Word: usda
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...soybeans, almost 40% more than at the same time last year. Kansas alone held 178.8 million bu. of grain sorghum, a livestock feed, almost 80% more than in June 1985. The U.S. is producing a huge excess of milk as well, a problem reduced only partly by the USDA's program this year to pay thousands of dairy farmers some $1.8 billion to send their herds to slaughter or export markets...
...lack the money to buy significant imports. This year total U.S. farm exports are expected to dip to $27.5 billion, down 12% from fiscal 1985 and 37% from 1981. At the same time, U.S. imports of such products as fish, fruit and vegetables have increased. Earlier this month the USDA announced that during May the U.S. became a net importer of farm products for the first time since 1959, except for occasions when dockworkers were on strike. May's farm deficit was $348.7 million. Although the USDA predicts a $7.5 billion agricultural-trade surplus for the year as a whole...
...help cushion the blow to cattle ranchers, the USDA last week began an 18- month program of buying 400 million lbs. of red meat for school lunches, overseas military bases and other uses. But for the next several months, those purchases are not expected to keep pace with the dairy slaughter. Says Rancher Jack Sparrowk, who runs a herd of 25,000 cattle near Sacramento: "The USDA is asleep at the switch...
...USDA officials argue that the cattlemen and the futures markets have overreacted to what will be a temporary increase in supplies, but ranchers say that the short-term impact is proving to be severe. Nor are they comforted to know that dairy cattle produce low-quality meat, which cannot compare with tastier ranch beef. "Any extra tonnage is bad," says Paul Hitch, owner of a major feedlot in Guymon, Okla. "If a million cut-rate Chevies come on the market, even Cadillac is going to lose some sales...
...ranchers are hoping for relief through the courts. A U.S. district court in Rochester has issued a temporary restraining order against one aspect of the USDA program: a requirement that dairy cows designated for slaughter be branded on the face so that they cannot be secretly sold to other farmers. The Humane Society had sued, claiming that the branding "constitutes cruelty to animals." Meanwhile, the National Cattlemen's Association has sued the USDA in a Texas federal court, hoping to convince the judge that the whole Government program constitutes cruelty to cattle ranchers...