Utah



Ag Advisory Board MeetingJanuary 8, 2019MinutesAttendees:LuAnn Adams, Commissioner Ron Gibson, Farm Bureau Mark Gibbons, Farmers Union (via phone)Cliff Lillywhite, Egg IndustryRusty Bastian, Food Supplement IndustryJared Gaetz, Food ProcessorSunnie Titmus, Utah Wool GrowersAllen Henrie, UACDDr. Roger Rees, DVMLuke Peterson, Urban and Small FarmsDr. Ken White, USU (via phone)Marilyn Albertson, USUMichael StephensonRandy Marriott – Elk Breeders AssociationMichael Stephenson, Utah Beekeepers AssociationJim Withers, Dairy ProducersRobert McMullin, Fruit GrowersSara Witt, Western Ag CreditBrent Tanner, Cattlemen’s AssociationScott Ericson, Deputy CommissionerKathleen Mathews, UDAFSterling Brown, Utah Farm BureauCody James, UDAFMelissa Ure, UDAFRJ Spencer, UDAFMike Kohler, Dairy ProducersNicole Hanna, Attorney General’s Office (via phone)Amy Wengren, UDAFRoberta ValdezTravis Waller, UDAFRob Hougaard, UDAFColleen Dick, Onchenda FoodSymbria PattersonMike Washburn, Thanksgiving PointLaura, Thanksgiving PointExcused: Allison Fiscus, Chris Falco, Scott Robins, and Wade SperryVia Phone: Nicole Hanna, Dr. Ken White, and Mark GibbonsCommissioner Adams welcomed everyone.Approval of MinutesA motion to approve the October, 2018 minutes was made by Cliff Lillywhite; motion was seconded by Marilyn Albertson and unanimously carried.Legislative Update – LuAnn AdamsGovernor’s Office commented that UDAF’s budget looks good.Predators – UDAF will get three new people along with vehicles. The federal government will also hire one new person.Fifteen million dollars for water efficiency – Enterprise Fund. Water is very important.Three Bills from Senator HinkinsElections for the Conservation DistrictsAerial Flying – The state will give authorization to fly over federal grounds. Next, producers will need to obtain an MOU to fly over BLM or Forest Service Ground.Horse Racing – To allow the entity that we contract with to allow them to be in charge of licensing instead of having a state employee in charge of licensing.Representative SandallBrand Bill – Review of Brand Laws.Right to Farm BillSenator Bramble - Kraytom - Nutrional Supplements – allowed to be sold in the state.Money for a ood hub which will help large and small farmers sell locally to schools, prisons, businesses, and restaurants which could lead to Farm Bureau’s Innovation Center.Representative Roberts – Domestic Game Slaughter. Any game that is captively raised,a vet will need to inspect on site and go through a Farm Custom Slaughter.Representative Coleman - Ag Protection AmendmentsClarification of the law regarding the practice of equine dentistry. The definition and licensing requirements need to be met. (In the process of drafting)There are 15 Water BillsRepresentative Logan Wilde – Increasing the loss on predator control that is paid out.Sterling Brown commented that there is a sphere of bills that are not attached to agriculture.-Transportation issues.-Oil and gas exploration – split estate – deals with private property-Transportation tax by the mile instead of by the gallon.-Fire code – requiring sprinklers to be installed in your barn/agriculture structures.-Power rates-Secondary water meters. All secondary water has a meter.Loan Report – Robert HougaardRob reviewed the attached reports.Loan #1 dated January 8, 2019 – It is located in Paradise, Utah for $212,500.00 with 4% loan and a 10 year term with a 20- year amortization. The annual payment would be $15,636.00, beginning January 1, 2020. The loan will be reviewed and maybe renewed after 10 years. The financing is to purchase 16 irrigated acres with four out buildings, feed yard, one home and one well with domestic and stock water rights. The security will be a first trust deed on the 16 irrigated acres of the property. The value of the farm is $425,000.00. This is a participation loan with FSA for the same dollar amount. They will repay from crop and cattle sales; they grew up farming. They would like to incorporate this land with 65 irrigated acres that they already own. They have worked this farm for the last two years. They currently have a small beef operation and minimal debt. With the quality of security of this loan approval of this loan is recommended.Cliff Lillywhite asked if there was enough water rights for all of the acres.Rob Hougaard commented it was.A motion to approve this loan was made by Rusty Bastian; motion to approve the loan was made by Jared Gaetz. Motion was approved unanimously.Rob Hougaard reviewed the Memorandum dated January 8, 2019 (attached). It is recommended that the list of names be approved. The reason to approve them all at the same time is because they all expire this year. This way when they become due, they can work on them in a timely manner.Cliff Lillywhite asked when the recipients receive their loan was it based on a 10- year payment or 20 year.Rob Hougaard commented it was for 20 years.Luke Peterson asked what was the purpose of making loans that way?Roberta commented that because of the way FSA approves loans and the way federal law is written, we have to approve the loans for 10 years and then renew them after 10 years to make it easier for the missioner Adams asked the Board for a motion to approve for the extension.A motion to approve the loan extension was made by Cliff Lillywhite; motion was seconded by Dr. Rees. The motion was approved unanimously.Thanksgiving Point – Mike WashburnThey have five venues at Thanksgiving Point, Farm Country was the first venue, Ashton Gardens, Museum of Ancient Life-Dinosaur Museum, M;seum of Natural Curiosity and next week they