WASHINGTON, June 30, 2016 - The Senate’s GMO labeling
compromise has cleared a key first hurdle. Last
night, the Senate voted, 68-29, to overcome opponents' objections to taking up
the legislation. The procedural vote only needed a simple
majority, but the big margin indicates that the bill should easily have the 60
votes necessary to make it filibuster proof.
That critical cloture vote will occur after senators return
next Wednesday from their long holiday weekend.
Fifteen Democrats and Maine independent Angus King joined
the Agriculture Committee’s ranking member, Debbie Stabenow, in support of the
biotech bill last night. Just three Republicans voted against it.
Chuck Conner, president of the National Council of Farmer
Cooperatives, called the vote “a strong show of support” that reflects the
endorsement the bill received from over 1,000 food and agriculture groups.
Nobel laureates jump in GMO debate. Some 107 Nobel
prize winners in chemistry, economics, medicine and physics have signed a letter endorsing
agricultural biotechnology. The message, which will be the subject of a news
conference at the National Press Club today, is specifically addressed to
Greenpeace and its objection to golden rice. But the laureates are
more broadly endorsing the safety and benefits of the GMOs and the need for
genetically engineered crops.
The letter emphasizes that scientific and regulatory
agencies worldwide “have repeatedly and consistently found crops and foods
improved through biotechnology to be as safe as, if not safer than those
derived from any other method of production.”
The letter ends with a strongly worded challenge: “How many
poor people in the world must die before we consider this a ‘crime against
humanity’?” The letter makes no reference to GMO labeling, but the timing
couldn’t be any better for supporters of the Senate’s biotech disclosure bill.
An article about the letter received prominent play on The
Washington Post website.
Acreage, stocks reports due today. At noon today, USDA
will issue its closely watched survey of spring plantings. Analysts surveyed by
The Wall Street Journal are expecting the acreage
report to show record plantings of soybeans because of the
disappointing South American harvest that sent future prices higher. USDA’s quarterly
grain stocks report also will be posted today.
USDA clarifies Sodsaver exemption. USDA has finalized
changes to the crop insurance program with a tweak to the Sodsaver provisions
required by the 2014 farm bill. Under that legislation, farmers who are caught
breaking up native grasslands in the upper Midwest will see their premium
subsidies cut in half. A final
rule being published today in the Federal Register clarifies an
exemption that allows farmers to break up to five acres of native sod without
getting the subsidy cut.
USDA received some complaints that the subsidy cut is only
for four years. It was suggested that a farmer could break up native sod, plant
the ground to an uninsured crop for four years, and then switch to an insured
crop with no loss of subsidy. USDA doesn’t dispute that could happen but says
it had no authority to tighten the restriction.
ITC report details trade benefits. One day after Donald
Trump delivered an extended attack on U.S. trade policy in Pennsylvania, the
U.S. International Trade Commission released a report detailing
how the country has benefitted from multilateral and bilateral deals.
According to the ITC, consumers saved about $13.4 billion in
2014 alone because of tariff cuts that resulted from the agreements. The
374-page report lays out ways in which U.S. exports have benefitted. U.S. pork
exports are among the examples the report cites. U.S. shipments to Colombia
tripled from 2011 to 2014 thanks to a trade pact the two countries signed.
Global food security improves. An annual measure of
food security around the world found that most countries made improvements last
year. The Economist Intelligence Unit, which maintains the Global Food Security Index,
attributed the improvement to falling food prices and rising incomes as well as
overall economic growth.
Some 89 of the 113 countries in the index improved their
scores. Indonesia showed the biggest improvement, followed by Myanmar, the
United Kingdom and Ecuador. The nations with the biggest declines included the
war-torn countries of Yemen and Syria, as well as Haiti and the Ivory Coast.
Trade preferences losing poverty-fighting benefit. It
has long been argued that providing duty-free treatment to exports from
low-income countries can help alleviate poverty and reduce hunger. A new report
from the U.S. trade representative says that while such trade preferences do
make a difference the impact is waning as countries reduce tariffs through
trade agreements.
The USTR report also says that there are many other hurdles
that poor countries must overcome to increase exports, including poor
transportation systems and telecommunications and lack of credit for farmers.
The report also says that even without the trade preferences, U.S. tariffs are
generally already low.
He said it. “We're going to keep on pushing hard to
shape an international order that works for our people. But we're not
going to be able to do that by cutting off trade, because that's going to make
all of us poor.” - President Obama, defending his trade policy in a joint news
conference with the leaders of Canada and Mexico.
Bill Tomson contributed to this report.
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