<Sept2010>

PRESS RELEASES

SEPTEMBER

NPPC wants restrictions on Cuban trade lifted

NPPC asks president to resolve trucking issue

Price Reporting Act Reauthorized; Veterinarian Bill Passes

NPPC wants restrictions on Cuban trade lifted

WASHINGTON, D.C., Sept. 28, 2010 - U.S. pork exports to Cuba will more than triple if restrictions on travel and export financing for products going to the Caribbean island nation are lifted, according to an Iowa State University analysis.

The National Pork Producers Council is urging House lawmakers to take up legislation (H.R. 4645) that would let U.S. citizens travel to Cuba and allow direct transfers of funds from Cuban to U.S. financial institutions for products authorized for sale under the Trade Sanctions Reform and Export Enhancement Act of 2000. That law granted exceptions for agricultural and medical products to the unilateral trade embargo the United States placed on Cuba in 1960 after that country nationalized the property of U.S. citizens and corporations.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee is expected to mark up the bill tomorrow. In a letter sent today, NPPC asked the panel's mmbers to support H.R. 4645 and to oppose any amendments to it. Senate companion legislation is pending action in the Finance Committee.

Iowa State economist Dermot Hayes estimates that U.S. pork exports would increase by $28.2 million once the travel and financing restrictions on Cuba are lifted. Over the past year, the United States shipped about $13.4 million of pork to Cuba. The policy change lso would create about 6,000 additional jobs in the United States, according to a study conducted by Texas A&M University, which also found that total U.S. exports would increase by $365 million a year.

"Because of its proximity to Cuba - just 90 miles separate the countries - the United States is in position to capture a large share of the Cuban pork import market," said NPPC President Sam Carney, a pork producer from Adair, Iowa. "For the U.S. pork industry to remain successful and viable, we need new and expanded market access, and H.R. 4645 can provide that access."

Exports are vital to the U.S. pork industry, which last year shipped more than $4.3 billion of pork products, an amount that added about $38 to the price producers received for each hog marketed.

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NPPC Asks President To Resolve Trucking Issue

Washington, D.C., September 21, 2010 - The National Pork Producers Council and 36 state pork producer organizations are urging President Obama to work with Congress and the Mexican government to resolve as quickly as possible the dispute over allowing Mexican trucks to haul goods into the United States.

Mexico last month added pork to the list of U.S. products against which it is retaliating for the failure of the United States to live up to its obligations under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) on the trucking issue. Mexico put a 5 percent tariff on most U.S. pork imports.

"The tariff applied to pork will have the effect of placing our products at a price disadvantage vis a vis pork produced in Mexico and imports from Canada and Chile, two pork-producing nations that continue to benefit from zero tariffs in Mexico under their own free trade agreements," the pork producer organizations said in a letter sent yesterday to the president.

Mexico took action on the trucking issue for the second time after the Obama administration failed to present a proposal for resolving the issue. The Mexican government first retaliated over the issue in March 2009 -placing tariffs on $2.4 billion of U.S. products - after the U.S. Congress failed to renew a pilot program that allowed a limited number of Mexican trucks to haul freight into United States beyond a 25-mile commercial zone. The Cross-Border Trucking Pilot Program was started by the U.S. Department of Transportation in September 2007 as a way to begin implementing the NAFTA trucking provision, which was supposed to take effect in December 1995.

In February 2001, a NAFTA dispute-settlement panel ruled that excluding Mexican trucks violated U.S. obligations under the trade deal. The ruling gave Mexico the right to retaliate.

In their letter, the pork groups pointed out that since 1993 - the year before NAFTA was implemented - U.S. agricultural exports to Mexico have increased by 257 percent, with pork exports growing by 580 percent. Mexico is the second largest market for the U.S. pork industry, which shipped $762 million of pork south of the border in 2009.

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Price Reporting Act Reauthorized; Veterinarian Bill Passes

WASHINGTON, D.C., Sept. 15, 2010 – The National Pork Producers Council today applauded the House for approving legislation to reauthorize the law requiring meat packers to report to the U.S. Department of Agriculture the prices they pay producers for animals. The legislation, which previously was approved by the Senate, now goes to the president to be signed into law.

It reauthorizes for five years the Livestock Mandatory Reporting Act, which was set to expire Sept. 30, and includes new provisions requiring weekly reporting of pork exports – by price and volume – and of wholesale pork cuts.

“We applaud House passage of legislation reauthorizing the mandatory price reporting law,” said NPPC President Sam Carney, a pork producer from Adair, Iowa. “And the addition of export and wholesale cuts reporting will further help producers like me make business and production decisions. The Livestock Mandatory Reporting Act is what provides transparency and certainty in the livestock markets and allows competition to thrive."

Carney says the new provision for wholesale pork reporting will make pricing data more fully reflect the marketplace today. The pork industry has changed since the reporting act was first adopted in 1999.

Carney praised House Agriculture Committee members Chairman Collin Peterson, D-Minn.; Ranking Member Frank Lucas, R-Okla.; David Scott, D-Ga., chairman of the livestock subcommittee; and Randy Neugebauer, ranking member of the livestock subcommittee, for their leadership on the issue.

In the Senate, Agriculture Committee Chairwoman Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., and Ranking Member Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., led the fight to reauthorize the reporting act.

NPPC now is urging USDA to move quickly to develop a system for the wholesale pork cuts and pork exports reporting. Also approved today in the House was the “Veterinarian Services Investment Act,” sponsored by Rep. Adrian Smith, R-Neb., which would direct the Secretary of Agriculture to establish a grant program to “develop, implement and sustain” veterinary service to help relieve a shortage of veterinarians, particularly large animal veterinarians.

The program would include recruitment efforts and financial aid for veterinary students. The measure was strongly supported by NPPC, which also is backing a companion Senate bill, S. 3621.

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