will be opening the Butterfly Bio-sphere which is a 10,000 ft. greenhouse with tropical plants, butterflies and insects from all over the world. Since Farm Country was opened 20 years ago, they feel that it needs to be refreshed. Farm Country will be the next area of focus. Currently there are eight acres, and they would like to tell the story of the modern American farmer. There are four farming experiences in Utah; the others are focused on historical farming. Thanksgiving Point would like to focus on the Modern American Farmer and how 1%-2% of the population feeds 100% of the population, what does the innovation look like in the agricultural world, and how the story istold in an interesting and interactive way that gets kids and families knowledgeable regarding where their food comes from. Utah is the seventh or eighth urban state in the nation. The concentration of people on the Wasatch Front means that a lot of people aren’t connected to their food in any real way. At the Food Innovation Center a couple of months ago, Lt. Governor Cox spoke about how people were wanting an authentic experiences and how do we help people who live on the Wasatch Front understand what is going on in rural Utah and know where their food comes from and the issues are surrounding food. One of the revised concepts in Farm Country would be “how do we keep water efficiency in mind”. Thanksgiving Point also wants to discuss Farm-to-Table, connecting people with local food, where does their food come from and how do we highlight what the farmers/producers do. Thanksgiving Point would like to partner with the different groups and have that conversation and brain storm what is the big theme, highlight experiences that should be shown/told about at Farm County. Last spring we visited Chicago and went to the Museum of Science and Industry and to Lincoln Park Zoo. The both have interesting exhibits on agriculture and then toured Fair Oak Farms in Indiana and saw their operation. It is a working farm along with exhibits for the public to help them understand where their food comes from. Thanksgiving Point has two million visitors a year; it is a great way to get information to the public on any topic. Thanksgiving Point is a nonprofit organization and wants to help educate the public and provide great interactive experiences that inform, educate and entertain kids.Funding comes from fund raising. In the past the Ashton family funded everything; they are hoping they don’t have to continue to fund everything. Thanksgiving Point will be requesting money from the legislature. We feel that Thanksgiving Point is an asset to the State; we try to get local buy in from Lehi City, Utah County and State Government, which is only about 25% this money is matched with donations from foundations and individuals, along with corporate funds and partners. Only 4% of Thanksgiving Point’s funding is from the government.We are hoping with the additional butterfly biosphere to become self-sustaining. Best Management PracticesRon Gibson commented that at our last Ag Advisory Board Meeting it was discussed as how we as an industry set Best Management Practices for our industry so that we are not attacked by individuals.Dr. Rees has been reviewing the Code of Practice, starting with the cattlemen. If you look at the left hand corner of the document, which is the Canadian version code and practices (handout). That includes beef cattle, bison, chickens, pigs, dairy, equine, and farm mink. Canada spent a lot of time looking into the Code of Practice; everything is not totally applicable because different countries have different perspectives of animal welfare. Dr. Rees would like to get together with the individual industries and decide if the Canadian Code of Practice would work for the particular industries. We need to shield ourselves from the on slot of animal activists claiming we are not doing the right thing concerning our animals. Can all the industries get together and agree upon a code of practice for their particular industry? If we do that, we have done what we can. The Canadian document is a copyrighted document; we could ask them for permission to use it as a code of conduct for our industries. If everyone would read through it and come to an agreement among the industries then you could have something in place that says “We subscribe to this document – Code of Conduct for our industry.”Rusty commented that he agreed with Dr. Rees. Redmond Salt does a lot of business in Canada and Canada is very regulated, more so than the United States. Do we want to become as regulated as Canada or somewhere in the middle?Dr. Rees commented that the Canadian document may not be entirely what we want, but there is a skeleton in the document that you can use as a template for the different industries.Ron Gibson commented that we need to make sure we are onboard; whatever we put forward is what we will be held to as a standard. Just make sure whatever you put forth your industry can live with.Scott commented that we can revisit any Best Practices at any time.Dr. Rees commented that he feels the legislature wants something in place that allows for verification that we are trying to abide by a code of ethics for our industry; that is documented and registered, as a public document that can be accessed by anyone. There is a great deal of protection if our industries have made it known publically that there is a code of ethics for their industry. Ron Gibson commented that as the State of Utah grows we need to make sure we have strong laws in order for production agriculture