has picked the hottest food trends for the upcoming year.


Andrea Graves, FAPC business planning and marketing specialist, said change is inevitable and trends help indicate what is coming next.


"Businesses need to pay attention to trends in order to find new growth opportunities and their target audiences," Graves said. "Understanding these trends help businesses stay ahead of upcoming change, whether it is regulatory or a new flavor profile. Also, in most cases, consumers drive the trends and are looking for products and companies that are meeting their needs and lifestyles."

Click here to review the full list- two of the sixteen that jumped out at me included the number two trend- "Ethics"- and the number ten trend- "Having a Story."

Regarding ethics- Graves says "Consumers, particularly Millennials, are choosing to support businesses that are perceived as being ethical. They will purchase one product over another regardless of price if they believe the company has good core beliefs and appears to practice those beliefs."

And then there is the need to give the consumers not just the facts about the food product- but also a bit of the sizzle- Andrea says that what "Having a Story is all about- "It is not enough to just have a well-branded and delicious food product. Consumers in 2016 not only want to know where their food comes from, but they also want to know the background story behind the company that made it."

Suffering under combined pressures of natural disasters and predatory foreign competition by China, India, and others, financially struggling American cotton farmers received strong backing from Capitol Hill today as 100 Members of the House of Representatives urged U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack to use legal authority provided under the 2014 Farm Bill to provide crucial help.


House Agriculture Committee Chairman Mike Conaway (R-TX), Ranking Member Collin C. Peterson (D-MN), General Farm Commodities and Risk Management Subcommittee Chairman Rick Crawford (R-AR), and Subcommittee Ranking Member Tim Walz (D-MN) led a rare coalition of rural and urban Democrats and Republicans from across the country, inside and outside of the cotton belt, in requesting that the Secretary use his authority under the Farm Bill to designate cottonseed an oilseed, allowing farmers who produce cottonseed to access the same risk management tools available under the Farm Bill to other oilseed farmers.


Three of the five members of the Oklahoma House delegation signed the letter- including former House Ag Committee Chairman Frank Lucas, Tom Cole and Mark Wayne Mullin.

Read more about this plea by the lawmakers by clicking here.

By the way- both the National Cotton Council and the American Soybean Association are giving two thumbs up to this effort to include cottonseed as an oilseed.  Click on the group's name to see their statements.

The December 2015 edition of the Food Demand Survey (FooDS) is now out, as produced by the Ag Economics Department of Oklahoma State University.   Dr. Jayson Lusk is the lead for the Food Demand Survey project in Stillwater and here is his description of the December report that he offers in his latest blog entry on JaysonLusk.Com.


Some observations from the regular tracking questions:
  
Compared to last month willingness-to-pay for all products, particularly beef products, was up.
   

There was a sizable drop in the proportion of respondents who say they plan to eat out more in the next two weeks.
   

There was again a big spike in awareness and concern for E. Coli and Salmonella, likely as a result of the publicity surrounding the Chipotle outbreaks,
   

There was a large increase in visibility of GMOs in the news in the past two weeks.

There were several Ad Hoc questions in the December survey- and you can review them by clicking here- we also have links back to the full listing of older survey results as well embeded in our webstory.

According to the Noble Foundation's Bryan Nichols, there are three main types of nutritional supplementation that are often discussed in regard to stocker cattle grazing wheat pasture: 1) minerals, 2) ionophores and 3) energy feeds.


Nichols says that wheat forage is generally marginal to sufficient in phosphorus and magnesium, high in potassium, and low in calcium. The Noble Foundation has studied both the value of mineral supplements and ionophore use.Therefore, calcium is the mineral that most often limits growth in cattle grazing wheat. A 550-pound steer gaining 3 pounds per day has a calcium requirement of 33 grams. If the steer is consuming 16 pounds of forage, he is deficient 7.5 grams. If a steer consumes 2 ounces of mineral per day, then the calcium concentration in the mineral package needs to be 13.2 percent. If mineral intake is higher, calcium concentration can be reduced.


Providing an ionophore to cattle grazing wheat pasture is a very economical practice that all producers should employ if not raising cattle for a "natural" market. In the same Noble Foundation study, inclusion of the ionophore monensin increased average daily gain 0.2 pounds per day. This increase in gain is additive to the gains shown through mineral supplementation alone. Ionophore intake should be targeted for 100 to 200 milligrams per day. An ionophore-containing mineral will generally cost approximately $25 per 50-pound sack. If mineral intake is 3 ounces per head per day, cost per animal is 9 cents per day. Average daily gain is increased by 0.4 pounds per day, which equates to an increase in revenue of 20 cents per head per day if grazing cattle on a cost per pound of gain basis at 50 cents per pound. Over a 105-day grazing period, each animal profits an additional $11.55.

Nichols also writes about increasing energy in the diet of stocker cattle- you can read his thoughts on that by clicking here.

 

Merial Animal Health will be changing parent companies by the latter part of next year- on Tuesday, Sanofi announced they would be dealing Merial to Boehringer Ingelheim in return for BI's Consumer Health business.

Details of the swap are available here.

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According to Ed Czerwein with the USDA Market News in Amarillo- the star of the primals in recent days has been the Rib Meats.  But- that seems to be ending this week.  Ed writes "The Choice rib started to take its normal seasonal decline Monday.  It dropped over 20 dollars from the morning cutout until the closing cutout which pulled the Choice cutout below 200.00 for the first time since Dec 2013. 

"The Choice Rib was 384.49 at 11:00 am and dropped to 363.32 by 3:00 pm.  The closing Choice cutout dropped 3.72 to 198.78. This is a normal seasonal event after buyers push the Rib high during Oct and Nov because Prime Rib is so popular for employee Christmas Parties.  The collapse normally takes place after the first week of Dec because buyers are done buying.