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Arkansas Farm Bureau Announces Lineup for 81st Convention

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Arkansas Farm Bureau has announced the lineup for its 81st annual convention on Dec. 2-4 at Little Rock’s Marriott Hotel and the Statehouse Convention Center.

Gov. Asa Hutchinson, Arkansas Farm Bureau President Randy Veach, agricultural advocate Kevin Murphy and farmer-comedian Tim Moffett are the convention’s speakers. It is expected to attract more than 1,000 farmers and ranchers from across the state.

The convention’s theme — Growing for Tomorrow — will be reinforced throughout the three-day convention, which includes several conferences, competitions and special meetings.

The event culminates with the organization’s annual business session, where voting delegates will define the organization’s policy positions on items of importance to Farm Bureau members. The delegate body also elects the organization’s president and vice president.

“Our convention reflects things that are meaningful to Arkansas Farm Bureau members,” said Veach, a cotton, rice and soybean farmer from Manila in Mississippi County, who is in his seventh year as AFB president. “Our focus will be on the issues facing farmer and ranchers, and understanding how those issues will impact agriculture in the future.”

Special conferences are scheduled to address timely topics such as EPA’s waters of the U.S. proposal, international trade issues, federal farm programs, labor challenges, avian influenza and weed control advances.

Additionally, there will be commodity market outlook conferences, as well as sessions dealing with rural health issues and the latest on drone technology.

The convention will spotlight the winners in several different competitions among Farm Bureau’s Young Farmer & Rancher members.

Awards will be presented to county Farm Bureaus for their work in support of the organization’s agricultural advocacy and membership efforts, along with recognition for the organization’s Ag in the Classroom teacher of the year, the ag education instructor of the year and Agvocate of the Year.

The top county Farm Bureau women’s program and Sew with Cotton contest winners will be named and the organization will recognize the recipient of the Stanley E. Reed Leadership Award.

The post Arkansas Farm Bureau Announces Lineup for 81st Convention appeared first on Arkansas Money & Politics.


Arkansans Participate in Agribusiness Mission, See Trade Potential in Sub-Saharan Africa

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Arkansas officials recently returned from an agricultural trade mission to Sub-Saharan Africa led by United States Department of Agriculture Deputy Secretary Krysta Harden. Officials traveled to Ghana from Nov. 15-20.

Arkansas Secretary of Agriculture Wes Ward, Arkansas Secretary of State Mark Martin, Deputy Secretary of State Joseph Wood and World Trade Center Arkansas Representative Denise Thomas were among attendees who traveled to Ghana on Nov. 15-20. Others included representatives from Tyson Foods, the USA Rice Federation, the American Soybean Association and other organizations.

Five state departments of agriculture and 26 agribusinesses and organizations throughout the United States accompanied Harden on the mission.

“Arkansas exports approximately 30 percent of our state’s agricultural products each year and is consistently ranked in the top 10 in the nation for exports of several commodities,” Ward said. “Relationships and face-to-face visits are an important aspect of agricultural trade. USDA-led agricultural trade missions assist the Arkansas Agriculture Department in building relationships with our global partners and expanding opportunities for Arkansas farmers and ranchers.”

Sub-Saharan Africa has a strong economic outlook, a growing middle class and surging demand for consumer oriented foods. The region is also one of the fastest growing areas for U.S. agricultural exports, which have grown by more than 50 percent over the last decade to a total of $2.3 billion in 2014.

The outlook is positive for expanded export opportunities in Ghana and Sub-Saharan Africa. The USDA reports that Sub-Saharan Africa imported an estimated $48.5 billion in food and agricultural products in 2014.

Currently, Arkansas exports poultry and meat products, wheat, rice, dairy and forest products, and distilled spirits to the region. As of 2014, the top Sub-Saharan Africa markets for U.S. agricultural and related products include: Nigeria, Angola, South Africa, Ghana, Ethiopia and Kenya.

“The potential for development in Sub-Saharan Africa is huge. Arkansas agribusiness has a lot to offer and establishing a relationship with this region will be mutually beneficial to our economy and theirs. Good friends make good trading partners,” Martin said.

Participation in this trade mission not only shows a commitment to assist Sub-Saharan African countries, but also demonstrates a commitment to work closely with USDA and other state departments of agriculture to expand export opportunities for agricultural products.

“Africa represents a great opportunity for Arkansas food producers to establish strategic business alliances for bilateral trade and exchange,” Thomas said. “Trade missions of this nature help facilitate opportunities for economic growth within the state. We look forward to participating and coordinating more opportunities for Arkansas companies to be represented in Africa and foster long term business alliances for trade.”

Photo courtesy of Arkansas Department of Agriculture. Left to right: Deputy Secretary of State Joseph Wood; Denise Thomas, Director of Africa Trade, WTC Arkansas; USDA Deputy Secretary Krysta Harden; Arkansas Agriculture Secretary Wes Ward; Ashley Nicole Johnson, Chief of Staff to the USDA Deputy Secretary (an Arkansas native); and Arkansas Secretary of State Mark Martin

The post Arkansans Participate in Agribusiness Mission, See Trade Potential in Sub-Saharan Africa appeared first on Arkansas Money & Politics.

Arkansas Farm Bureau Announces 2015 Young Farmer Achievement Award, Other Honors

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Derek and Shannon Haigwood of Newport have received the Arkansas Farm Bureau’s 2015 Young Farmers & Ranchers Achievement Award.

The Haigwoods, a fourth-generation row-crop farm family, grow soybeans, rice, corn and cotton on 3,130 acres. Derek, 35, and Shannon, 34, have one child and want to leave a sustainable farming legacy for their son.

“I’m passionately involved with making sure my son has the tools necessary to farm. No one is going to take better care of the ground that I farm,” Derek Haigwood said. “It’s where I make my living, so who better to protect it than the farmers? Receiving this recognition is an incredible honor.”

Derek served as Jackson County Farm Bureau president, vice president and secretary. He’s active with the United Soybean Board, United States Soybean Export Council and USA Rice Federation. Shannon serves on the county Women’s Committee and served on the Annual Meeting Planning Committee this year.

The Haigwoods won a $40,000 gift card to use toward the purchase of a new 2016 General Motors vehicle courtesy of Southern Farm Bureau Casualty Company.

The runners-up in the competition were Jeremy and Tracie Kitchens of Lewisville, who raise cattle and swine, and Jamey and Sara Allen of Prattsville, who raise cattle and operate a gate and panel company. Each couple won $1,000.

Arkansas Farm Bureau presented the Young Farmers & Ranchers Achievement Award and others at its 81st annual convention at the Marriott Hotel and Convention Center in downtown Little Rock on Dec. 3. Other award recipients are listed below.

Young Farmers and Ranchers Discussion Meet
AFB president Randy Veach (left) and vice president Rich Hillman (right) present the 2015 Young Farmers and Ranchers Achievement Award Shannon and Arkansas Farm Bureau president Randy Veach (left) and vice president Rich Hillman (right) present the 2015 Young Farmers and Ranchers Discussion Met Award to Jake Haak of Gentry.

Jake Haak, with AFB president Randy Veach and vice president Rich Hillman

Jake Haak, 35, of Gentry won the YF&R Discussion Meet, which provides a forum for young farm leaders to demonstrate their verbal and problem-solving presentation skills while discussing their views on issues affecting agriculture.

Haak is chief financial officer for the Rogers School District and helps on his parents’ dairy farm. He won $7,000 toward the purchase of a Polaris All-Terrain Vehicle courtesy of Southern Farm Bureau Life Insurance Co. and $2,500 from Farm Bureau Bank.

There were seven competitors in the Discussion Meet.

Young Farmers and Ranchers Excellence in Agriculture 
Arkansas Farm Bureau president Randy Veach (left) and vice president Rich Hillman (right) present the 2015 Young Farmers and Ranchers Excellence in Agriculture Award to Grant and Heather Keenen of Farmington.

Grant and Heather Keenen, with AFB president Randy Veach and vice president Rich Hillman

Grant and Heather Keenen of Washington County won the Excellence in Agriculture award, recognizing young farmers involved in agriculture but who get the majority of income off the farm.

The Keenens have a beef cattle, wheat, corn and soybean farm outside of Farmington. Off the farm, Grant, 35, manages the Pat and Willard Walker Charolais cattle ranch, while Heather works in the poultry industry managing farm appraisals in four states. The Keenens have a 2-year-old daughter.

The Keenens won a Polaris Ranger All-Terrain Vehicle courtesy of Farm Bureau Mutual Insurance Company and $2,500 courtesy of Publishing Concepts Inc.

All YF&R award winners also earned expense-paid trips to the American Farm Bureau Federation national conference in Orlando in January, where they’ll compete for national awards.

