November 25, 2016
CapitalPress.com
NCBA: Trump win positive for cattlemen
By CAROL RYAN DUMAS
Capital Press
SUN VALLEY, Idaho —
Donald Trump’s election took
many by surprise, including
the National Cattlemen’s Beef
Association, but an organiza-
tion representative says it’s a
shocker that’s looking posi-
tive for beef producers and
rural America.
“It’s a new day in Wash-
ington and the country as
a whole,” Colin Woodall,
NCBA vice president of gov-
ernment affairs, told the Ida-
ho Cattle Association annual
convention on Tuesday.
The race was Hillary Clin-
ton’s to lose, and that’s what
she did, he said.
“It’s a bit of a sigh of re-
lief. … Clinton would have
been more of the same (and)
that’s not sustainable for us,”
he said.
Republican control of the
House and Senate also bodes
well for beef producers and
rural American, he said.
Carol Ryan Dumas/Capital Press
Colin Woodall, NCBA vice president of government affairs, talks to
cattle producers about the changing political landscape in Wash-
ington, D.C. during the Idaho Cattle Association annual convention
in Sun Valley.
“I’m excited about what
the future holds,” he said.
Trump’s political appoint-
ments — some 4,000 — are
still early in the process. With
a Republican Senate in charge,
those that require Senate con-
firmation will be a lot easier to
push through, he said.
It’s expected that will in-
clude putting a conservative
judge on the Supreme Court to
replace the late Antonin Scal-
ia. And Justice Ruth Ginsburg
is 83, so her seat could flip to
the conservative side, he said.
House Speaker Paul Ryan
will stay in place, and he’s
been good for agriculture.
Most Republican committee
chairman in the House and
Senate will also continue,
which can help NCBA move
priority issues, he said.
A Trump presidency and
Republican control of Con-
gress bodes well for many
issues the beef industry is
dealing with, he said, but pas-
sage of the Trans-Pacific Part-
nership is NCBA’s top priori-
ty, and there’s still a lot to be
done in 2016, he said.
Trump ran against TPP and
has maintained that position,
and Republicans don’t want
to bring it up in the lame-duck
session.
Meanwhile, the U.S. beef
industry is losing $400,000 a
day from lost access in Japan
due to a trade deal between
Australia and Japan that re-
duced tariffs on Australian
beef. Losses next year will be
even greater because that tariff
goes down in 2017, he said.
“It’s extremely important
we get this addressed as soon
as possible. The only tool to
stop the hemorrhaging is this
trade agreement,” he said.
NCBA will continue to
push passage, making sure the
House and Senate leadership
understand the harm, he said.
TPP would lower Japan’s
38.5 percent tariff on U.S.
beef to 9 percent on muscle
cuts and zero on beef variety
meats, such as tongue.
Other issues of Interest to
NCBA in the lame-duck ses-
sion are the annual military
spending bill and the govern-
ment funding bill.
The former includes a rid-
er that would delay any po-
tential listing of sage grouse
under the Endangered Species
Act as well as sage grouse
land-management plans by
the Interior Department. The
latter includes language to de-
fund EPA’s Waters of the U.S.
rule and changes to Grain In-
spection, Packers and Stock-
yards Administration that
would lead to government in-
terference and harm in cattle
7
markets, he said.
Looking ahead, NCBA
sees overall regulatory re-
lief with Trump in the White
House. The first 100 days
are probably going to focus
on eliminating “nonsensical”
rules and regulations, he said.
“One of the first things I
think we’re going to see him
do is roll back (the Waters of
the U.S. rule),” Woodall said.
The ag community was
“mad as hell” when Pres-
ident Barack Obama went
around Congress to advance
the rule, he said, but NCBA
is now glad he took that route
because Trump can unravel it
without Congress, he said.
Trump and a Republican
Congress could also provide
an opportunity for true En-
dangered Species Act reform
and are also likely to kill the
“death tax” on inheritances
once and for all, he said.
“Overall, I’m very op-
timistic. I’m excited about
where this is going,” he
said.
Pocatello trials pave way for USDA closes book on only
new food safety technology bird flu case — in Alaska
By JOHN O’CONNELL
Capital Press
POCATELLO, Idaho —
An Atlanta company plans to
begin construction before the
year’s end on the first com-
mercial facility using a food
safety and preservation tech-
nology tested on the Idaho
State University campus.
ScanTech Sciences invest-
ed about $4 million to build
a research and development
facility inside ISU’s Research
and Innovation in Sciences
and Engineering Complex,
where the company honed a
proprietary food-treatment
process called electronic cold
pasteurization.
The company’s method
uses an electronic linear ac-
celerator to shower food with
accelerated electrons, killing
pests and pathogens while
dramatically extending shelf-
life, explained ScanTech CEO
Dolan Falconer.
ScanTech’s
planned
100,000-square-foot
com-
mercial facility, to be built
in McAllen, Texas, should
be operational by mid-sum-
mer, Falconer said. He said
the plant’s conveyor system
and “horn” — which works
like a shower head that emits
electrons — were refined in
Pocatello.
