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Texas Agriculture Archive
December 2, 2005
Softwood lumber case needs resolution
It's time for the United States and Canada to immediately go back to the negotiating table to hammer out a "durable, mutually agreeable solution to trade in softwood lumber," according to American Farm Bureau Federation President Bob Stallman.
A World Trade Organization dispute panel ruling, which was made public earlier this week, upheld the U.S. International Trade Commission's "threat of injury determination" on imports of softwood lumber from Canada. The case is technically complicated and both sides can claim victory depending on which dispute forum—the WTO or the North American Free Trade Agreement—they choose to cite.
"This dispute has gone far beyond that which is reasonable and necessary for two of the world's most integrated trading partners to resolve," Stallman said. "The American Farm Bureau is concerned that the residual affects of the dispute have grown so large that they threaten not only trade in softwood lumber, but trade and policy issues for other agricultural products as well."
In spite of an adverse NAFTA ruling on this issue, Stallman said NAFTA has been overwhelmingly good for U.S. and Canadian agriculture. He said the value of agricultural trade between the United States and Canada makes their trading arrangement "the single most important trading partnership for U.S. farmers."
Soybean rust makes Lone Star appearance
Asian soybean rust—a potentially serious fungus of soybean crops—has been found for the first time in Texas.
Dr. Tom Isakeit, Texas Cooperative Extension plant pathologist, found the fungus on kudzu leaves he collected on Nov. 2 near Dayton in Liberty County.
A preliminary diagnosis made at the Texas Plant Disease Diagnostic Laboratory in College Station was confirmed by a U.S. Department of Agriculture laboratory in Beltsville, Md., Isakeit said.
The rust has been reported in seven other states in the southeastern U.S.
Until the fungus was found in Texas, East Baton Rouge Parish in Louisiana was the westernmost point that soybean rust had been found in the continental U.S., Isakeit said.
Asian soybean rust can live on a variety of hosts but seems to aggressively attack only soybeans and kudzu, Isakeit said.
He had found it on no other plants in the county. His survey included 12 soybean fields in the vicinity of the kudzu. He did not expect the soybean rust to spread outside of the county this year nor did he expect major economic losses because of the find, he said.
"The kudzu should die back with a freeze," Isakeit said. "The rust spores cannot survive without a live host. The only way it could come back is if the spores blow in from somewhere else."
Plants are prone to yield loss from this disease between flowering and the pod-fill stages of growth. In Liberty County, the soybeans are past that stage, and harvest is nearly over.
According to the Texas Agricultural Statistics Service, about 270,000 acres of soybeans were harvested in the state in 2004. The average yield was 32 bushels per acre.
Storm-affected youth supported
Capital Farm Credit purchased eight market animal projects and added on to the purchase of 10 additional projects at the Hurricane Rita Relief Show, held Oct. 29 and 30 at Whites Park in Anahuac.
The show and sale benefited youth exhibitors who had put a year's worth of hard work and time into livestock and poultry projects intended to be exhibited at the South Texas State Fair, which was cancelled due to Hurricane Rita.
"We saw this as an opportunity to help out some deserving young people who were put in an unfortunate situation by Hurricane Rita," said Ben Novosad, Capital Farm Credit CEO.
House passes budget cuts
The House was in session after midnight on Nov. 17 hammering out details for passing a $49.5 billion mandatory budget cut with the final vote being 217 to 215.
There were attempts to reintroduce provisions for Arctic National Wildlife Refuge energy drilling and Outer Continental Shelf natural gas exploration, but neither was included in the final bill. The Byrd amendment that redistributes anti-dumping and countervailing duty revenue to firms harmed by imports remained intact.
The budget includes $3.7 billion in cuts to farm, conservation and food stamp programs.
The Senate previously passed its spending bill with cuts of $35 billion of which $4 billion came from farm programs and conservation, but the Senate bill added $1 billion to extend the Milk Income Loss Contract program. Also included in the Senate budget reconciliation is approval for ANWR and OCS energy exploration as well as retaining the Byrd amendment.
The next step in the budget process is a conference committee of the two chambers to merge and purge differences.
Notable Quotables
"There were 1.6 billion people in the world the year I was born. There are 6.4 billion now. Hunger is commonplace and famine appears all too often. I've seen big change, but still there are a lot of poor, hungry miserable people in the world."
—Dr. Norman Borlaug, 91, upon receipt of the National Medal of Science, the highest honor given to scientists in the United States. Borlaug, distinguished professor of international agriculture at Texas A&M University, won the Noble Peace Prize in 1970 for his development of high-yielding wheat varieties that helped feed the world.
