NCBA's Colin Woodall Says Congress Needs To Pass TPP Soon Than Later In 2016

Dec 08, 2015

There’s a very real, tangible benefit for the U.S. beef industry when it comes to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). This is a trade agreement that has been negotiated among 12 different countries and has been brought back by the Obama Administration to the U.S. Congress for their consideration. Several agricultural groups have expressed their support for TPP, while others aren’t so sure. Some agricultural groups are still studying the text of the trade agreement. This includes the American Farm Bureau Federation, which is expected to vote on the agreement at their December board of directors meeting. National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) Vice President of Government Affairs Colin Woodall said passage of TPP will be complicated by it being an election year. He said NCBA is pushing for a vote on TPP in the first quarter of 2016.

NCBA's Colin Woodall Says Congress Needs to Pass TPP Soon Than Later in 2016

"That’s a pretty tight timeline for us," Woodall said. “It’s going to take a lot effort to get it done and really it’s questionable whether that can get done, just from the shear fact that a few of us in agriculture have come out in support, but we haven’t seen too many within the business community who have made a firm statement yet. So we going to need them to decide what they think their position is going to be, so that way we can all work together and start putting pressure on both the House and Senate to take a vote."

One of the stumbling blocks is how the TPP trade agreement will address intellectual property rights and patent protection. These concerns have been brought up by several members of Congress, such as Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch. He wants to see those portions of the trade agreement renegotiated. Woodall said that’s not likely.

“There’s no way anything is going to be renegotiated, so that concerns us because we need the Chairman (Hatch) to be able to support passage of the TPP, if we’re going to be successful,” Woodall said.

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Video: US Soy: Pig growth is impaired by soybean meal displacement in the diet

Eric van Heugten, PhD, professor and swine extension specialist at North Carolina State University, recently spoke at the Iowa Swine Day Pre-Conference Symposium, titled Soybean Meal 360°: Expanding our horizons through discoveries and field-proven feeding strategies for improving pork production. The event was sponsored by Iowa State University and U.S. Soy.

Soybean meal offers pig producers a high-value proposition. It’s a high-quality protein source, providing essential and non-essential amino acids to the pig that are highly digestible and palatable. Studies now show that soybean meal provides higher net energy than current National Research Council (NRC) requirements. Plus, soybean meal offers health benefits such as isoflavones and antioxidants as well as benefits with respiratory diseases such as porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS).

One of several ingredients that compete with the inclusion of soybean meal in pig diets is dried distillers grains with solubles (DDGS).

“With DDGS, we typically see more variable responses because of the quality differences depending on which plant it comes from,” said Dr. van Heugten. “At very high levels, we often see a reduction in performance especially with feed intake which can have negative consequences on pig performance, especially in the summer months when feed intake is already low and gaining weight is at a premium to get them to market.”

Over the last few decades, the industry has also seen the increased inclusion of crystalline amino acids in pig diets.

“We started with lysine at about 3 lbs. per ton in the diet, and then we added methionine and threonine to go to 6 to 8 lbs. per ton,” he said. “Now we have tryptophan, isoleucine and valine and can go to 12 to 15 lbs. per ton. All of these, when price competitive, are formulated into the diet and are displacing soybean meal which also removes the potential health benefits that soybean meal provides.”