Other awards 

President’s Award 
Presidents Award

Craighead Country Farm Bureau president Josh Cureton, with AFB president Randy Veach and vice president Rich Hillman

Craighead County is the state’s top county Farm Bureau organization for the third consecutive year. County President Josh Cureton accepted the award.

Counties competing for the President’s Award must earn a Gold Star in each of 10 categories — membership acquisition, organization, public relations, commodity services, governmental affairs, women’s activities, Young Farmers & Ranchers activities, member services, safety and youth — and be a top scorer in their respective membership category.

Other finalists were Cross, Stone, Jackson and Conway counties.

Membership Retention Award

The Membership Retention Award went to Monroe County.

The award goes to the county with the highest membership retention percentage in the state. Monroe County had a retention rate of 95.89 percent. County Farm Bureau president Lonnie Medford and agency manager Curtis Clatworthy received the award.

Outstanding Ag Educator 
Outstanding Ag Educator

2015 Outstanding Ag Educator Award winner Rodney Wiedower of Greenbrier High School

Arkansas Farm Bureau recognized Rodney Wiedower of Greenbrier High School as the state’s Outstanding Ag Educator, which recognizes a high school agriculture education instructor for their efforts in teaching young people about agriculture, leadership and involvement in FFA. Greenbrier’s program includes more than 400 students in ag education and FFA. Through his leadership, the program has had numerous students become state FFA winners in Career Development Event contests.

Greenbrier High School is well-known for its development of student leaders. The present state FFA president, Sam Harris, graduated from Greenbrier High School. Wiedower has been a vocational agriculture teacher for 29 years. He raises beef cattle.

2015 AgVocate of the Year
Agvoccate of Year

Lindsey Triplett, with AFB president Randy Veach and vice president Rich Hillman

Arkansas Tech University student Lindsey Triplett received AFB’s social media award for her agricultural advocacy efforts, earning her the 2015 AgVocate of the Year award.

Triplett, 20, from Conway, is an agricultural business major, with an emphasis in public relations at ATU.

Launched last year, the Arkansas AgVocate program is an effort to help individuals tell the story of agriculture using social networks such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Participants receive points for sharing ag-oriented content, recruiting new AgVocates and when their followers “like,” comment or “retweet” posts. Triplett’s posts reached more than 52,000 people.

The prepared content that AgVocates receive via email and share to their networks helps inform people on current agricultural issues and dispel common agriculture myths. The Agvocate of the Year award recognizes the individual who is participating in the program and doing the best job of meeting these criteria.

Main photo: Arkansas Farm Bureau president Randy Veach (left) and vice president Rich Hillman (right) present the 2015 Young Farmers and Ranchers Achievement Award to Shannon and Derek Haigwood.

All photos courtesy of Arkansas Farm Bureau. 

The post Arkansas Farm Bureau Announces 2015 Young Farmer Achievement Award, Other Honors appeared first on Arkansas Money & Politics.

Veach to Continue as Arkansas Farm Bureau President

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Randy Veach and Rich Hillman will continue as Arkansas Farm Bureau president and vice president, respectively, following their re-election Dec. 4.

Delegates also re-elected seven board members during the final day of the organization’s 81st annual convention at the Marriott Hotel and Convention Center in Little Rock.

Veach, of Manila in Mississippi County, begins his eighth term as president. He is Arkansas Farm Bureau’s 10th president since its creation in 1935. Veach farms cotton, soybeans, rice, wheat, corn and milo in and around the community of Lost Cane near Manila. He is a third-generation farmer and he and his wife, Thelma, farm with their son Brandon.

“My heart is with the farmers and ranchers of Arkansas,” Veach said. “This organization has a responsibility to advocate for and strengthen the interests of agriculture. Our job is to ensure that the men and women of agriculture can continue to deliver food, fiber and shelter to those around the globe.”

Hillman is from Carlisle in Lonoke County and begins his eighth term as vice president. He is a sixth-generation farmer. His main crops are rice, soybeans and wheat. He and his wife, Tina, have two grown children, Collin and Caroline.

“I’m pleased and humbled to continue serving those committed to agriculture throughout the state,” Hillman said.

Joe Christian of Jonesboro in Craighead County was elected secretary/treasurer. Christian is a row-crop farmer who grows rice and soybeans. He and his wife, Leah, have two children, Alex and Grayson.

The voting delegates re-elected seven board members to new two-year terms. They include:

  • Troy Buck, Alpine, Clark County
  • John Carroll, Moro, Monroe County
  • Sherry Felts, Joiner, Mississippi County
  • Mike Freeze, England, Lonoke County
  • Bruce Jackson, Lockesburg, Sevier County
  • Gene Pharr, Lincoln, Washington County
  • Joe Thrash, Toad Suck, Faulkner County

Voting delegates also addressed a wide range of federal and state policy issues, defining Arkansas Farm Bureau’s positions on federal regulations; regulation of unmanned aerial systems (drones) by the Federal Aviation Administration; federal crop insurance programs; state road maintenance; international trade; GMO labeling; avian influenza; feral hog control; and, consumer awareness.

The post Veach to Continue as Arkansas Farm Bureau President appeared first on Arkansas Money & Politics.

Chef Shuttle, Grass Roots Farmers’ Cooperative Announce Holiday Specials

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Chef Shuttle and Grass Roots Farmers’ Cooperative are making life even easier for consumers with new holiday specials. Customers in Little Rock, North Little Rock, Sherwood, Jacksonville and Conway can order a Holiday Sampler or frozen smoked turkey at grassrootsdelivered.com through noon on Friday, Dec. 18 for delivery on Tuesday, Dec. 22.

“Eliminate the stress of cooking this holiday season,” said Ryan Herget, president and CEO of Chef Shuttle. “Order a Holiday Sampler or pasture-raised frozen smoked turkey through grassrootsdelivered.com and share a great meal with your family and friends.”

“We want to help make the holidays memorable for you and your friends and families,” said Cody Hopkins, general manager of Grass Roots Farmers’ Cooperative. “So we’re offering some specialty items that will make exceptional centerpieces to your favorite meals. They also make great gifts!”

The first holiday item available for purchase through grassrootsdelivered.com is the Holiday Sampler, which includes Grass Roots’ finest pasture-raised meats for $98.75. It contains a whole smoked chicken, a variety of smoked sausages, beef bones for making stock and ham hocks for flavoring beans or greens. The second holiday item available for purchase is a 18-20 pound frozen smoked turkey for $98.75. All Grass Roots’ turkeys are pasture-raised and free from antibiotics, hormones and genetically modified organisms. Both the Holiday Sampler and the frozen smoked turkey are not recurring monthly items.

Chef Shuttle gift cards are another great item to give this holiday season. Customers can visit chefshuttle.com and choose an amount between $25 and $500. Chef Shuttle will then deliver, mail or email the gift card directly to the purchaser or gift recipient.

Featured image from Grass Roots Farmers’ Cooperative

The post Chef Shuttle, Grass Roots Farmers’ Cooperative Announce Holiday Specials appeared first on Arkansas Money & Politics.

Growing for the Future: 5 Farm Policy Issues for 2016

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In early December, members of Arkansas Farm Bureau came together in downtown Little Rock for the 81st annual convention. We focus on the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead for Arkansas farmers and ranchers, so our theme this year was “Growing for Tomorrow.”

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The primary work of our gathered members is to learn about, discuss and make decisions on issues that will affect our industry in the years to come. Perhaps the most important task voting delegates complete at each convention is the selection and approval of the Arkansas Farm Bureau’s official policy resolutions and recommendations.

These delegates from around the state settle on the key policy concerns we hope to see addressed at both the state and federal levels and vote on our policy positions on these critical issues. This year, we developed hundreds of policy statements covering more than 75 key issues and topics. Each and every one of these statements and concerns is of importance to our members, but I would like to highlight five that we believe to be critical as we prepare for 2016:

1. Burdensome Federal Regulations

When it comes to regulations, we’ve faced the challenge of government overreach for years, but 2015 brought the proposed Waters of the U.S. (WOTUS) regulation from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and it has truly upped the ante. While implementation of this new rule is currently blocked by a court decision, if implemented, it could be a real threat to the business of farming not only in Arkansas, but also throughout the country. We believe farmers and ranchers are the best stewards of the land and environment, and we do not believe it should be EPA’s place to take jurisdictional authority of essentially every body of water or connected land in every county and state.

It is our belief that an issue this important should be resolved by Congress, the men and women elected to make decisions like this after getting valuable input from local and state stakeholders. EPA’s efforts on this issue reflect agency bureaucracy run amok. We continue to support S. 1140, the Federal Water Quality Protection Act, which requires the EPA to withdraw the rule and to adhere to limiting principles to ensure any new proposal conforms to the jurisdictional limits set by Congress and affirmed by the Supreme Court. As we enter 2016, the ultimate fate of the WOTUS rules and, in turn, the land rights and livelihoods of farmers hang in the balance.

