It's National Suicide Prevention Month and National Farm Safety and Health Week
Let's talk. Good mental and physical health are crucial to the agriculture industry, your families and our rural communities. In the summer issue of Sorghum Grower, we highlighted a project the Southwest Ag Center was working on for Suicide Prevention Awareness Month, and we're excited to share that completed project with you. Grant Heinrich, a farmer and ag aviator from the Lubbock, Texas, area shares his experiences that he and his family have had with suicide and agriculture. It's a compelling story, and we encourage you to watch.
If you or someone you know is struggling or in a crisis, help is available. Call or text 988. For resources specifically for agricultural producers, visit farmlifehelp.com.
Time is Running Out! Comment to Protect Atrazine Today
The use of atrazine is at stake, a product included in more than 90 herbicide products across the U.S. and one that is utilized on 75 percent of U.S. sorghum acres. You don't have time to wait. Please take two minutes to fill out the comment form online and join us in stopping EPA from limiting your access to atrazine. The deadline to comment is Oct. 7.
Don't Count Yourself Out! Enter the Sorghum Yield Contest Today
You may not believe your sorghum crop will be competitive in the National Sorghum Producers Yield Contest, but in a drought year, you might be a national winner contestant! It's anybody's contest, and, don't forget, winners have the opportunity to be recognized at the 2023 Commodity Classic in Orlando, Florida. Don't count yourself out! Enter today at SorghumGrowers.com/yieldcontest.
Sorghum Smart Talk: Policy Edition - New Episode! Tackling Weeds in Sorghum
In this episode, John Duff hosts Scott Staggenborg, product marketing manager for Sorghum Partners, to discuss weed control in sorghum and Sorghum Partners’ product Double Team. Learn more about this herbicide tolerant sorghum technology and the path our industry is taking to provide farmers more weed control options in sorghum.
POLICY, REGULATORY AND ISSUE UPDATES
Lawmakers Tee Up Stopgap Funding Bill
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) took the first step Thursday toward considering stopgap funding legislation needed by September 30 to avoid a government shutdown. Schumer teed up a legislative vehicle that will carry the stopgap bill, the contents of which are still being worked on, while also filing cloture on a motion to proceed. The House is ready to move straight to a stopgap funding bill next week once it comes over from the Senate. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) told reporters the current plan is for the Senate to vote on cloture Tuesday night. Congressional leaders and appropriators are expected to spend the weekend negotiating over the details of the Continuing Resolution (CR) Senator Schumer is aiming to unveil Tuesday, which he would offer as a substitute amendment. Senate Democrats plan to attach energy infrastructure permit streamlining legislation authored by Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV), at least in the initial volley, but the provision may be stripped out if the CR with the provision fails to secure 60 votes. The CR would fund the government through mid-December when an omnibus appropriations bill may be approved or another short term CR will bring us into the new year, with the election outcome likely to influence which road Congress goes down to conclude the FY2023 funding process. Read more here.
Court Reinstates Trump Administration Endangered Species Rules
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit ruled Wednesday that a district judge who vacated the Trump-era regulations failed to properly evaluate the regulations on their legal merits. The regulations, among other changes to the Endangered Species Act (ESA), prevent the Fish and Wildlife Service from treating species listed as “threatened” under the law as “endangered” and altered the circumstances under which federal agencies engage in ESA consultation over the effects of their actions on listed species and their habitat. Read more here.
Glyphosate Interim Decision Withdrawn
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has withdrawn an interim decision for glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, and says it will complete its registration review in 2026. The agency announced its latest decision Friday in response to a June opinion from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit that vacated the human health portion of EPA’s interim decision after finding the cancer analysis was flawed. It also remanded, but did not vacate, the agency’s ecological risk assessment after finding that the interim decision should not have been issued without an “effects determination” detailing impacts on threatened and endangered species. EPA had been facing an October 1 deadline to complete its registration, but the withdrawal was expected, Roundup maker Bayer said. Read more here.
House GOP Members Look to Shield Agriculture from SEC Regulation
Rep. Frank Lucas (R-OK), the former Chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, has introduced a bill in the House to exempt agricultural emissions from the Securities and Exchange Commission regulation to require companies to track and disclose the greenhouse gas emissions in their supply chains, including farms and ranches. "Ultimately, the person in the field or the pasture is going to be the goal in this, and that’s why we can’t have it,” Lucas said. Read more here.
