Farmers and ranchers took home only 11.3 cents of every dollar that Americans spent on their Thanksgiving Day feast. That’s according to the Thanksgiving edition of the National Farmers Union’s Farmer’s Share publication. The Farmer’s Share compares the retail prices of food in a traditional Thanksgiving holiday dinner to the amount farmers receive from each item they grow. “We should take the time to recognize the farmers and ranchers that provided our Thanksgiving meals,” says NFU President Roger Johnson. “While consumer holiday prices continue to decline, farm income is dropping at a much faster rate. We’re in the midst of the worst farm economic downturn in generations, and we hope Farmer’s Share illustrates that to the general public.” On average, farmers get 14.8 cents of every food dollar consumers spend throughout the year. More than 85 percent of food costs cover marketing, processing, wholesaling, distribution, and retailing. Johnson says farmers and ranchers play the most valuable role in actually producing the food we eat throughout the year, yet they make just pennies on the dollar for their products. Johnson adds, “The major integrators who control the poultry markets have used their extreme bargaining power to suppress the earnings of the men and women who produce our turkeys while, at the same time, they take in record profits for themselves.” He says those same growers that raise our poultry get about five to six cents per pound of turkey they produce.

USDA recently reduced its forecast for beef production in 2018 by 30 million pounds. The new forecast is 26.9 billion pounds. The slight revision is based on numbers at the end of the third quarter, and from fourth-quarter expectations of slightly fewer steers and heifers to be slaughtered and fewer bulls in the slaughter mix. The industry website Meating Place Dot Com says those slaughter numbers are all found in USDA’s monthly Livestock, Dairy, and Poultry Outlook report. Despite the lower slaughter prediction in the fourth quarter of this year, the steer and heifer slaughter rate per weekday in the fourth quarter is expected to remain above the rate for the same period in 2017. The 2019 beef production forecast was lowered by 100 million pounds to 27.8 billion. The adjustment comes from fewer-than-expected cattle placed in feedlots in the third-quarter of 2018, which would reduce the expected number of fed cattle marketed and slaughtered in early 2019. The September Cattle on Feed Report says there were 4.7 percent fewer cattle placed in feedlots, but 3.6 percent fewer cattle marketed than last year. That means there are 5.4 percent more cattle on feed than a year ago, which supports expectations of strong marketings in the first half of 2019.

The Chinese agriculture ministry is taking steps to counter concerns that the number of African Swine Fever cases in the country is being underreported. The ministry made it illegal to delay or obstruct reports of new ASF outbreaks, to issue false test reports, to distribute falsified health certificates, or to illegally dispose of infected animals. Reuters says Chinese officials are also offering rewards to people who file reports on new cases. Experts suspect that the 60 outbreaks reported in 18 Chinese provinces may not be an accurate number. China has already imposed transportation limits and other biosecurity measures designed to get control of the infectious disease. To date, the infection has caused China to cull hundreds of thousands of pigs from herds across the country. Officials in Beijing also announced a new case of ASF that killed 55 of 73 pigs on a single farm. China is home to 500 million pigs, more than the combined number of animals found in the rest of the world.

A dozen Republican lawmakers sent a letter to U.S. President Donald Trump, asking him to send final legislative language on the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Trade Agreement to Congress as soon as possible. They want Congress to be able to vote on it before Democrats take control of the House in 2019. A Bloomberg report says the legislators think the final passage of the trade pact will be “much more difficult” in 2019 as Democrats have already asked for revisions. So far, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell hasn’t shown much interest in dealing with the agreement before the end of the year. Should the president pursue congressional approval this year, the senators say “we commit to working with you in a consultative manner to draft implementing legislation that will win votes in a majority of the House and Senate.” Bloomberg says the White House declined to comment on the long-shot attempt by the 12 Republicans to get the trade agreement over the finish line. All three countries plan to sign the pact at the Group of 20 leaders’ summit in Argentina, which begins on November 30th. The pact requires U.S. congressional approval, as well as approval from lawmakers in both Canada and Mexico.

