The American Sheep Industry Association (ASI) is among the agricultural groups watching the progress of the 2018 Farm Bill and is generally pleased with the provisions that will impact its members.
Officially known as the Agriculture and Nutrition Act of 2018, the legislation was advanced from the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Agriculture on April 18 and is expected to see debate in the full House beginning in early May.
In testimony last year, ASI presented its top priorities to the committee, which include animal health, trade, research and risk management, trade promotion, infrastructure and research.
ASI Executive Director Peter Orwick told WLJ a top ask of the sheep industry would be authorization of funding for Minor Use and Minor Species pharmaceutical development. The program, he explained, would help to gain authorization in the U.S. to use medical drugs already in use in other countries.
Getting those medical treatments approved, Orwick said, has the opportunity for the largest reach across essentially every sheep operation in America. “Regardless of their size, regardless of their breed or their marketing, that’s one of the top requests that we’ve had for a number of years.”
He explained that the network for approving the drugs already exists through land-grant universities, USDA and other federal agencies. “With funding they will do the additional testing and data runs and set things up for a label so as they partner with primary drug firms in the U.S., a lot of the work, a lot of the expense is addressed through these networks.” He added that this is not a new program, but funding has been somewhat “cobbled together” and without a permanent funding base as is included in the House version of the farm bill, the network likely won’t exist in a year or so.
Orwick said the reaction from the committee members indicated they understood the importance. He noted, “For sheep it is one of those that if you’re on the East Coast or West Coast, or in Texas, that’s something that you’re going to hear about is the need for more products for sheep health, particularly parasite control.”
Also on the topic of animal health, ASI joins other livestock industry organizations in supporting a U.S.-only vaccine bank to stockpile foot-and-mouth disease vaccine.
On the trade side, Orwick said ASI has been heavily involved for many years in USDA Foreign Ag Services programs including Foreign Market Development, Market Access Program, and the Quality Samples Program, and continues to support them. He said one of the positive outcomes of the trade programs has been in wool markets. Nearly 20 years ago most of the U.S.-produced wool was used domestically. Now almost 50 percent of wool harvested is exported. Orwick said this year wool exports will be over $20 million.
A key provision involving wool is the Textile Trust Fund that will help equalize tariffs. Orwick said this provision is not new to the farm bill, but packages wool and cotton together. Essentially it will help protect American manufacturers. “What the provision does is it makes these companies whole on their tariffs that they are paying. So, whether they are bringing raw wool in or fabric in, it equalizes, so the manufacturers that are building fabric here are competitive with the firms that are importing fabric.”
Orwick said almost all of the organization’s requests are included in the House version of the farm bill, noting, “This is one the strongest farm bills to be produced by the House Agriculture Committee in recent memory.”
ASI members and staff, Orwick said, will continue to monitor the progress and respond to lawmakers’ questions on the organization’s priorities.
In the meantime, Orwick said it is also important for producers to keep pressure on lawmakers. “It is very important on the political side for ranchers to not only ask their supportive member that is always there on livestock issues to support the farm bill, but to reach out to those urban members in the state and ask them to do so as well in supporting the farm bill, because you can’t do it on rural members alone.” — Rae Price, WLJ editor