2. Regulation of Unmanned Aerial Systems (Drones)

The use of drones is already playing a critical role in farming in our state, and drones have great potential for improving agriculture in a variety of ways, from including enhancing crop scouting and health monitoring to providing 3-D terrain mapping, improving irrigation management and assisting in crop-damage assessment. Drones also have potential to aid in the monitoring of livestock and pastures or fencing and even timber.

The Federal Aviation Administration is in the final stages of creating certain drone rules. The American Farm Bureau has been involved in helping shape those rules to preserve their agricultural applications while balancing privacy and safety concerns, but drone users can expect more regulations as technology evolves and issues come to light.

3. State Road Maintenance

Contrary to at least one report, we are not pushing for any new taxes at this point. Our position in regards to highway and roadway funding goes a bit deeper than that. Primarily, we oppose the Arkansas State Highway and Transportation Department shifting responsibility for maintenance of state highways to counties and municipalities. We believe the upkeep of these roads is critical for industry (particularly agriculture and farm-to-market roads) in Arkansas and the burden of keeping these roads usable and passable is with the state. The 2015 legislative session of the Arkansas General Assembly produced a variety of concepts for future highway funding, but no consensus plan, and we are in favor of several ideas for funding critical road work, should such funding be required.

Our policy on roads and highways is detailed and states, among many other things, that: “Better farm-to-market roads continue to be a goal,” and that “we request adequate funds for rural road improvements.” In addition, it states that “we recommend the first alternative for paying for a highway program be a fuel tax, and the second alternative be bonds in conjunction with a sales tax, toll roads (where feasible), or other measures.”

4. International Trade

Simply put, we urge Congress and President Barack Obama to increase exports and offset high tariffs to make U.S. commodities competitive in the world market. The U.S. has continued to focus on bilateral or multilateral trade agreements to open new markets to U.S. goods. The recent Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement is an example of an agreement that could hold great potential for all Arkansas commodities. However, while a deal has been reached, there remain many hurdles to final passage and implementation of this agreement between the United States and 11 Pacific Rim countries. Still, we, along with the American Farm Bureau, are conducting a thorough analysis of the agreement so that we can fully understand the deal’s ramifications on Arkansas agricultural commodities.

5. GMO Labeling

Legislation has been introduced in more than 30 states to label products containing biotech ingredients. We think it’s inevitable that there will be a push to label foods or prevent the use of certain products in Arkansas. Last Congress, H.R. 4432, the Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act, was introduced and would have created a national standard for labeling. We support this legislation and this is one of the priority issues for both the American and Arkansas Farm Bureaus. Specifically, our policy states that “we support the Safe and Accurate Food Labeling legislation” and “we oppose any efforts by individual states to mandate GMO labeling.”

The post Growing for the Future: 5 Farm Policy Issues for 2016 appeared first on Arkansas Money & Politics.

Top 5 Arkansas Agribusiness Stories of 2015

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The story of American agriculture in 2015, as it so often does, revolved around supply and demand. And, it was a bad year for farmers to see the former outweigh the latter.

1. Demise of Direct Payments 

2015 saw the implementation of a new federal farm program. It brought the end of “direct payments,” which farmers received regardless of crop prices. Growers of Sun Belt crops like rice, cotton and peanuts had been particularly reliant upon direct payments. But the shift to different programs came just as crop prices fell to their lowest in nearly a decade, due to a combination of a successful growing season and slumping overseas demand.

Read more here and here. Click the graph below to enlarge.

Chart courtesy of U.S. Department of Agriculture

Chart courtesy of U.S. Department of Agriculture

2. Decline in Farm-Related Sales

Declining farmer profits also rang alarm bells in agribusiness, which experienced reduced sales. The board of the world’s biggest farm chemical company, Switzerland’s Syngenta AG, rejected repeated takeover bids by rival Monsanto Co. despite criticism from restless stockholders. In October, that pressure led CEO Mike Mack to resign. Similar shareholder complaints about performance also led to the October resignation of DuPont Pioneer CEO Ellen Kullman. Farm equipment sales have dropped precipitously, and major manufacturers like Deere & Company have laid off thousands of workers; sales of large farm tractors were down nearly 30 percent through October.

Read more here. Click the graph below to enlarge.

Courtesy of Association of Equipment Manufacturers

Chart courtesy of Association of Equipment Manufacturers

3. Battle of the EPA Clean Water Rule  

Agricultural interests have focused much of their energy the last two years on quashing the federal Environmental Protection Agency’s “Clean Water Rule,” originally the “Waters of the U.S. Rule.” Formally released in March 2014, the regulation would extend Clean Water Act jurisdiction to geographic features not currently covered, overturning a 2006 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that prevented EPA from blocking commercial development in isolated wetlands. In March 2015, the EPA reissued a modified rule, while dropping a separate interpretive document that agricultural groups said would prohibit common farming practices and turn the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service into a policing agency. The U.S. House passed a bill to block the rule, but it stalled in the Senate. However, state attorneys general, including Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge, filed suit against the rule, and on Oct. 9, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit issued a nationwide stay that prevents EPA from implementing it. The majority of a divided 2-1 panel said the stay “temporarily silences the whirlwind of confusion that springs from uncertainty about the requirements of the new Rule and whether they will survive legal testing.” Although the majority said the plaintiffs are likely to ultimately prevail, the case is still in adjudication. The Supreme Court may yet get another bite at this apple.

Read more here.

4. Agreement on Trans-Pacific Partnership

On Oct. 5, after seven years of talks, negotiators from the U.S. and 11 other countries reached agreement on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which lowers trade barriers and addresses other issues that create unequal international commerce conditions between the signatories. U.S. farm groups had been particularly keen on concessions made by TPP member Japan, which imposes tariffs or volume restrictions on many commodities. Of particular interest to Arkansas, under the agreement, Japan will establish a new, duty-free quota for U.S. rice. However, the U.S. industry believes any gains will be offset by market share losses in Mexico to major rice exporter Vietnam, both of which are also TPP members.

Read more here.

5. Impact of Avian Flu 

The highly pathogenic H5N2 virus only struck one Arkansas commercial poultry facility, but its spread to more than 80 others across the country forced the destruction of 30 million birds and pushed egg prices to record highs. It also caused foreign customers to suspend poultry imports, which ironically backed up supplies and depressed chicken prices. The outbreaks traced the path of wild fowl trekking south for the winter, and it’s feared the flu will return.

Read more here.

Image credit

The post Top 5 Arkansas Agribusiness Stories of 2015 appeared first on Arkansas Money & Politics.

Why Agribusiness Employers Should Plan Ahead for H-2A Workers in 2016

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Now that winter is here, many agribusinesses may be reminded of Aesop’s fable, “The Ant and the Grasshopper.”

In this old story, the Grasshopper — as it hopped about leisurely one summer’s day — came upon an Ant toiling in the hot sun. As the Ant tirelessly worked to move some food near its home, the Grasshopper said, “You should come take a break with me out of this hot sun!” The Ant replied, “I am helping to lay up food for the winter, and recommend you to do the same.” The Grasshopper laughed and said, “We have plenty of food! There is no need to worry about the winter!” The Ant ignored the Grasshopper and continued its toil. Of course, when winter came, the Grasshopper had no food and found itself hungry, at last realizing that it is best to prepare for days of need.

The moral of Aesop’s fable is readily applicable to employers considering the H-2A visa program for much-needed agriculture workers.

For background purposes, an H-2A visa allows an employer to sponsor a foreign national to enter the United States to engage in temporary or seasonal agricultural work for one year or, if extended, up to three years. Like the Ant, employers should begin planning for H-2A sponsorship before labor intensive seasons approach, because H-2A visas are only available if:

  1. The sponsoring employer can prove that there are not sufficient able, willing and qualified domestic workers for the positions
  2. The employment of H-2A workers will not adversely affect the wages and working conditions of similarly-employed U.S. workers

To satisfy these conditions, employers must make good faith efforts to recruit domestic workers in the relevant labor market. Accordingly, a job offer must be filed with the applicable state workforce agency between 60 and 75 days before the workers are needed.

There are numerous additional steps in this entire process, such as:

  1. Applying to the U.S. Department of Labor for a temporary labor certification and any other additional steps required
  2. Filing a recruitment report with DOL
  3. Obtaining a certified Temporary Labor Certification from DOL
  4. Filing an H-2A petition with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services

Once the H-2A visas are approved by USCIS, the prospective H-2A workers can then apply for the H-2A visa at a U.S. Embassy or Consulate abroad, or otherwise apply for a change or extension of status.

Sponsoring H-2A workers comes with certain unique legal obligations for employers. For instance, employers are required to provide H-2A workers with transportation, safe housing and certain mandatory wages determined by the DOL for the duration of the seasonal employment. Additionally, H-2A workers are guaranteed employment for at least three-fourths of the workdays described in their employment contract. If the employer fails to meet this requirement, the H-2A workers must be paid for three-fourths of the initially promised days of work.