Both the United States and opponents of tariffs put in place by President Donald Trump confirmed they want to take their disputes to the World Trade Organization. Those confirmations kickstarted the procedure for the WTO to set up dispute hearings. China, the European Union, Canada, Mexico, Russia, and Norway all confirmed that they will take their disputes to adjudication proceedings. The Unites States also confirmed it wants dispute panels set up for trade disagreements with Canada, China, and the EU. Reuters quotes a U.S. trade official as saying, “The United States cannot abide this level of hypocrisy.” That was in response to each challenge to the steel and aluminum tariffs at the center of the trade disputes. Trump first put the tariffs in place by saying they were a national security issue, and as such are exempt from WTO rules. The other countries don’t agree, calling the tariffs thinly-veiled protectionism that has damaged U.S. rivals globally. They want the U.S. to compensate them for damages and imposed their own tariffs in response. WTO dispute panels are set up to settle disputes as peacefully as possible by encouraging each country to bring their policies in line with WTO rules, rather than litigating.

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer says China hasn’t taken action to correct the practices that led to American tariffs on Chinese imports. The tariffs are currently in place on $250 billion in goods. The trade chief made the announcement at the same time his agency released a 53-page update to its report on its own investigation into China’s intellectual trade practices. “We completed this update as part of the administration’s stronger monitoring and enforcement effort,” Lighthizer says. “The update shows that China hasn’t altered its unfair, market-distorting practices that were the focus of the report in March of this year on our Section 301 investigation.” The announcement from Lighthizer comes just ten days before a face-to-face meeting between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping in Buenos Aires during the G20 summit. The South China Morning Post website says the discussions could either pause the trade dispute between the two largest economies in the world or it could potentially lead to further escalation.

New York Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand says President Trump should reject any farm bill that does not include a refund for dairy farmers who participated in the Margin Protection Program. The farm bill conference committee is reportedly nearing completion of the farm bill, leaving a final version to be passed by the House and Senate before heading to the president’s desk. Senator Gillibrand urged Trump in a letter this week to only support a final bill that includes her Dairy Premium Refund Act, that she says would “issue a refund to farmers who participated in the failed Dairy Margin Protection Program.” Gillibrand says that Since 2014, thousands of New York dairy farmers paid millions of dollars to USDA for coverage, but when milk prices and feed prices fell at the same time, most farmers “lost money on every pound of milk they sold and never received a payment.” Gillibrand serves on the Senate Agriculture Committee and is considered a hopeful candidate for President in 2020.

The Missouri Department of Agriculture announced it will not pursue Special Local Needs (24c) labels for the use of Engenia, FeXapan and XtendiMax for the 2019 growing season. This announcement follows the Environmental Protection Agency’s decision to extend the registration of these three Dicamba products for another two years with additional safeguards.

The Missouri Department of Agriculture appreciates the thoughtful approach taken by EPA in the re-registration process, and our staff looks forward to working with industry partners, agriculture organizations and academia to ensure growers are aware of and follow the new federal requirements.

“We understand it is a challenging task to balance the interests of producers across the United States, but the EPA has worked diligently with registrants to provide a balanced approach,” said Missouri Director of Agriculture Chris Chinn.

EPA has enhanced the previous labels and put in place additional safeguards in an effort to increase the success and safe use of the product in the field.

The two-year registration is valid through Dec. 20, 2020, and includes the following:
-Only certified applicators may apply Dicamba over-the-top (those working under the supervision of a certified applicator may no longer make applications)
-Prohibit over-the-top application of Dicamba on soybeans 45 days after planting or up until the R1 growth stage (first bloom), whichever comes first
-Prohibit over-the-top application of Dicamba on cotton 60 days after planting
-For soybeans, the number of over-the-top applications remains at two
-Applications will be allowed only from one hour after sunrise to two hours before sunset
-In counties where endangered species may exist, the downwind buffer will remain at 110 feet and there will be a new 57-foot buffer around the other sides of the field (the 110-foot downwind buffer applies to all applications, not just in counties where endangered species may exist)
-Enhanced tank clean-out instructions for the entire system
-Enhanced label to improve applicator awareness on the impact of low pH on the potential volatility of Dicamba
-Label clean up and consistency to improve compliance and enforceability

The new label instructions and requirements will be covered in the required Dicamba or auxin-specific training available online through the University of Missouri Extension, or through training offered by Bayer, BASF and Corteva for their respective products.

For more information about the Missouri Department of Agriculture, visit the Department online at Agriculture.Mo.Gov.