WASHINGTON, Dec. 13, 2016 - Trump transition, soybean export
growth potential, and Florida’s big boost from USDA...
The transition continues to roll on and President-elect Donald Trump continues
to receive congratulatory calls from world leaders. The latest batch include
calls from the presidents of Chile, Costa Rica, Finland, Romania and Rwanda.
Transition officials say that 63 percent of Trump’s cabinet-level appointees
have already been chosen, but of course the ag sector won’t be happy until a
decision has been made about the next agriculture secretary.
A lot of names have been speculated on, including U.S. Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, a
Democrat who hails from North Dakota that we wrote about last week.
But the latest to surface as a possible secretary of agriculture in the Trump
administration is South Dakota Congresswoman Kristi Noem. A New York Times
reporter tweeted yesterday that she’s being vetted for the Ag post and
would be meeting with Trump in New York this week.
But Noem isn’t going to New York, according to a source, and a statement issued
by her office indicated that she planned to stay in Congress. Noem announced
last month that she won’t seek re-election to the House in 2018 and will
instead run for governor in her home state.
In her latest statement, Noem said that it was “an honor to be considered by
President-elect Trump to join his administration.” But she went on say, “As we
tackle tax reform, the 2018 Farm Bill, the repeal and replacement of Obamacare,
and regulatory relief efforts, I’m convinced the best way for me to help
President Trump succeed while also producing the greatest impact for South
Dakota is to serve out my two-year term in the House of Representatives.”
Noem, who is a member of the House Ways and Means Committee, which handles tax
and trade policy, describes herself as a farmer and rancher, and her husband is
a crop insurance agent.
South America may be a limiting factor in U.S. soybean export growth.The USDA announced on
Monday a sale of 256,600 tons of soybeans to China in the 2016-17 marketing
year. It’s just one of many such announcements over recent months, contributing
to an expected strong year of sales.
But the USDA did not increase its overall soybean export forecast for
the U.S. in its latest World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimate. The
2016-17 forecast remained unchanged at 2.05 billion bushels. A new report from
the University of Illinois’ Farmdoc Daily says that’s likely due to a rise in
competition this year from South American farmers.
The report, which relies on USDA data, stresses that Brazil, Argentina and
Paraguay are now forecast to export 2.67 billion bushels of soybeans for
2016-17. That’s roughly 5 percent more that the South American countries
exported the previous year.
“(U.S.) Soybean export levels appear sustainable, but there is understandable
caution related to the U.S. soybean export forecast,” the report concluded.
“While the potential exists for surpassing the soybean export forecast this
marketing year, developments over the next few weeks in South American crop
production and Chinese soybean buying patterns will be crucial in determining
U.S. soybean export levels and, in turn, possible price movements in soybean
markets.”
USDA sees improvement in Japan’s biotech approval process. China remains a
major obstacle for international approvals of genetically modified seeds and
the European process has slowed down, but Japan is a bright spot, according to
a newly released report by
the Foreign Agriculture Service.
The number of approvals from Japan has declined over the past two years, but
that’s because the government has streamlined the process by declaring that
stacked biotech events do not need secondary approval if the individual events
were already approved separately.
“In addition to managing the review process more efficiently, Japan’s increased
familiarity with events using popular transgenes has contributed to more prompt
reviews,” the report concluded.
Japan is one of the world’s largest importers of farm commodities and the
country gets roughly 90 percent of the corn it imports from the U.S.
Florida school gets a major boost from USDA. Florida A&M University
is going to be able to do a lot more research now that the USDA has given it a
3,800-acre research facility. Robert Taylor, dean of the school’s college of
agriculture and food sciences, said the USDA donation will be used initially to
teach beginning farmers.
The facility has been abandoned for five years and the university is going to
need money it doesn’t have yet to make the facility fully usable as a place of
research, Taylor said in an audio posting.
The school has already received some funds from USDA to begin restoring the laboratories,
but more will be needed to pay for dormitories and other additions.
Philip Brasher contributed to this report.
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