Rep. Thompson: NRCS’s Technical Service Provider Program is 'Broken’
House Agriculture Committee Ranking Republican, Rep. G.T. Thompson (R-PA), said Tuesday that the Natural Resources Conservation Service's (NRCS) Technical Service Provider Program is “broken.” Thompson, speaking at a Conservation and Forestry Subcommittee hearing, said Congress needs to look at ways to improve the program so it has enough technical capacity on the ground. View the hearing here.
USDA, EPA Considering E-RINs under Renewable Fuel Standard
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack told a supporter of e-RINs for electricity produced from biomass and biogas to look for action this summer, emails obtained by a media outlet show. “We are engaged in discussions with EPA on E-rins,” Vilsack wrote in the May 7 email to Mr. Thomas C. Peters, President of Gronom Corp. and Angel Energy. "You may be seeing action at long last this summer. Will keep you posted. Not sure it is public knowledge and not a done deal, so you may want to keep this to yourself.” Peters had sent an email to Secretary Vilsack on May 1, stating, “there are many people who would love to know” why an e-RIN program hasn’t been implemented. “If you'd like to increase [anaerobic digester] adoption in the dairy industry, this is the way to do it,” said Mr. Peters, who attached a white paper he wrote on the subject that criticized the Office of Management and Budget for not adopting an e-RIN pathway. “And, it would certainly go a long way toward helping small dairy farmers to adopt AD and become profitable with their waste, even if they can't make a profit with their milk. Then, maybe so many wouldn't be going out of business every year.” Vilsack directed adviser Doug McKalip, now the nominee to be the U.S. Trade Representative’s chief ag negotiator, to find out where EPA was on the issue. “Please find out the reason that this has not been approved and what it would take for the EPA to authorize e-RINS,” he wrote May 1. Read more from Agri-Pulse here.
Senators Offer Bipartisan Support for USDA Trade Nominee
Senators offered bipartisan support for Ms. Alexis Taylor to be USDA’s next trade undersecretary at a Thursday Senate Agriculture Committee Confirmation hearing. Ms. Taylor was Deputy Undersecretary for Farm and Foreign Agricultural Services at USDA during the Obama Administration before being tapped in 2016 to lead the Oregon Department of Agriculture. She also worked for Rep. Leonard Boswell (D-IA) and Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT). Ms. Taylor was a member of the U.S. Army Reserve and served a deployment in Iraq with the 389th Combat Engineer Battalion. Senate Agriculture Committee Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) said she hopes to have a panel vote next week on Ms. Taylor as well as on the nomination of Mr. Jose Esteban, the Undersecretary for Food Safety Nominee, and Mr. Vincent Logan, who has been nominated to be a member of the Farm Credit Administration Board. View the hearing here.
Farm Groups Urge Senate Vote on McKalip
In a letter to Senate leadership, over 100 agriculture groups, including National Sorghum Producers, urged the confirmation of Mr. Doug McKalip, the Biden Administration’s nominee to be the chief agricultural negotiator for the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. “On behalf of the broad and diverse stakeholders in American agriculture we represent, we urge you to work with your colleagues to expeditiously confirm Doug McKalip…” the groups say in the letter. Mr. McKalip was unanimously confirmed by the Senate Finance Committee two weeks ago.
Senators Propose Loosening Regulations for Truck Drivers
Senators Mike Rounds (R-SD), John Hoeven (R-ND), Roger Marshall (R-KS), and Kevin Cramer (R-ND) introduced a bill that would let small trucking businesses and agricultural employees skip Entry-Level Driver Training (ELDT) and still obtain a Commercial Driver’s License (CDL). The bill would create a “Small Business Restricted CDL,” which does not require applicants to complete the ELDT process. Read more here.
Bill Introduced to Double Funds for Ag Export Promotion
Senators Angus King (I-ME), Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Joni Ernst (R-IA), and Tina Smith (D-MN) introduced the Cultivating Revitalization by Expanding American Agricultural Trade and Exports Act (CREAATE), a bill that would double mandatory annual funding of the Market Access Program, or MAP, to $400 million and Foreign Market Development Program, or FMD, to $69 million. Read more here.
USDA Seeks Input on Ag Labor Initiative
USDA’s Farm Service Agency is holding three listening sessions next week on a pilot program to help farmers hire H-2A workers from Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. Along with addressing labor shortages through the program, FSA plans to “implement robust labor standards to promote a safe, healthy work environment” for both domestic and H-2A workers. The program is being funded with $65 million from the American Rescue Plan. FSA wants to hear from employer groups on how comfortable they are with enhanced labor standards, and from unions and farmworker advocacy groups on how to verify that employers are implementing labor protections. More information can be found here.