H-2A workers are critical in assisting certain markets with the production of high-value crops in Arkansas and within the United States. As winter approaches, employers with labor needs will benefit greatly from ample planning, as the process from start to finish can last three months before a foreign worker is allowed entrance into the United States. Accordingly, like the Ant in Aesop’s Fable, employers should begin working on H-2A petitions as soon as possible.

Please contact an attorney from the Firm’s Immigration Section for more information about this topic.

Image credit

This post was written in collaboration with Abtin Mehdizadegan, an associate attorney with Cross, Gunter, Witherspoon & Galchus, P.C.

The post Why Agribusiness Employers Should Plan Ahead for H-2A Workers in 2016 appeared first on Arkansas Money & Politics.


Warren Carter Named EVP of Arkansas Farm Bureau

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Warren Carter has been named executive vice president of Arkansas Farm Bureau.

He replaces Rodney Baker, who recently retired.

The executive vice president serves as the agency’s chief executive officer, manages staff functions for the organization and reports to the board of directors.

Carter, 52, is a 28-year employee of Arkansas Farm Bureau. He has served as the organization’s director of commodity and regulatory affairs since 2002. In that role, he managed staff responsibilities for support of the state check-off programs, economic research in support of Farm Bureau policies and programs and the organization’s commodity market information and education programs.

A native of Mantee, Mississippi, Carter holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in agricultural economics from Mississippi State University. He first joined Farm Bureau in 1987, where he had responsibility for the wheat and feed grains, forestry and aquaculture commodity programs.

“Warren has deep respect within the agricultural industry, and will help lead the organization’s effort as the unifying voice of agriculture in Arkansas,” said Arkansas Farm Bureau President Randy Veach. “While there are fewer farmers than before, there is not less farming. The issues affecting agriculture are more acute than ever, as government support decreases and regulation increases.

“Warren understands the grassroots nature of the organization; that our policy is defined by our membership and that policy drives our political activity. He has been a critical part of that process for almost 30 years, and we are confident his leadership will lead to the continued effectiveness and relevancy of Farm Bureau.”

“I am humbled by the trust the board of directors has demonstrated,” said Carter. “My career has always focused on meeting the needs of Arkansas Farm Bureau members. That will remain my focus, as well as that of our dedicated staff.”

The post Warren Carter Named EVP of Arkansas Farm Bureau appeared first on Arkansas Money & Politics.

6 Tapped for Arkansas Agriculture Hall of Fame

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The Arkansas Agriculture Hall of Fame has announced its newest class of inductees.

The new inductees include:

  • The late W.H. (Bill) Caldwell of Rose Bud
  • The late Hank Chamberlin of Monticello
  • Retired poultry executive Gary C. George of Springdale
  • State Representative and rice farmer David Hillman of Almyra
  • Longtime Cooperative Extension rice specialist Bobby Huey of Newport
  • Cattleman John Frank Pendergrass of Charleston

The group will be honored at the 28th annual induction luncheon at 11:30 a.m. on March 4 at Little Rock’s Embassy Suites Hotel.

“I am always amazed at the hard work and success that is reflected by those elected to the Arkansas Agriculture Hall of Fame,” said Butch Calhoun of Des Arc, chairman of the Arkansas Agriculture Hall of Fame and former Arkansas Secretary of Agriculture.

“This group is a representation of the diversity and achievement of our agricultural industry. Agriculture is truly one of the great success stories of our state, and the Arkansas Agriculture Hall of Fame exists to recognize those who have helped elevate agriculture in our state and have worked to make a positive impact on the lives of so many people.”

AHOF

About the Inductees

Caldwell had his hand in many agricultural endeavors, operating a dairy farm, a feed mill business, Caldwell & Sons Eggs and Sidon Mountain Brangus Ranch. Under his guidance, his feed mill, Caldwell Milling, grew to more than 100 employees and seven locations around the state. It received numerous honors through the years, including Purina’s President’s Award for leading in sales. Caldwell was also a community leader, playing a major role in the formation of the town of Rose Bud, where he served on the town council and as mayor.

Chamberlin founded what is now the School of Forestry and Natural Resources at the University of Arkansas at Monticello, the only forestry school in the state. He launched the forestry program with a mere three students in 1945. He remained as head of the forestry school until 1972 and continued teaching until 1980. The following year, he was selected as a Fellow of the Society of American Foresters. In 1994, he was an inaugural inductee in the Arkansas Forester’s Hall of Fame.

George is chairman of the board of Georges Inc., leading a family poultry business started in the 1920s by his late grandfather, C.L. George. George was appointed president of George’s, Inc. and is subsidiaries in 1980 at the age of 30. In 1994, he was named CEO. Under his leadership, the company grew to include operations in multiple states and more than 4,700 employees. George has held positions on the Poultry Federation, the American Egg Board, the National Chicken Council, the Arkansas Industrial Development Commission, the University of Arkansas Board of Trustees, and
the boards of Legacy National Bank and J.B. Hunt Company.

Hillman, currently state representative for District 13, is one of just 10 men to serve as president of the Arkansas Farm Bureau, the state’s leading agricultural advocacy organization. A rice farmer, Hillman has served on the board of Producers Rice Mill, the USDA Crop Advisory Committee (Rice) and the U.S.A. Rice Council board. He is past chairman of the Arkansas Rice Research and Promotion Board and served as a director for the Arkansas County Conservation District. In 1980, he was chosen Arkansas Outstanding Young Farmer and, in 1984, he and his family were selected as North Arkansas County Farm Family of the Year.

Huey spent 33 years with University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture, including 20 years as a rice specialist at the organization’s experiment station in Stuttgart. During his long career, Huey received numerous honors, including an Extension Specialist of the Year Award, an Arkansas Farm Bureau Service Award, John White Outstanding Extension Award and a “Friend of the Farmer” Award from Riceland Foods Inc.

Pendergrass is a fifth-generation cattle farmer on Pendergrass Ranch in Franklin County. As president of Pendergrass Cattle Company, he has built one of the top beef herds in the state, earning him recognition as 2008 Arkansas Stocker of the Year by the Arkansas Cattelmen’s Association and the 2008 National Stocker Award from Beef magazine, representative of the top stocker herd in the United States.

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Agribusiness: What the Highway-Funding Quandary Means for Arkansas Agriculture

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February/March 2016 Issue

 

There was some grumbling in 2008 when Arkansas voters approved Amendment 86. Although the constitutional amendment that authorized a fiscal legislative session in even-numbered years passed with 69 percent of the vote, Gov. Mike Beebe thought the ballot language had misled voters, and some legislators wanted to initiate another ballot issue to repeal the fiscal session.

And now? No big deal, although a few people are still miffed the 2016 session was moved to April to accommodate the early primary.

“The fiscal sessions that they’ve had so far have been pretty lean, pretty short, and from what we understand they’re going to attempt to make this one the same way,” said Jeff Pitchford, Arkansas Farm Bureau director of public policy for state affairs.

Added state Rep. David Hillman, D-Almyra, the vice chair of the House Committee on Agriculture, Forestry and Economic Development, “Most of our budget work was done during the regular session, and basically what we’re going to be doing this time is just rubber stamping what we have already decided to do.”

What has Hillman concerned is what will happen next year and beyond. The veteran farm leader told AMP in the 2017 regular session, “We’re going to have to make some decisions at that time about what state services we want to cut… or is there a way with growth in the tax base we won’t have to make any, and we can continue the same services that we’ve had in the past from the state?”

Hillman said he will take a stand on continuing to allow growth in K-12 education funding based on revenue increases; he also plans to fight to maintain spending on programs important to rural Arkansas.

Pitchford said Farm Bureau hopes to work some additional money into the fiscal session for the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture. Last year, the Legislature approved a one-time infusion of $3 million for the division from the General Improvement Fund, and Pitchford said while that will help this year, “We’re going to continue to push and to ask the governor and Legislature to look at an increase in base funding. Our members rely on those extension programs and extension agents in each county, and they’ve had a hard time keeping those positions filled because of turnover and lack of increases for salaries.”

While the fiscal sessions have become routine, the Arkansas General Assembly finds itself swimming in special sessions. Last year, a special session was convened to move the primary and judicial elections, and to approve a bond issue to help the Lockheed Martin facility in Camden. This year, there will likely be more than one additional session. A legislative task force has suggested changes that would maintain but reduce the cost of the private option for health care; lawmakers are also expected to tackle prison reform.

But for the farm community, the big issue will likely be highway funding. In December, the Governor’s Working Group on Highway Funding called for developing “a strategy to net $110 million in additional revenue annually to the Highway Department over the next one to three years,” rising to $160 million when federal obligations and shares distributed to cities and counties are taken into account. While the working group is still looking for a long-term source for those funds, it came up with several possible immediate steps, including higher fuel taxes and a transfer of vehicle tax money out of general revenues.

