NPPC mulls risk management, FMD vaccine in farm bill 'asks'
WASHINGTON, Sept. 28, 2016 - Like many other organizations,
the National Pork Producers Council is gearing up for its farm bill push, and a
pair of familiar issues are leading the way.
As Agri-Pulse has
reported, the need for a Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) vaccine bank is a likely
topic of conversation when NPPC makes its farm bill requests. But a risk
management component for pork producers could also make its way into NPPC’s
wishes.
In a recent Agri-Pulse
Open
Mic interview, NPPC President John Weber said an expanded FMD vaccine bank
would be NPPC’s “number-one ask” in its upcoming farm bill lobbying. Expanded
ag research funding would also be a good thing from NPPC’s perspective, but
Weber also mentioned the prospect of increased risk management opportunities
for pork producers.
“The last (farm bill), we had asked for (USDA’s Risk
Management Agency) to look at some type of catastrophic insurance in case there
would be a foreign animal disease outbreak,” he said. “We have had only one
report back since that last farm bill, and there was a lot of misunderstanding
there, so we are going to go back with that ask again.”
When considering what NPPC might push for in any upcoming
discussions, it is helpful to consider what is already on the books. Some
current USDA programs could provide some form of risk management to pork
producers.
For starters, RMA’s Livestock Gross Margin
(LGM) program “provides protection against the loss of gross margin” in swine
production. The program uses the futures price in assessing margins, not the
local price, and doesn’t cover for animal disease or death.
Also under the RMA umbrella, Livestock Risk Protection
(LRP) provides price protection for producers. A fact sheet for the program
says it “is designed to insure against declining market prices” and allows for
producers to choose different coverage levels (between 70 and 100 percent of
expected ending value) and insurance. Again, the program does not cover loss
due to disease or death.
Aside from RMA programs, USDA also offers programs through
the Farm Service Agency that could address some concerns about death loss and
disease. The Livestock
Indemnity Program (LIP) was one of the first programs activated under the
2014 farm bill after livestock losses due to drought and blizzard. That program
covers a wide array of animal species and loss due to “eligible adverse
weather, eligible disease, and eligible attacks” by animals reintroduced by
federal entities.
There’s also the Emergency Assistance for Livestock,
Honeybees, and Farm-Raised Fish Program (ELAP) in the event of an emergency
situation such as adverse weather, disease, water shortages, and wildfires.
However, the program is only authorized to spend $20 million per fiscal year,
and if the total national demand exceeds that figure, payments may start being
reduced.
The very nature of the pork industry may also play a role in
what NPPC will pursue. Since contract growers do most of the pork production in
the U.S., there’s a question as to who would get paid in a scenario in which
payments are disbursed. It’s a situation that USDA dealt with earlier this year
when
issuing a final rule for payments from the highly pathogenic avian influenza
outbreak in the poultry industry.
A spokesman told Agri-Pulse
that NPPC is having internal discussions on the matter, but said a potential
risk management push is “simply one of the issues our soon-to-be formed Farm
Bill Task Force will consider.” Weber told Agri-Pulse
that the task force will be announced at NPPC’s November board meeting.
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