to exist. As we do that, we add support from the legislature to do that. Along with that goes our code of ethics that says as a producer we are not willing to take advantage. This is how we proactively prepare ourselves.Sunnie Titmus commented that their code of ethics came about because of wool, docking, and other issues brought forth by animal activist. The sheep industry put together and encouraged producers to follow the guidelines. It is not the big producers but the backyard people, they are the ones that don’t take care of their animals. Ron Gibson commented that we are wanting each industry to turn into the Department of Agriculture and Food, Best practices for their industrySunnie Titmus brought the Wool Growers industries Best Practices.Allen Henrie commented that there should be different types of give and take for the different types of operations.Ron Gibson commented that is why we need each industry to say that they accept certain practices to be put forward.Cliff commented that yesterday the Supreme Court declined to consider a pair of challenges to State Law which means the States had laws on Cattle and egg production where you had to meet certain production or you couldn’t send your eggs or cattle into certain areas. It restricted interstate commerce. Basically the Supreme Court said that they would not listen to the argument and let the individual states do their thing. When you have any group that creates standards, agriculture is a minority, and agriculture will never win at the ballot box. We need to have standards and enforce those standards. The question is, is it production agriculture, how far can you go? Currently there is New Castle Disease in chickens found in a backyard chicken flock, probably fighting hens. The only way to get rid of the disease is to go door-to-door and pay to kill the birds. New Castle disease is a very contagious disease. The State has been great to help to teach producers how to raise chickens, but backyard chickens are the most missioner commented that the Board should take time and review and next time we will approve it.Ron Gibson said that it will be our consumers that will make the demands upon industries and that is why it is important we are proactive in industry standards. It is important to strengthen our laws in the state. Sunnie Titmus commented that there are multiple ways of doing certain practices, and he doesn’t want to say just one way.Brent Tanner commented that you should say “acceptable methods” and list the different methods and not name one best method. We need to define why we do something and then identify when Best Practices are used and what are the best methods. Mike Kohler commented that once this is voted on and becomes code, when there is a court case brought before an industry, they are going to look to the Department of Agriculture and follow what we have put forth. We need to be careful of what we put out there.Action Item: Board Members to review their Best Practices.Randy Marriott commented that the Best Practices need to be vague.Ron Gibson commented in the dairy industry they had to sign a form saying that every time they de-horned a dairy cow that they would use anesthetic or the milk plants won’t take their milk. These aren’t federal laws these are the Milk Plant’s list of standards that the dairy industry has to comply with to buy their milk or we will need to sell our milk elsewhere. It is not the government telling us what to do; it is a new group of buyers/consumers.Cliff Lillywhite commented that if we are not willing to change and keep doing what has been done in the past, we will be out of business because no one will buy our product. The egg industry has made a lot of changes and some of the changes are good changes. Scott commented that the first step was to get language for the different areas and then it is important to take it to different industry groups, such as Farm Bureau, etc., but you can’t take it anywhere until you have some language. We don’t want to negatively impact any group, but the first step needs to be started with missioner Adams commented that they should be looked at yearly, because industry standards could be changed.Industry StatusCliff Lillywhite – Prices have come down. Egg consumption has been climbing. We are overproduced as an industry. Cage free production continues to climb in the country. The consumers are demanding it so we will continue. As a whole the egg industry is good shape. We struggle with issues like any other industry. We appreciate the Department of Agriculture.Rusty Bastian – Markets are going well for the supplement industry. International markets are good; we are selling more into Asia. Some products are being affected by tariffs with the current trade wars. Jared GaetzGMO is a hot topic. USDA has come out with a symbol that has anything GMO. January 1, 2020 is the implementation date for major manufacturers and January 1, 2021 is the implementation date for small food manufacturers. Mandatory compliance is January 2, 2022. The government shutdown is the top of industry news, specifically food stamps. The retailers and manufacturers are concerned what will happen since food stamps are only funded through the end of January, and there is enough emergency funding to get through food stamps through the middle of February. After that, there won’t be any. Walmart and Kroger, etc. are paying attention and trying to figure out how it will affect the retail market.Sunnie TitmusThe sheep industry is in good shape. They are happy to see the moisture. It is a good time to fly with