“We’re very much in favor of an aggressive highway program because of the farm-to-market roads. In Arkansas there are thousands of those types of roads across the state, and they’re things that our members are very much interested in,” Pitchford told AMP.

Although Farm Bureau has expressed support for sources of highway revenue in the past, like the 2012 bond issue that earmarked an increase in the sales tax for highway improvement, Pitchford said they’ll wait to see what the Legislature and Gov. Asa Hutchinson have to say before offering a recommendation. (The governor has said he plans to call special legislative sessions to cover highway funding and the private option, but had not announced any specifics as of press time.)

Pitchford’s colleague at Farm Bureau, Director of Public Relations Rob Anderson, said, “We have several options that we prefer for how that could be paid for, but we’re not pushing a tax; that’s just one of the options that we would support.”

Hillman has a novel suggestion — a gas tax that’s price-based, rather than volume-based.

“That way, as the price goes up, the revenue would go up,” he explains. “What we’ve got now is decreasing revenue and increasing expenses on roads, so we’re going to have to do something about that.”

He opposes using general revenues for transportation, though that’s what Hutchinson has proposed, saying, “I’ve always felt that the people who use roads and benefit from them ought to be the ones to pay for it.”

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Science Says Safe: The Truth About GMOs & Farming

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Do you remember where you first heard the term “GMO”? Was it on the news? On a blog? On food packaging or in marketing at restaurant chains?

The acronym stands for genetically modified organisms, and it’s become a hot-button issue among consumers, foodies and environmentalists. An unfortunate driver of the GMO controversy is a general lack of knowledge and understanding of the topic. Indeed, if your understanding of GMOs comes mostly from marketing, food packaging or TV talk shows, it’s probably time to start paying attention to what science has to say on the subject.

Focusing on the science of GMOs was one of the major messages at this year’s American Farm Bureau convention in Orlando, Florida. Attendees heard from renowned environmentalist and author Mark Lynas, a visiting fellow at Cornell University’s Alliance for Science, who explained how he transitioned from anti-GMO activist to someone who now speaks in favor of the science.

Lynas said that “if you want to feed a world of 7 billion people sustainably without destroying the rain forests, you need modern technology (like GMOs). You can’t do it without it.”

Lynas changed his mind on GMOs, he said, because he realized that he was urging people to listen to the scientific community on climate issues while ignoring the fact that science supported GMOs, as well.

“To be consistent … I had to reverse my position on GMOs,” he said.

So, what are GMOs?

Let’s start with the basics (which, it turns out, are not as basic as most might presume). According to the World Health Organization, genetically modified organisms can be defined as organisms (i.e., plants, animals or microorganisms) in which the genetic material (DNA) has been changed through mating or natural recombination. The process is also referred to as “genetic enhancement,” “biotechnology” or “gene technology.”

It allows selected individual genes to be transferred from one organism into another or between nonrelated species. In plant agriculture, it has come to mean the process of intentionally making a copy of a gene for a desired trait from one plant or organism and using it in another plant.

It is often the misperception that biotechnology is strictly about transferring genes between unrelated plants, but that’s not the case. Frequently, it means manipulating genes in the same crops or plants. The truth is that this sort of genetic enhancement and trait selection has been practiced by those in agriculture and horticulture for a very long time. Indeed, farmers have manipulated crops for better results for thousands of years and it has changed the look and feel of some very familiar and common foods.

To see what watermelon, corn, bananas and other crops would look like without this human manipulation, take a look here.

Why has biotechnology and GMO use expanded through the years?

As Lynas pointed out, one of the major motives is to feed a growing world population, while also reducing waste and increasing efficiency in farming. Farmers choose seeds based on what is best for their farms, market demand and local growing environment. Thus, a farmer might select GMO seeds to reduce yield loss or crop damage from weeds, diseases and insects, as well as from extreme weather, such as drought. Farmers also choose GMOs to reduce the impact of agriculture on their environment and manage their costs — for example, by applying pesticides in more targeted ways and thereby reducing use.

Farmers have also used GMOs to save crops and create crops that can save lives — a high-profile example is the creation of beta carotene-rich “golden rice,” which could help children in developing countries who don’t get enough of this vital nutrient.

So, then comes the big question: Are they safe to consume?

Science resoundingly says “yes.”

A statement from the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) sums things up nicely: “…the science is quite clear: crop improvement by the modern molecular techniques of biotechnology is safe. Rather, these initiatives are driven by a variety of factors, ranging from the persistent perception that such foods are somehow ‘unnatural’ and potentially dangerous to the desire to gain competitive advantage by legislating attachment of a label meant to alarm.”

The AAAS goes on to state that “civilization rests on people’s ability to modify plants to make them more suitable as food, feed and fiber plants and all of these modifications are genetic.”

The fact is that today’s GM products have been scientifically studied and tested more extensively during the past 20 years than any other food product and the studies continue. That research has revealed that genetically enhanced crops are nutritionally the same as non-GM crops and GM crops have not been linked to any diseases whatsoever. Trusted, nonpartisan organizations such as the World Health Organization, the American Medical Association and the National Academy of Sciences have all declared that there is no evidence genetically enhanced crops are unsafe.

What does all this mean when it comes to government policy, average grocery buyers and Arkansas farmers? We’ll have more on that in our next column. In the meantime, if you’d like to hear more from Mark Lynas, you can listen to a podcast recorded with him at the American Farm Bureau convention here.

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Farm Income in Decline, Ag Lobbies Work to Give Producers an Edge

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Farm income is down sharply, and federal assistance is not what it used to be. But the Farm Bureau is relying on its lobbying might to try to get agricultural producers an edge.

At the Arkansas Farm Policy Summit in Little Rock on March 29-30, the president of the American Farm Bureau Federation, Vincent “Zippy” Duvall, said the group’s emphasis in Washington is on easing burdensome regulations and trying to get trade agreements through Congress. In the meantime, he told AMP, “It’s going to up to that farmer to hang in there and tighten up his belt, and do the best job we can. I know everybody’s tired of hearing that, but we all have been through this cycle before, except for our young people.”

Young farmers and ranchers haven’t been through these times because the sector is emerging from an era of unprecedented prosperity. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service says net farm income peaked in 2013 at a recent high of $123.3 billion; in February, ERS forecast income at $54.8 billion, which would be a 14-year low.

Randy Veach

Randy Veach

That was on the minds of farm leaders who attended the Arkansas Farm Bureau’s first-ever Ag Summit in Little Rock. ArFB President Randy Veach of Manila called it a “reversal of our normal biennial trip to Washington, D.C. with our county presidents and county leaders,” when they meet with the congressional delegation and with administration officials. Veach said they couldn’t work out a time where they could see everybody — so instead, everybody came to them.

“It’s really a difficult situation, a difficult time for our farmers right now in Arkansas, and we’ve seen a drop in our livestock prices as well,” Veach told AMP. “One of the provisions that’s usually been there is we’ve had a good safety net that would help protect us when low prices are around, and now we don’t have that with this present Farm Bill. We’ll be talking with them about ways that they could tweak this Farm Bill that we have that would give some support, in this environment of low commodity prices.”

For the most part, farm interests want to leave the Farm Bill untouched, for fear Congress will take a meat axe to it. The U.S. House Agriculture Committee is already under the gun to cut $1 billion a year over 10 years from farm programs under the Republican leadership’s budget blueprint, but at the summit Rep. Rick Crawford, R-Ark., expressed the hope Congress would move forward with a Continuing Resolution that would leave farm spending unchanged.

Rep. Rick Crawford

Rep. Rick Crawford

As an example of the balancing act they face, Crawford has been lobbying U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to declare cottonseed eligible for farm payments. Vilsack says he cannot do so, and Crawford told the audience the secretary is playing politics, noting “cotton is a decidedly red crop” on the partisan map. But, he said, Congress doesn’t want to try to clarify the status of the crop by amending the Farm Bill.

“As soon as we open that Farm Bill, we open up a can of worms that we can’t fix,” Crawford said.

And, while Duvall said his group would work to pass the Pacific Rim trade deal, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, Crawford called it a “big loser for Arkansas.” He’s concerned with the provisions for rice, Arkansas’ most valuable crop, most of it grown in Crawford’s district.

He said, “With the TPP, there are just so few of us that are advocating for the rice industry that this is not a deal I can get comfortable with.”

Rusty Smith

Rusty Smith

An ArFB board member, Rusty Smith of Des Arc, said bad times have gotten worse; leading commodities marketer Bunge to close its operations on the White River, which will add to farmers’ transportation and storage costs.

