ams

In celebration of Women’s History Month, we are highlighting a different leading woman in agriculture each week.  This week, we profile Lindsey Lusher Shute, founder and Executive Director of the National Young Farmers Coalition.

Lindsey is dedicated to advocating for beginning farmers and helping them overcome hurdles as they start their own farm businesses. In addition to leading the National Young Farmers Coalition, Lindsey and her husband, Ben, are raising two daughters while managing Hearty Roots Community Farm in New York’s Hudson Valley. Lindsey was also selected as a White House Champion of Change and participated in the White House women’s dialogue this past fall.

Lindsey talked about how she juggles her kids, her reading list and her farm; and how she sees women leading the charge among the upcoming generation of farmers.

Successful businesses all seem to have a common bond – a commitment to quality, consistency, and integrity. During a recent trip with my colleagues, I saw firsthand the many ways that companies are turning to my agency – the USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) – to provide these factors to pave their path to success.

Our first stop was the packinghouse at West Coast Tomato LLC in Palmetto, Fla. Thanks to meeting USDA audit requirements, the high-volume packer can confidently sell its tomatoes to restaurants, grocery stores, and re-packing companies. The fascinating thing about West Coast Tomato LLC is that the facility is nearly completely automated. Almost all of the tomatoes are sized and sorted mechanically. “Our use of technology has significantly decreased our re-packing,” says plant director John Darling. “As a result, we’re better equipped to meet buyer requirements.”

In celebration of Women’s History Month, we are highlighting a different leading woman in agriculture each week. Last week, we kicked off the series with Agriculture Marketing Service Administrator Anne Alonzo. This week, we caught up with cattlewoman Minnie Lou Bradley.

Minnie Lou Bradley, now a sprightly 83, always had a passion for agriculture. Growing up in southwestern Oklahoma, Minnie was the first woman to major in animal husbandry from Oklahoma State University in Stillwater in 1949.  In 1955, Minnie Lou Bradley moved to the Texas Panhandle to found Bradley 3 Ranch with her husband Billy. For decades, Minnie’s vision has catapulted Bradley 3 Ranch into a leader and award-winning ranch for land management and genetic beef breeding. Minnie herself has lassoed a herd of accolades, including being the first female President of the American Angus Association, an inductee into the Saddle and Sirloin Portrait Gallery and has received recognition as one of the nation’s top 50 U.S. Beef Industry Leaders by BEEF magazine.

When trading commodities on the market, it is critical that buyers and sellers across the supply chain speak the same trade language.  For meat products, large volume buyers – ranging from the federal government to schools, restaurants and hotels – reference the U.S. Institutional Meat Purchase Specifications (IMPS) when making their purchases.

For the first time, the IMPS and poultry and turkey trade descriptions, which are maintained by USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS), have been translated into Spanish.  These documents are part of a continued effort to expand the use of meat specifications used in the United States, Canada and Mexico for trade.  You can also find French translations of these documents through the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.

In celebration of Women’s History Month, we are taking a moment to talk with prominent women in agriculture about their lives, their ideas about leadership, and how their day gets off to a good start.

“The women I know (and work with) are strong, decisive and “take charge” women,” says Anne Alonzo. Anne Alonzo is the Administrator of USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service. She is a respected global leader who has forged a successful career in the public, non-profit, and corporate sectors, including significant experience in trade and diplomacy.  She has an MBA from the University of Chicago and a JD from Chicago-Kent College of Law.  Although she grew up as a city kid, Anne's experiences have given her a deep appreciation for agriculture.

It all started with one truck—one truck and the idea that bringing fresh, healthy foods into Philly communities was just a question of coordination.  For Haile Johnston and his wife, Tatiana Garcia-Granados, founding Common Market was the logical solution to solve the food access issues they saw in the communities around them.

“The core of Common Market is selling to schools and hospitals,” said Johnston. “Historically, they have been the hardest institutions to reach. They serve the most vulnerable population. That’s why we focus on partnering with schools and hospitals.”

Their food hub business model connects local farmers in the rural Mid-Atlantic region with wholesale customers in urban areas.  In their first year, Common Market worked with only a dozen farmers and had 22 customers, but they kept growing—adding trucks and building relationships with local family farms and institutional buyers in urban communities.

USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack, Deputy Secretary Krysta Harden, and all of USDA are committed to supporting the next generation of farmers and ranchers and promoting diversity and inclusion in all sectors of agriculture. As Administrator of the Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS), I had the pleasure of advancing these important priorities during our Research and Promotion Program (R&P) board diversity and inclusion training session, held in Northern Virginia prior to the 2015 Agricultural Outlook Forum.

Meeting participants – including more than 50 board members and board staff from 20 of the 22 R&P boards that we oversee, AMS employees, and representatives of Certified Nominating Organizations – gathered to tackle a serious issue: how to recruit talented and diverse board members who are representative of the industries they serve. The R&P boards allow farmers and ranchers to pool their resources and set common goals to develop new markets and strengthen current markets for the commodities they grow or handle.

This is the twenty-third installment of the Organic 101 series that explores different aspects of the USDA organic regulations.

According to a 2014 USDA Economic Research Service report, consumer demand for organically produced products continues to show double-digit growth.  This year, the Montana Organic Association’s (MOA) annual meeting highlighted the sector’s ongoing growth with its theme of Organic Business: Benefitting Producers and Consumers.  As USDA’s Organic Policy Advisor, I represented USDA at MOA’s conference and presented information about USDA’s support for the growing organic community.

MOA’s mission is to advocate for and promote organic agriculture for the highest good of the people, the environment and the state's economy. The conference brought in over 200 people, a large number in a rural state with just over 200 certified organic operations.  MOA President Nate Brown noted, "The Montana Organic Association annual conference is our biggest event of the year and has been the lifeblood of the organization for the past 12 years.  We feel the conference is a great way to bring together Montana's organic community every year for a weekend of learning and socializing in order to keep up with the growing organic market in our state."

We often talk about the many ways research and promotion (R&P) programs benefit both ag industries and the consumer. Our nation’s farmers and ranchers leverage these programs and the pooled resources they collect to help overcome marketing barriers and connect with consumers. R&P programs are self-help initiatives that are national in scope and funded by the industry to help these businesses continue to strengthen their rural economies and the communities they support.

To form a new R&P, there are specific steps that the industry and USDA follow:

Have you ever wondered how American farmers and businesses track the price of their commodities?  Today, farmers, ranchers, and the entire agricultural supply chain turn to USDA Market News – administered by my agency, the Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) – for timely, reliable, unbiased data that serves as the information lifeline for America’s agricultural economy.

But 100 years ago, everyone was in the dark about how much things cost.  That’s why, in 1915, the first USDA Market News report was sent by telegraph, letting buyers and sellers across the country know the price of strawberries in Hammond, Louisiana.