predators when we have snow but with the government shutdown, the federal component to predator control is also shut down. We appreciate the work Commissioner Adams is doing with helping to get a private producer that can hire his own helicopter and fly on public grounds. We are hoping to get that approval in process. WoolGrowers will be going to New Orleans with Farm Bureau for their National Convention.Luke PetersonThere is a lot going on in urban and small farming and direct to consumer. Is there a way we could do a list server for the advisory board in order to find out what meetings are going on? Is there a way a way to get information regarding when meetings are going on? A lot of us are bringing labor from outside. There is a minimum wage for the H2A program. The highest it has been is $11.37 along with paying for their visas and housing. This year it went to $13.13 which is a 23% increase from last year. I need to make a decision on how many people I will bring in. This is the hardest decision to make. For my small farm it is a $50,000 increase in expenses. Labor is our biggest cost. Last week he attended The Red Acre Center’s Conference called the Utah Farm and Food Conference in Cedar City. It is a very accessible conference to everyone. Coming together was a common theme. Allen HenrieIn 1978 Allen Henrie worked for the Department of Agriculture. It is good to be involved in Conservation. When I travel the State I look at all the Conservation throughout the State, especially water. There is a Conservation District in every county in the state. There is a small issue on how they are elected, which will be changed.Robert McMullinWe brought in eight workers on Saturday and that is when we found out it was $13.13 an hour. Soon we will not be able to be in business. We are automating a lot of our procedures, trying to eliminate as much labor as we can. In 2017 the Northwest Cherry Industry shipped three million boxes of sweet cherries to China. Last year with the tariff, we only shipped one million boxes. There is an oversupply of tart cherries. We have a two year supply of cherries in the freezer. Peaches were good this year; there is a lot of competition from California. They are starting to grow late peaches. Apple production was down last season. Apple prices have changed. If we ship to Turkey we have a 50% tariff. When they come to the U.S., they have a zero tariff. Now we have the ability to tariff their products coming into the U.S. If we could eliminate the imports coming into this country of cherry concentrate we could sell every cherry we grow without any problem.Sara WittDecember was the fourth prime rate increase of the year, which impacts customers. There are a lot of industries that are stressed, especially mink, dairy and turkey. However our portfolio looks well because of the resilient ag producers in our state. Western Ag Credit has reached the billion dollar portfolio mark. We received additional income in 2018, and we will pay additional patronage. Western Ag Credit is offering records keeping classes to its members.Brent TannerCattle industry is going into the busy time of the year with calving season. A lot of our producers are struggling this year because they didn’t put up as much feed with the drought, so they have to buy more feed. Their costs are up. We depend on export markets, and we are continually growing our export market. A lot of what we export, we can’t market in the U.S. The Farm Bill was critical to us to get passed. We were able to secure funding for a vaccine bank. Cattlemen would like to continue working with UDAF regarding drought reporting. Our rangeland producers are now understanding and purchasing rangeland insurance, as soon as we found out that the federal government changed their payments. Concerns regarding Brucellosis and changing regulations. Concerns and Issues with Fake Meat/lab culture meat, which is becoming more popular. The food industry is putting a lot of money into it. Working with USDA to identify who will be regulating fake meat.Randy MarriottElk business is tough.Markets velvet to Asia.Michael StephensonCommercial beekeepers are headed for their busy season.Sending bees to California for almond season.Challenges are transportation.Appreciates Joey Caputo getting health certificates up-to-date, we hope California will accept them.Jim WithersLow PricesTough Labor MarketDairy Industry needs ExportsMarilyn AlbertsonFrom the consumers perspective there are a lot of people working without pay.TSA workers are working without a paycheck.Concerned about food stamps, limited income households depend on food stamps.Extension was approved last January to be one of the three home buyer education courses nationwide. USDA rural refers their customers to take this course.Encourages individuals when they have extra money to buy extra food when prices are good.Mark GibbonsJanuary 10th and 11th is the Annual Farmers Union Convention at Thanksgiving Point.National Convention will be held the first of missioner AdamsFeels that all the groups are working well with each other.Public CommentsColleen Dick – Oncheda Open Global Food. They are advocates of the Local Food Movement and want to bring direct contact with customers and farmers. A lot of crops in Utah are hay, they would like to encourage producers to diversify and increase production of “people food” in order to meet the need.AdjournmentA motion was made by Luke Peterson to adjourn; Motion was seconded by Jared Gaetz and passed unanimously. ................
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