“Eastern Arkansas is in a depressed situation,” he told AMP, but added he doesn’t want changes in the Farm Bill: “Everybody’s wanting to cut money, and we have no room to cut in ag right now.”

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Agribusiness: Could Programs for Small Farmers Be In Danger?

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April/May 2016 Issue

If there’s been one thing that’s been consistent with the federal government and agriculture over the last eight years, it’s been outreach toward the small farmer.

For example, in 2010 the U.S. Department of Agriculture launched StrikeForce in Arkansas and two other states. It was a concerted effort to bring smaller farmers in impoverished areas into the USDA universe by making them aware of the availability of financial assistance, conservation and rural development programs.

StrikeForce has just kept growing. It now reaches into 25 states and Puerto Rico. According to the USDA, in 2015 alone, it invested $7.49 billion in more than 62,000 projects, and extended assistance to nearly 10,000 farmers. In Arkansas in 2015, the program invested $438 million in 3,716 projects.

One Arkansas success story is Dakota Williams, a member of the Cherokee tribe who began her cattle business on her family’s third-generation Arkansas farm at age 12. Williams started with a Farm Service Agency Youth Loan, which helps young people with income-producing projects under organizations like 4-H and the National FFA Organization. She has since used an FSA Microloan — a program that targets smaller farmers with nontraditional operations — for her specialty operation, breeding Angus cows with Brangus Bulls to create a new breed, Ultrablack.

The microloan is another example. The maximum is $50,000; there is no minimum. The application process is streamlined to minimize paperwork. Now three years old, the program has resulted in nearly 17,000 loans and has grown every year, from $66 million in fiscal 2013 to $209 million in 2015 and the first quarter of 2016. This year, FSA added Direct Farm Ownership Microloans, so very small operators can buy the resources they need to start a new operation. USDA is expected to add guaranteed farm ownership loans, which back credit from commercial lenders and would allow the money to stretch much further.

USDA’s Census of Agriculture recently released findings from its 2014 survey of horticultural specialty crop producers. Those sales rose 18 percent in five years to $13.8 billion, and the number of operations grew by 8 percent. An interesting side note is a 71 percent increase since 2009 in crops grown under cover; producers use such techniques as hoop houses or “high tunnels” to extend their growing seasons for fresh-marketed crops.

One who’s taken advantage of the technology is Clyde Fenton, who grows strawberries, blueberries, raspberries and some vegetables on his Harrison farm.

“I absolutely love high tunnels as a growing tool,” he told AMP. In addition to the longer season, “It allows me to reduce the amount of crop protectants that I use.”

The tunnels are challenging, he said, but they kept him in the strawberry business; rain used to wipe out a large percentage of his crop. Now, “the high tunnels have reinvigorated my passion to grow strawberries.”

Fenton mostly grows conventional varieties, but another grower in tomato-crazy Warren has reached into the past. Julie Donnelly and her husband used a $30,000 USDA Value-Added Producer Grant to diversify their operation, Deepwoods Farm, into heirloom tomatoes. She obtained some Cherokee purple tomato plants from the University of Arkansas at Monticello; customers were reluctant at first, but now pay a premium for the crop.

The Value-Added Producer Grant program is another way USDA has helped farmers meet rising demand in the food industry. The competitive bidding process rewards winning submissions with up to $75,000 for feasibility studies and $300,000 for operating money on a 50-50 matching basis. During the last bidding period in spring 2015, USDA Rural Development had $30 million available to help producers proceed further up the supply chain.

That program has been around a long time, but those targeting smaller farmers emerged during the current administration, and the question needs to be asked whether they will survive a regime change. The major political parties have different philosophies, and if federal farm programs are seen as tools toward the goal of American food security, a new face at USDA may see a different use for those resources.

Particularly under former USDA Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan, the Obama administration championed such programs as “Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food (KYF²),” which she described during a stop at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff in 2009 as a way for communities “to figure out what their local assets are, and how they can keep more of that food dollar locally.” Republican lawmakers challenged KYF² as an excessive diversion of rural development money to small-scale producers with a well-to-do clientele. With the Ag Department’s budget forever under the scalpel, it’s possible in coming years local farmers who want to serve local consumers may have to become even more self-reliant. 

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Spotlight: Making It to the Top

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April/May 2016 Issue

The 2016 Donald W. Reynolds Governor’s Cup allows
college and graduate students from across the state
to present their business plans for competition.

Thirty-seven teams from 11 universities — a total of 122 students — are vying for a part of the $154,000 prize pool for the business plans and presentations they have crafted for the 2016 Donald W. Reynolds Governor’s Cup.

“We had a good mix last year, like we always do,” said Sam Walls, president and chief operating officer of Arkansas Capital Corp., which created the competition. “This is kind of cliché but every year we have such a strong group of students that come out. The students just really have a good grasp of what makes a good business plan, really just how they look at the world and come up with amazing ideas.”

Last year, 47 teams competed for pieces of a $152,000 prize fund. The competition’s prize pool, funded by the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation, is among the largest of its kind in the nation.

Sam Walls, president and chief operating officer of Arkansas Capital Corp.

Sam Walls, president and chief operating officer of Arkansas Capital Corp. | photo by Cindy Momchilov

“I love to see that creative spark, the genesis being from students themselves,” Walls said. “But, there’s a lot of research out there that the next step hasn’t been taken to figure out how to commercialize it and that’s a great thing to see, too, how you can take that out into the world and make money with it.”

First prizes of $25,000 each are awarded for the top undergraduate and graduate teams; second prizes in those categories bring $15,000; and third prize awards are $10,000. There are also awards for the students’ advisers and other individual awards.

Walls will notify this year’s winners on April 11. Winners will be announced at a luncheon on April 19 at the Statehouse Convention Center in downtown Little Rock, where movers and shakers in Arkansas business will also watch and text their votes for representatives from each entering team in a 90-second elevator pitch contest.

“There are people who constantly tell me that this is their favorite lunch meeting to go to because they just really enjoy hearing from the students,” said Walls. “The setup for an elevator pitch is if you’re in an elevator with Warren Buffet for 90 seconds, what are you going to say to him to make him want to talk to you more? You certainly can’t get your whole idea out. Or, in Arkansas, our example is Warren Stephens. If you’ve got his undivided attention for 90 seconds, how do you convince him he wants to know more about your deal and that’s it? The buzzer goes off and the audience votes.”

Erin Morningstar represented John Brown University in Siloam Springs as part of the Charlie’s Choice team in last year’s competition. Charlie’s Choice placed second and went on, like other first and second place winners, to compete in the Donald W. Reynolds Tri-State Championship in Las Vegas.

College students from any program of study may enter the competition. The money is an incentive for the effort of creating detailed business plans, which judges evaluate based on the merits of their operating strategies, financial projections and feasibility. The real-life experience and feedback from the judges is also a draw.

Spotlight-infographic

Morningstar estimated that she spent 15 to 30 hours each week between the start of the fall semester and the competition in the spring on her team’s business plan and the elevator pitch. The team’s idea came from a colleague, who teaches at JBU.

Morningstar’s adviser, Eva Fast, won the C. Sam Walls Entrepreneur Educator Award last year, an award for educators who listened, coached and cheered on student teams. That award carried $2,500, as well as $2,500 for JBU.

Fast, an assistant professor of business in the Soderquist College of Business at JBU, said developing teams to compete in the Governor’s Cup is a strategic part of what the college does.

“It’s part of our capstone experience so all of our business students take a course called Strategic Management in the fall of their senior year and, in the spring, they have an opportunity to submit their project — which is their business plan — to the Reynolds Cup,” she said.

“The competition just happens to align with the skills set that we value our graduates having. The strategic business course is designed to stretch our students and pull everything they have been learning for the last three years of their college undergrad career into one project and so the premise of the class is to develop a viable business plan that is worthy of potential investment potential.”

Arkansas Capital Corp.’s reason for starting the competition was practical.

“Arkansas Capital has been doing lending since the late 1950s, but we were having people come in with great ideas but they weren’t prepared — how much to borrow, how are you going to pay us back, who’s your management, and all of that,” said Marie Bruno, executive director of the Arkansas Economic Acceleration Foundation, an ACC affiliate. “So we decided to create this foundation to do entrepreneurial education and what better way than to do a business plan competition. So it’s really good, and we’re really proud and honored to be able to do it.”

Walls is proud that ACC has played such a role in elevating the conversation about entrepreneurialism in Arkansas.

“For students it was a mechanism, particularly with the large awards event which is somewhat unique as far as business plan competitions go … it was the idea not just that entrepreneurialism is important but that, hey, you can be successful in Arkansas and that Arkansas has this great entrepreneurial history. You flash forward 15 years, and I think that message is out there, I think, very well, but we think there is value in continuing to beat the drum.”


