With help from Ximena Bustillo
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— Potato farmers across the country feel like they’ve been left behind in federal efforts to assist the agriculture industry that’s been pounded by the pandemic.
— The FDA pegged cattle grazing nearby lettuce fields as the likely source for multiple deadly E.coli outbreaks last year.
— The White House claims the U.S.-China purchasing agreement is on track despite heightened tensions over the coronavirus.
HAPPY FRIDAY, MAY 22! Welcome to Morning Ag, where your host is thrilled to be spending Memorial Day weekend boating and fishing on Lake Champlain. Send tips to [email protected], and follow us @Morning_Ag.
PROGRAMMING NOTE: Due to Memorial Day weekend, Morning Agriculture will not publish on Monday, May 25. It will return Tuesday, May 26.
Driving the Day
POTATO GROWERS FEEL LEFT BEHIND AS USDA BUYS UP CROPS: Mountains of potatoes are being given away or left to cow feed as surplus crops are piling up despite government efforts to distribute the vegetable as part of food boxes given to families in need, POLITICO’s Ximena Bustillo reports from Boise, Idaho. The potato sector feels like USDA’s new Farmers to Families Food Box program, and other initiatives, are not enough to dent the losses in a sector that depends heavily on food service.
The $3 billion food box program, widely touted by the department and the White House, has private distributors buying up excess farm goods and delivering them to food banks and other nonprofits for the growing number of Americans in need of food assistance.
“It was clear the people who were doing well in retail could probably take more advantage of this than the impaired side of the business, which is food service,” said Kam Quarles, CEO of the National Potato Council. “It would be awesome if potatoes are in all the boxes, but are they the potatoes that are creating the oversupply [and] pushing growers to the brink of bankruptcy? By and large, the answer is going to be no.”
Angela Reed, owner of Grasmick Produce near Boise, hopes to distribute over 700,000 pounds of potatoes to nonprofits in Idaho and Montana by the end of June. But the benefit of the food box program to growers is unclear, according to the Idaho Potato Commission, especially when farmers are giving away and discarding millions of pounds of product.
IDAHO IS NOT ALONE: In Washington, producers have been told their crop is not needed at all, despite already planting thousands of acres. Maine’s largest crop is potatoes, which are also largely grown for the food service industry, but the supply chain disruptions have left farmers there with up to $1.3 billion in product with nowhere to go.
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CATTLE BLAMED FOR E.COLI OUTBREAKS: The FDA has pinpointed cattle as the most likely culprit for several E.coli outbreaks last year that sickened at least 188 people in the U.S. and Canada. The agency, in a report released Thursday, said that contamination from cattle grazing nearby lettuce fields is the “most likely contributing factor” in three separate outbreaks, reports our Helena Bottemiller Evich.
Each outbreak was tied to the Salinas Valley, a region in California known as “America’s Salad Bowl” where much of the nation’s leafy greens are grown. The agency noted that each outbreak was caused by a different strain of E. coli O157:H7, a particularly dangerous form of the bacteria.
Agency investigators found one of the outbreak strains as well as other disease-causing strains of E. coli in samples of soil and water taken where cattle were grazing near produce-growing fields.
The FDA said investigators found the same strain from the largest of the three outbreaks on a cattle grate on public land that was less than two miles “upslope” from a farm with multiple fields.
The bacteria, which usually travels via feces, could have spread in various ways, such as through irrigation water, via wind or by wildlife, such as birds.
Call to action: The industry should do more voluntarily to prevent outbreaks, the agency said, and asked leafy greens growers to "redouble their efforts and accelerate prevention through the following mitigation strategies." FDA officials suggested that growers add barriers such as ditches or vegetable strips if lettuce is grown next to grazing lands, as well as examine water that could be contaminated and flow to fields.
PLENTY OF MEAT IN THE U.S. AHEAD OF PLANT CLOSURES: The U.S. in April maintained a steady stockpile of frozen meat despite dozens of processing plants shutting down due to coronavirus outbreaks among employees. Next month’s report from the Agriculture Department, typically released near the end of the month, is more likely to show any impacts from the shuttered plants.
Red meat supplies in warehouse freezers were down 1 percent from March but up 5 percent from last year, according to USDA data. Total pounds of beef were down 2 percent and pork supplies were down just slightly from the previous month.
For poultry, chicken stocks were up 1 percent and turkey supplies up 8 percent from the previous month.
The stockpile of frozen fruits and vegetables continued the downward trend that’s persisted in recent months: Stocks were down 3 percent and 6 percent, respectively, from March.
Trade Corner
WHITE HOUSE SAYS CHINA DEAL IS ON TRACK: Top Trump administration officials on Thursday touted about China’s commitments so far in implementing the phase one trade deal with the U.S., even as the coronavirus has strained relations between the countries, reports Pro Trade’s Doug Palmer.
The deal requires China to make certain market-opening reforms, as well as increase purchases of U.S. farm goods, manufactured goods, energy and services by $200 billion above 2017 levels over the next two years.
U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said China is working to expand access for U.S. producers. And Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue was also upbeat about recent steps China has taken to open its market to U.S. avocados, blueberries, barley, meat, dairy and forage products.
But officials did not release an accounting of how much China has bought since the beginning of the year, and U.S. trade data released earlier this month showed U.S. goods exports to China were actually running below 2017 levels, prompting President Donald Trump to say he could end the agreement.
Row Crops
— NOAA predicts a busy hurricane season with a higher-than-usual amount of storms across the Atlantic, which would strain emergency services already stretched thin due to the pandemic, Pro Energy’s Kelsey Tamborrino and Zack Colman report.
— New York City has distributed 32 million free meals to residents in need, and the city plans to boost its food assistance efforts by next week and expects to give out 1.5 million meals every day, Pro New York’s Erin Durkin reports.
— The Agriculture Department on Thursday unveiled $1 billion in loan guarantees to backstop rural businesses and certain farmers stung by the economic shutdown and supply chain disruptions, our Ryan McCrimmon reports.
— A stabilization fund to help struggling restaurants would be created under a proposed change to the Paycheck Protection Program, reports The Washington Post.
— Most Republicans support Trump’s calls for quickly reopening businesses closed amid the pandemic, while Democrats strongly favor a more cautious approach, according to a new POLITICO-Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health survey. More from POLITICO’s Rachel Roubein.
— Check out this index from Microsoft and Purdue University quantifying the potential risk to the food supply from coronavirus cases among workers.
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