SAFE Act Strengthens Animal Disease Prevention and Protects Agricultural Exports

Jun 20, 2023

Iowa 4th District Representative Randy Feenstra, in collaboration with California Congressman Jimmy Panetta, has introduced the Safe American Food Exports (SAFE) Act, a crucial step towards protecting the nation's agricultural export industry in the face of animal disease outbreaks. This bipartisan legislation aims to fortify agricultural trade policies and mitigate the adverse effects of such outbreaks.

The SAFE Act, with its primary focus on amending the Animal Health Protection Act, is especially significant for Iowa, the second-largest agricultural exporter, which contributed nearly $14.3 billion worth of farm goods to the export market in 2021.

By codifying the U.S. Department of Agriculture's role in negotiating regionalization agreements, the bill ensures the safe export of livestock, poultry, and other animal products from unaffected areas during outbreaks.

To further enhance preparedness and response capabilities, the legislation establishes a comprehensive notification system. The Administrator of the Food Safety and Inspection Service will directly inform relevant agencies, state departments of agriculture, and livestock producer organizations about changes in import or export status.

Stakeholders, including the Iowa Turkey Federation and the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture, have rallied behind the SAFE Act, recognizing its potential to safeguard the industry's stability and growth.

Representative Feenstra is resolute in his commitment to advancing the legislation, either through inclusion in the Farm Bill or through separate consideration on the House floor. He underscores the importance of protecting Iowa's ability to produce and export agricultural goods, assuring both the nation and the world of a steady supply.

The SAFE Act represents a critical measure to strengthen animal disease prevention, enhance trade policies, and secure Iowa's position as a vital contributor to the agricultural export market.

Source : indianaagconnection

Video: The 15-Year Bet Behind Every New Variety!

Canada is trying to decide how much agricultural research capacity it can afford to lose. Brian Rossnagel believes the better question is whether the country can afford to rebuild it.

The longtime barley and oat breeder makes the case with a simple fact about his profession: the consequences of today’s decisions may not become visible for 10 or 15 years.

“Pick the right parents. That’s the biggest thing,” Rossnagel says. “If you pick the wrong parents, you’re not going to get anywhere—and you don’t know that until 10 years, 15 years later.”

That warning carries particular weight as Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada moves to reduce spending and streamline parts of its science operations. The department’s 2026–27 plan anticipates the loss of approximately 665 positions by 2028–29 and says some research will be reduced where capacity exists in academia or industry. AAFC says the changes will make its science operations more cost-effective over the long term.

For Canada’s seed industry, Rossnagel’s career illustrates what is at stake.

This fall, the retired University of Saskatchewan breeder will be inducted into the Canadian Agricultural Hall of Fame. During his 35-year career at the Crop Development Centre, he helped develop more than 100 barley and oat varieties, including CDC Austenson—one of Western Canada’s most widely grown feed barleys. His induction recognizes not only those varieties, but the collaboration and research system that made them possible.

Rossnagel is quick to emphasize that none of it was the work of one person.

“The first thing I thought about was all the other people who contributed to whatever success I and my program had over the years,” he says. “We know that it’s not an individual who does this. It’s a group—a team.”

That team extends well beyond the breeder whose name appears beside a variety. It includes technicians, pathologists, quality specialists, statisticians, regional testing sites, seed growers and industry partners. It also includes the breeders who came before and those who will carry the germplasm forward.

CDC Fraser barley, for example, moved through three breeding careers. Its parents came from Brian Harvey’s program. Rossnagel advanced the material after Harvey retired, and Aaron Beattie later guided it through registration and release.

That kind of handoff is normal in plant breeding. The person who makes the original cross may never see the resulting variety reach farmers.

It also explains why lost research capacity cannot simply be switched back on when budgets improve.

“If you shut it off, it’s very, very difficult—and particularly costly—to start it up again,” Rossnagel says. “If you have to start from scratch, it’s going to be at least 10 years before anybody notices whether you’re getting anything done or not.”

The concern is not simply how many experimental lines Canada can process. Modern equipment, statistical tools and genetic technologies allow today’s breeding programs to evaluate tens of thousands of lines—far more than Rossnagel could handle when he entered the field in the early 1970s.

But efficiency and automation do not generate every idea.

“If you pare back down, and instead of having six or seven individual scientists concentrating on wheat breeding, you go down and say three people could handle all this, well, that’s half the ideas gone,” he says. “Particularly if you happen to lose the three people who had the really neat and innovative ideas, boy, that’s a problem.”

It is a timely distinction for Canadian agriculture. Consolidating programs may preserve the volume of material moving through a system, at least initially. It may not preserve the diversity of thinking, regional knowledge or willingness to pursue unconventional crosses.

That regional knowledge matters because Canadian agriculture is not one uniform production environment. A variety suited to southern Alberta may face different disease, moisture and maturity pressures than one grown in Manitoba, Ontario or Atlantic Canada.

“Agriculture is applied biology,” Rossnagel says. “Biology, all around the Earth, moves from the poles to the equator. It does not move from Newfoundland to B.C. like politics do.”