“That work provided the
proof of concept for the com-
mercial build (in Texas),” Fal-
coner said.
Falconer said the Po-
catello facility has also been
used, both by ScanTech and
in grant-funded research in-
volving various partners, to
develop protocols for treating
specific commodities.
Falconer said USDA is
mulling a grant proposal to
study electronic cold pas-
teurization on pecans, and
several retailers and food
producers plan to request ad-
ditional grants for next year.
He said further testing in
By DON JENKINS
Capital Press
John O’Connell/Capital Press
Dolan Falconer, CEO of ScanTech Sciences, shows his company’s
research and development facility at Idaho State University in Po-
catello, where it refined electronic cold pasteurization technology.
Treatments kill pathogens and pests while extending shelf life of
food, according to testing.
Pocatello will help establish
commodity-specific electron-
ic cold pasteurization trade
protocols, and he sees spe-
cial promise for potatoes and
apples.
The Texas plant will have
the capacity to process 10 to
20 truckloads of produce per
day, with the conveyor de-
signed to run at 120 feet per
minute.
The plant would treat pro-
duce entering the country
from Mexico, as well as ex-
ports from the U.S.
“This improves the eco-
nomics of exporting,” Falcon-
er said.
Falconer said the compa-
ny already has enough com-
mitments from customers
to run the plant at capacity,
and investors want a second
and third plant to be built
as soon as possible.
He said the company may
eventually automate the Po-
catello facility to add com-
mercial business, in addition
to continued research and de-
velopment.
In testing in Pocatel-
lo, ScanTech has proven it
can consistently deliver the
precise dosage of electrons
needed to preserve food with-
out damaging it, said Rocky
Starns, ScanTech’s chief tech-
nology officer and vice presi-
dent of engineering and man-
ufacturing.
He said treated potatoes
have retained at-harvest qual-
ity after a year in storage, in-
cluding sprout suppression,
and strawberries have main-
tained the same smell, texture
and taste after a month in the
refrigerator.
More than 15,000 wild
birds in the U.S. have been
tested for highly pathogenic
bird flu since July 1, and only
one tested positive, a mallard
duck in Alaska, according to
USDA reports updated Thurs-
day.
The duck was infected
with a virulent strain first de-
tected in 2014 in northwestern
Washington.
The USDA submitted a
final report to the World Or-
ganization for Animal Health
on the mallard. The live duck
was sampled in August at
a wildlife refuge near Fair-
banks.
The USDA reported no
other cases but confirmed
that the mallard’s virus was a
close match to the potent mix
of Eurasian and North Ameri-
can strains found in a northern
pintail duck collected nearly
two years ago in Whatcom
County, Wash.
Over the next six months,
highly pathogenic bird flu
spread to poultry in 15 states,
claiming 50.4 million turkeys
and chickens in 211 com-
mercial farms and 21 back-
yard flocks, according to the
USDA.
Highly pathogenic bird
flu has been largely absent
from the U.S. since mid-2015,
even though state and federal
authorities have stepped up
sampling of wild birds to de-
tect where the deadly virus is
circulating.
Since July 1, 15,712 wild
birds have been sampled in
the U.S., including 671 in
California, 417 in Washing-
Don Jenkins/Capital Press
A strain of highly pathogenic bird flu similar to one that first
appeared in the U.S. in a duck in Washington state in 2014 has
resurfaced in a mallard duck in Alaska.
ton, 370 in Idaho and 552 in
Oregon.
“We’re sampling at a sta-
tistically significant level, and
it’s just not coming up,” Or-
egon Department of Fish and
Wildlife veterinarian Colin
Gillin said.
Low pathogenic bird flu
is common among wild birds
in the U.S. But in the wild,
strains commingle and can
strengthen.
Migratory waterfowl car-
ry the disease fatal to poultry
and likely introduced a highly
pathogenic virus to domestic
flocks in Canada and U.S. in
early December 2014, accord-
ing to the USDA.
The USDA says the U.S.
has since adopted the best avi-
an influenza surveillance sys-
tem in the world.
The virus did not reappear
in the winter of 2015-16, but
authorities are continuing to
sample wild birds, especial-
ly as migratory waterfowl
pass through the Pacific
Flyway from Alaska south
along the West Coast.
“We would expect to see it,
if we see it, from mid-Novem-
ber on,” Gillin said.
Meanwhile, new cases of
highly pathogenic bird flu are
surfacing around the world.
Switzerland, Austria, Cro-
atia, Germany and India have
reported outbreaks among
wild birds.
In the worst case this
month involving commercial
poultry, bird flu claimed more
than 10,000 turkeys at a farm
in Hungary, according to the
World Organization for Ani-
mal Health.
Animal health officials
warn backyard flock owners
to keep their birds from com-
ing into contact with migra-
tory waterfowl.
The virus first appeared in
the West in late 2014 and 2015
and later jumped to the Mid-
west, where it spread rapidly
through large poultry farms
and grew into what the USDA
called the worst animal-health
event in U.S. history.
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