FAS Awards $300,000 for Climate Research
USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service announced Monday it is giving $300,000 to six universities for research into agricultural climate projects in tropical countries. “We are pairing some of the United States’ top research institutions and scientists with their counterparts from countries where agriculture is particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change,” said FAS Administrator Daniel Whitley. “We’re confident that they can collaborate on climate solutions that contribute to food security and agricultural sustainability, both locally and globally.” Read more here.
USDA "Equity Commission" Targets FSA County Committee System
The commission charged with furthering equity within the Agriculture Department wants USDA to consider eliminating the Farm Service Agency (FSA) county committee system. The "Equity Commission" voted Thursday to recommend in an interim report to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack that USDA “conduct an analysis and study regarding the termination of the county committee system and design a more equitable alternative for ALL farmers." The analysis “should include the current role of the county committees in creating disparities for minority farmers, both the historical role of the county committee system and the current displacement of minority farmers,” the recommendation says. In addition, the commission is recommending that USDA “immediately implement a program to ensure that County Committee minority advisors have access to the FSA Administrator to bring in real time issues or concerns within the county and an annual report of accounting to the Administrator on how that committee is operating” and “appoint a minority VOTING member in areas of high proportion of minority farmers without representation.” Read more here.
USDA Announces $502 Million for High-Speed Internet in Rural Communities
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack today announced that the Department is awarding $502 million in loans and grants to provide high-speed internet access for rural residents and businesses in 20 states. The Department will make additional investments for rural high-speed internet in the coming months, including funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. Read more here.
ORGANIZATION UPDATES
Nutrien Ag Solutions - Northern High Plains Division Joins NSP Industry Partner Program
Nutrien Ag Solutions - Northern High Plains Division recently joined the NSP Industry Partner program as a Partner level sponsor. Nutrien is the world’s largest supplier of crop inputs and and services and its Northern High Plains Division provides growers with unparalleled access to high-performing inputs, innovative technologies and personalized agronomic expertise. For more information about the NSP Industry Partner program, contact Jamaca Battin at jamaca@sorghumgrowers.com, or visit SorghumGrowers.com/industry-partners.
Sorghum Crop Update
Eighty-five percent of the nation’s sorghum acreage was at or beyond the coloring stage by September 18, six percentage points behind last year and 3 points behind the 5-year average. By September 18, forty-four percent of the nation’s sorghum was mature, 5 percentage points behind last year but equal to the average. Ninety-three percent of Texas’ sorghum was mature by September 18, ten percentage points ahead of last year and 11 points ahead of average. Twenty-four percent of the 2022 sorghum acreage had been harvested by September 18, equal to last year but 2 percentage points behind the average. Twenty percent of the nation’s sorghum acreage was rated in good to excellent condition on September 18, unchanged from the previous week but 36 percentage points below the same time last year.
Fall Sorghum Grower Magazine: Photo Submissions
Get your camera (or even phone camera) ready, we want to see your sorghum field! Submit your field photos here, or tag us in your #FromTheField photos on social media for a chance to be featured in the upcoming Fall edition of the sorghum grower magazine!
Sorghum Checkoff Releases Weekly Sorghum Basis Snapshot
The Sorghum Checkoff, with Southwest Agribusiness Consulting, released its weekly sorghum basis snapshot, available at SorghumCheckoff.com.
Sorghum in the Spotlight:
Grain sorghum can fit in South Carolina - Farm Progress
Harvest-aid use in grain sorghum - High Plains Journal
DOE $1.85M grant funds sorghum photosynthesis study at U of I - University of Illinois
4 Climate-Smart Commodities Grain Projects to Watch - Feed & Grain
Brand Naming Trends in the Snacks and Confectionery Industry - Lab Brand
Upcoming Events
October 8 Food & Nutrition Conference & Expo (FNCE)
October 12 Export Exchange, Minneapolis, MN
October 18 2022 Sunbelt Ag Expo, Moultrie, GA
October 19 KibbleCon, Manhattan, KS
November 16 Sustainable Agriculture Summit Glendale, AZ
November 16-18 NAFB Trade Talk - Kansas City, Missouri
November 24-25 NSP Office Closed
December 6 Texas Crop Protection Conference - College Station, Texas
December 12-13 NSP Board Meeting - Lubbock, Texas
December 14-15 USCP Board Meeting - Lubbock, Texas
Market News - To view this week’s Gulf export grain report, click here.
About Sorghum Notes
Sorghum Notes is a publication of the National Sorghum Producers. NSP represents U.S. sorghum producers and serves as the voice of the sorghum industry from coast to coast through education and legislative and regulatory representation.