2016 Governor’s Cup Finalists

Overall Undergraduate Division Semi-Finalists

  • AGcorp, Ouachita Baptist University
  • BladeTech, Harding University
  • Dibs Dates, John Brown University
  • Drone Surveying Solutions, University of Arkansas at Little Rock
  • EcoForYou, Hendrix College
  • FindMyWine, John Brown University
  • Natural State Bedding Co., John Brown University
  • PubHub, University of Arkansas
  • Short-Bow, University of Central Arkansas
  • Sit ‘N Go, Harding University
  • Sobek, John Brown University
  • The Helping Hand, Harding University

Overall Graduate Division Finalists

  • Actio Systems, University of Arkansas
  • deciLvl, University of Arkansas
  • Demetrix, Hendrix College
  • NuPhase Solutions, University of Arkansas
  • NuShores Bone Regeneration, University of Arkansas at Little Rock
  • VivImmune, University of Arkansas

Agriculture Division Finalists

  • AGcorp, Ouachita Baptist University
  • Beyond Critical, Arkansas State University
  • deciLvl, University of Arkansas
  • Demetrix, Hendrix College
  • Drone Surveying Solutions, University of Arkansas at Little Rock
  • EcoForYou, Hendrix College
  • Natural State Bedding Co., John Brown University

Innovation Division Finalists – Undergraduate

  • Beyond Critical, Arkansas State University
  • Natural State Bedding Co., John Brown University
  • VIR Technologies, Arkansas Tech University

Innovation Division Finalists – Graduate

  • deciLvl, University of Arkansas
  • NuShores Bone Regeneration, University of Arkansas at Little Rock
  • VivImmune, University of Arkansas

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Recap: U.S. Ag Secretary Visits Little Rock, Talks Opportunities for Rural America

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Tom Vilsack

Tom Vilsack

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack started his April 15 lecture in Little Rock by talking about the Obama administration’s many programs designed to improve opportunities in rural America. He ended it defending the environmental stewardship of America’s farmers.

Vilsack’s presentation at the Little Rock Marriott was the 22nd in the Frank and Kula Kumpuris Distinguished Lecture Series, presented by the Clinton School of Public Service, the William J. Clinton Foundation and AT&T.

The former Iowa governor is the 30th U.S. Agriculture Secretary, and is the only remaining Cabinet member from the beginning of President Barack Obama’s first term.

The secretary opened by telling the audience of about 200 he wanted to remind them “why rural America matters.” In addition to being where most of the country’s food and energy feedstock comes from, he said, “It’s also a place where we see a disproportionate number of families send their sons and daughters into the military.”

Vilsack noted Americans pay less of their income for food than do residents of virtually any country.

“We’ve seen agricultural production increase 170 percent in my lifetime,” he said. “About 250,000 farmers produce about 85 percent of what we grow — one-tenth of one percent of our population. It’s an incredible story of innovation, of inspiration, and perspiration and risk-taking.”

But, Vilsack said, there are also 22 million fewer farmers in the U.S. now than the 25 million when he was born in 1950. That has resulted in a decline in the rural population, he said, as the country failed to recognize the efficiency of agriculture had left rural communities without other industries that could keep families there. That, in turn, has brought an increase in poverty rates relative to the rest of the country.

“We’re changing that now,” he said. “We’ve begun a process in the last seven years, since I became secretary, to begin building a complimentary economy that’s based on the natural resource advantages that we have in rural America.”

That is being coordinated in part by the president’s Rural Council, a multi-agency task force, headed by the secretary, which he said is intended to “break down the silos, so that we would focus our time, attention and resources on rural areas.”

Among the efforts to emerge from the council have been initiatives to help small businesses sell products overseas and to find new opportunities for biofuels. The latter led to the U.S. military’s use of fuels made from waste products like woody biomass and crop residue.

“Just recently, I was in the Pacific Ocean on the U.S.S. Livingston, which was a destroyer that was refueled with a blended fuel made from beef tallow from the Midwest,” Vilsack recounted. “That’s the future, and that’s going to create opportunities for both farmers, and for processing and manufacturing.”

But, the Rural Council hasn’t broken down all the barriers, and Vilsack cited the frustration over improving acceptance of genetically modified crops as an example.

Congress was unable to pass a bill that would establish a federal policy on labeling, and Vermont is poised to become the first state to mandate GMO information on food.

The secretary criticized seed companies for failing to reach out to consumers while they were educating farmers on the new technology, but he also said, “We have to speak with a single voice and, frankly, we don’t do a particularly good job of that. The [U.S. Environmental Protection Agency] will say one thing, [U.S. Department of Agriculture] will say something else; the Science and Technology person at the White House might have a different view…We’ve got to find a way to harmonize our message, in a way that educates.”

The secretary took questions at the end. The last was from Taylor Pate, a graduating senior at Hendrix College, who said she had researched the environmental implications of farming.

“It’s obvious that industrial agriculture, both crop production and livestock production, does degrade the environment,” she said, and asked whether the U.S. is adopting mitigation practices like those in Denmark and other European nations.

While saying progress had been made, with less chemicals applied per bushel of production now than in the past, Vilsack conceded, “Is there more work to be done? Absolutely.”

He said the government is trying to be “smarter about conservation” by making enrollment in cost-sharing programs contingent upon adoption of a suite of practices, and concentrating participation in watershed-wide projects. USDA has also launched a “Soil Health” campaign that helps farmers calculate the impact of farming practices on their land.

But, Vilsack also warned against being too judgmental about producers.

“When people say that there’s a better way to do agriculture, and, we need to stop doing this, we need to understand the psyche that farmers have. Many of them feel sort of under attack,” he said “They take great pride in what they do; they think they’re feeding us and clothing us, and creating jobs, and they don’t quite understand why there are as many people upset with them as there appear to be.”

Pate said afterwards she was satisfied with the secretary’s response.

She said, “I do think that it’s conflicting, this issue, because people are caught in a divide between one or the other, industrial agriculture or a local, organic model.” She still says, though, that different initiatives should be adopted from farmers across the world to produce a system that best fits the U.S.

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Farmer’s View on Cuba: New Commerce, Passive Acceptance

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It was the gentleman in the American flag clothing that first caught my eye as we exited the Havana airport and boarded the bus. Against all odds, I managed to see the stars and stripes before the flag of Cuba here in this land with which the United States formally renewed diplomatic relations only a few months ago.

IMG_6547Not long ago, his clothing choice would have drawn suspicion. It is different now: freer, though still not yet free. A series of economic reforms began in Cuba in the spring of 2011, and though commerce is now by no means ubiquitous, restaurants, bars and privately owned taxis can be found throughout the changing city of Havana.

I was in Cuba along with a few other rice farmers and millers as a guest of Republican Congressman Rick Crawford of Arkansas’ first district, a district that produces more rice than any other congressional district in the country. The trip, led by Crawford and Congressman Ralph Abraham of Louisiana, was designed to explore potential trade opportunities and to work toward re-establishing trade through reasonable, incremental steps.

My grandfather started our rice farm here in Lonoke County soon after returning from World War II. In those days, Cuba was among the largest importers of American long grain rice. He was only 38 — three years older than I am now — when the Cuban embargo began, and he never again saw any significant amount of U.S. rice making its way back to the island before his death at age 90.

Today, Arkansas grows more than 50 percent of the rice in the U.S., most of which is the type the Cuban people consume at a rate of 177 pounds per person per year, a per capita consumption seven times that of the U.S. and the highest in the western hemisphere. Cuba imports nearly 600,000 tons of rice per year. None comes from Arkansas.

Crawford and others are trying to change that for rice and other exports through HR 3687, the Cuba Agricultural Exports Act, which would roll back decades-old restrictions that disallow access of U.S. agricultural products to Cuba through finance and marketing regulations. These restrictions keep a nearly $1 billion market, in close proximity to the U.S., out of reach of U.S. farmers and businesses, while serving it up on a silver platter to countries like Vietnam and Brazil, who would otherwise have a significant logistical disadvantage.

Some in Congress maintain an intractably negative attitude toward Cuban trade, an attitude rooted in Cold War arguments that began losing their validity a quarter century ago. Not only does this negative attitude continue to damage American agriculture and business — not to mention creating a vacuum of influence in Cuba, which other international players with less than noble intentions toward the U.S. might fill — but, it also perpetuates a pervasive excuse used by the government of Cuba for the failure of its own economic ideologies.

Still, recent shifts in U.S. policy, our group’s presence in Cuba and other signs of change suggest that progress toward economic freedom in Cuba seems to have come in spite of the embargo.

Signs of Movement

On the outskirts of Havana, out past the baseball field, is El Trigal, a large, open-air farmers market that would not seem so out of place in any-town America except, perhaps, for the classic ’50s era trucks on which the produce is hauled from the farms. Here, restaurateurs and farmers bargain for prices, engaging in a type of commerce previously foreign to the Cuban economy. It is an experiment, but one that seems to be working quite well. The energy in the air confirms quite clearly what my broken Spanish can only approximate through my conversations with the farmers.

Back downtown, at Fabrica de Arte Cubano, an establishment that is part club, part art museum, young people listen to hip-hop, watch avant-garde short films and browse art that exhibits a level of freedom of expression that I did not expect to encounter here. Later in the evening, these young people will line the seawall for miles along the edge of Havana harbor, the breeze off the Caribbean cooling them as they look out through the darkness, northward, toward America.

Though my three days in Cuba provide admittedly limited experience, it is hard to ignore the signs of movement in what I see as the right direction, but real challenges remain. There are still legitimate concerns regarding human rights, and anyone wishing to paint a more pessimistic view of Cuba than mine would not be without material from which to draw. Press freedoms are still lacking, and propaganda still covers billboards throughout the city.

A portrait of a young, stern-faced Fidel in military fatigues looks out across the roadway on the outskirts of Havana. The accompanying text reads “Socialismo o Muerte”— Socialism or Death.

But one would do well to note that the sign is rusted; the paint, fading.

Back at El Trigal, where the sounds of private commerce echo just beyond the walls of the experimental market, another portrait of Fidel looks out over the scene. This portrait has no epigraph, and though the look on his face could not be described as one of approval, it might be described as one of passive acceptance.

It is neither of those portraits that I will remember about the island.

What I will remember is the boy who sat next to his dad, both with guarded smiles as they sold their produce in the market, tasting the first fruits of opportunity afforded by the open market experiment in economic freedoms.

To my eyes, an open look at contemporary Cuba provides evidence that the philosophical and political debates regarding the virtues of free market economic systems has been won. What remains are arguments of degree and detail.

Cuba is moving — if only ever so slightly — toward new freedoms. To continue the embargo and to refuse to engage and foster these new freedoms through trade would make us not only hypocritical, but also poor sports.

Photos by Mark Isbell. Main image: El Trigal.

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Agribusiness: Why Cuba Should Be Treated Like Other U.S. Trade Partners

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June/July 2016 Issue

It’s getting increasingly difficult to justify treating Cuba differently from every other American trading partner, although Gov. Asa Hutchinson may have found a new way to do so.

The governor was the keynote speaker at a March 21 symposium at the Winthrop Rockefeller Institute on Petit Jean Mountain, on the subject of how normalizing trade with Cuba could affect the U.S. agriculture sector.

The governor, who visited Cuba last fall, said the country represents a “great market opportunity” for U.S. exporters, particularly those in Arkansas. Cuba was once the biggest foreign customer for U.S. rice, and Hutchinson said the Communist island nation is the world’s largest per capita consumer of the grain at 177 pounds per year. Arkansas produces half of the U.S. rice crop.

“And yet,” he said, “that market is, to a certain extent, excluded from us.”

Cuba did buy some U.S. rice after food sales there were re-legalized in 2000, but has since turned to other suppliers.

The governor noted Cuba still buys Arkansas poultry, and imports 80 percent of its food needs. To capitalize on that demand, he called for the 55-year-old embargo to be lifted in stages, beginning with a law that bars U.S. companies from selling goods to Cuba on credit.

Why not lift the embargo all at once? Because the embargo itself, the governor maintained, has left Cuba frozen in the era of the Cold War, and frozen in time economically. He said, “In my meeting with the Cuban officials they emphasized to me, and this is their language, ‘We have still not forgotten the principles of the revolution.’”

China, he said, will talk capitalism and return on investment, as will Vietnam. Cuba will not.

The Chinese had a $365 billion trade surplus with the United States last year, according to the U.S. Census Bureau and the Bureau of Economic Analysis. In the late 1970s, the U.S. actually had a small trade surplus with China. We still don’t buy anything from Cuba, and the governor said the embargo “has been instrumental in strangling the Cuban economy — that was the goal of it…but it has also not been successful in terms of changing the Castro regime, changing the centralized government, changing the Communist rule in that country and the repression of freedom.”

China, of course, still has a centralized government and Communist rule. Freedom House, the 75-year-old global human rights watchdog organization, gives China a freedom rating of 6.5 on a scale of 1 to 7 best to worst, a 6 in civil liberties, and a 7 in political rights. Cuba’s ranking is the same.

The notion that his country is trapped in the past rankled Ruben Ramos Arrieta, Minister Counselor of the Economic and Trade Office at Cuba’s U.S. embassy in Washington, D.C.

“Thinking that Cuba is frozen in the ’50s or in the ’60s, the criteria that the governor has, this is not our belief,” Arrieta told AMP. “If you go to Cuba, you can realize that the Cuban people are very proud of my country. They are always moving forward, fighting for having a better world and a better country, fighting for having a better economy.”

In particular, he cited reforms enacted in 2011, when Raul Castro succeeded his brother Fidel as president.

To be fair, Hutchinson was arguing for an eventual end to the embargo entirely. He said once Havana gains greater access to the riches offered by American free enterprise, it may provide an incentive to them to further open their society; then, we can ease things further. But again, there has been no advancement of human rights in China. There’s something else standing in the way.

That something else may be the property owned by Cuban expatriates and their heirs now residing in the United States that was nationalized by Castro. Some years ago, I talked to Juan Sanchez, who said he was Secretary-General of the National Sugar Cane Growers Association of Cuba. None of the members, including Sanchez, were living in Cuba. They were looking toward the day when the Castros were gone, and they would get their property back.

If that is the lone remaining barrier to relations with our neighbor 90 miles off the Florida coast, it’s time for it to be swept away. In order to achieve full opening of the Cuban market, which the governor believes will lead to an “economic explosion” there, somebody’s dreams are going to have to be dashed. Cuban families who fled to these shores will have to be content with what they have gained under our more open economy. Both sides can make concessions in their own interests — for Gov. Hutchinson, credit sales to Cuba; for Raul Castro, the recent acceptance of dockings by American cruise ships — but, the true revolution here would be to treat Cuba like China, and Vietnam. And, everybody else.

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The Life of a Water Farmer: Little Rock’s Waterveg

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Rob Galloway is no novice when it comes to business. Throughout his life he’s been involved with many ventures, from donut shops to transportation services, but his latest endeavor brings a new adventure entirely – water farming.

Galloway first started playing around with aquaponics in his backyard a few years ago as a hobby. After he got the basics down, he wanted to move towards a larger operation, and began working toward creating Waterveg. He said, “It was going to be a nice change to really be able to feel like I’m giving some benefit to people in terms of health.”

Galloway’s set-up mirrors the UVI method, originally developed at the University of the Virgin Islands. The process involves conventional aquaculture (raising fish or any aquatic species) with hydroponics (cultivating plants in water) in a symbiotic environment.

To combat toxicity from animal waste, water is fed to a hydroponic system where the by-products are broken down by nitrogen-fixing bacteria into nitrates and nitrites, which are utilized by the plants as nutrients. The water is then recirculated back creating the perfect synergy.

In other words, Galloway uses a system involving fish – nearly 2,000 tilapia – to fertilize the water in which he then grows plants. Currently his focus is on producing greens, including: lettuce, kale, basil, cilantro, arugula, and chard. The system works for any plant that can be grown above ground and once Galloway expands his set-up, he may also broaden his offerings.

What’s more, the system uses 90 percent less water than traditional soil farming, making the process environment friendly. He said, “We really try to make it as concise as possible and as efficient as possible.”

Galloway grows the plants in a ground-up coconut husk – which gives the grown product the appearance of a lettuce bouquet, unlike the wrapped shells you see in the grocery store. The plants stay in the Coco Core until the time comes to harvest, usually right before you’re ready to eat. This gives a whole new meaning to fresh, as Galloway added, “When you break the plant off, you can still see the milk come out of the plant.”

Taking it a step further, Galloway decided to add free delivery to his business model – meaning once you sign up you’ll start receiving living, breathing plants. He saw the farm to table trend move toward delivery nationally, and decided he wanted to be on the cutting-edge.

“There are a lot of hydroponic growers across the country, but there’s not one that is going to have a delivery model like what we’re doing, yet. … everybody likes the convenience of a delivery service,” he said.

Like any successful business, Galloway has had to remain flexible and innovative. This past summer the heat was brutal on his production, and he has plans for new chillers moving forward. “I want to optimize as much as we can,” he said, “and get everything up to the best standards.”

Galloway is currently looking into working with Whole Foods, Kroger, and some of the bigger retail stores. He’s also involved with local farmer’s market. He’s taking that next step toward connecting with his customer, as he said, “Right now we’re focusing on educating the customer, and letting them know we’re here.”

One of the biggest challenges so far has been getting the word out to people, mostly because they aren’t necessarily as familiar with an aquaponic system. In the future he hopes to have walk-through tours and have schools out to check out what he’s doing so he can get a conversation started.

 

 

 

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