Washington Insider-- Tuesday

By DTN's Washington Insider

Here’s a quick monitor of Washington farm and trade policy issues from DTN’s well-placed observer.

California to List Roundup as Carcinogen

California’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) plans to identify the herbicide glyphosate, also known as Roundup, and three pesticides as carcinogens under Proposition 65.

Under Proposition 65, businesses must provide consumer warnings on produce labels when exposing the public to unsafe levels of listed chemicals linked to cancer or reproductive harm.

Glyphosate, parathion and malathion are being listed under the state’s Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986 via an administrative process, OEHHA said.

The law’s “labor code mechanism” allows listing of chemicals already linked to cancer by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IRAC). A document IARC published on its website earlier this year concluded malathion and glyphosate are probably carcinogenic to humans and classified the other two pesticides are possible carcinogens, OEHHA said.

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WOTUS Rule Enforcement Halt Limited to 13 States by Federal Judge

A temporary halt to the enforcement of new US water-quality regulations is limited to the 13 states that sued to block the rules. A federal judge in North Dakota recently restricted his order blocking the enforcement at the urging of the Obama administration.

The states had sought a coast-to-coast halt to avoid a “regulatory patchwork.” The District court ruled that the EPA and the US Army Corps of Engineers should be enjoined from implementing the rule only in the 13 states that sought the preliminary injunction to block the clean water rule before it took effect Aug. 28.

The Court said it was acting out of respect for the decision-making authority of other courts that have ruled on this issue and out of respect for states that might want to implement the rule “In the instant case, there are significant prudential reasons to limit the scope of the preliminary injunction to the entities actually before the court,” wrote Chief District Judge Ralph Erickson.

EPA and the Corps said Aug. 27 that they would apply the ruling only to the 13 states, but those states petitioned the court to have it applied nationwide.

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Washington Insider: Commercializing Farmer Data

There have been a lot of "gee whiz" reports recently about the amazing flow of information the new farm machines are generating about almost everything—soil, soil nutrition, moisture and farm, efficiency for starters. This is valuable stuff at every level, but especially if it is carefully analyzed and organized into meaningful blocks.

And, it is becoming more and more valuable as producers invest in more modern equipment—and, there are increasing efforts to extend its use. However, that may not be easy, the Wall Street Journal suggested recently.

The WSJ story was mainly about new startup groups, such as Farmobile LLC, Granular Inc. and Grower Information Services Cooperative, who are developing computer systems to enable farmers to capture and manage data streaming from their equipment—and market it to agriculture companies or futures traders, or others. This would mean, the Journal says, that farmers could benefit even more from the technology revolution than they have. And, it hints, possibly exercise greater control over just who gets to use the information being generated.

Always on the lookout for any hint of a fight, the WSJ suggests that the efforts by the data start-ups would, in some cases, challenge a wave of data-analysis tools from big agricultural companies such as Monsanto Co., DuPont Co., Deere & Co. and Cargill Inc. Those systems use modern planters, combines and other machinery link to data systems that store and report field conditions and operations and then crunch those data to provide farm-management guidance to help producers increase efficiency and control costs. The companies say farmers own the data from their operations and that it won’t be sold to third parties.

The rub, the WSJ says, is that some farmers and entrepreneurs think they can get the most from their data by compiling and analyzing it themselves. In addition, they suggest that farmers could profit further by selling data to seed, pesticide and equipment makers who want to better plan ways to effectively target farm customers.

The Journal sees the new cooperative ventures arriving as farmers weigh the potential benefits of sharing their data with large agricultural firms against privacy concerns and fears that agribusinesses could leverage farm-level information to charge higher rates for seeds, pesticides and other supplies.

“We need to get farmers involved in this because it’s their information,” said Dewey Hukill, board president of Grower Information Services Cooperative, or GISC, a farmer-owned cooperative that is building a platform to collect its members’ data. The cooperative has signed up about 1,500 members across 37 states.

The ability to monetize data – while maintaining privacy and sensitive business information – is one argument companies like Farmobile are making to prospective clients. “If there is any monetary value, we think it needs to go back to the grower,” the board president of Grower Information Services Cooperative told the WSJ, noting that the data would be anonymous, and that farmers would share in the proceeds of any data sold.

Still, observers suggest that it is still an open question whether the new startups will be able to overcome the sheer scale of investment by agribusiness and their experience and strong tech-based reputations with their farm customers. For example, Monsanto recently spent over $1 billion in data-related acquisitions—and DuPont says that the market could generate $500 million in yearly revenue.

It will be important to producers and the sector to see how these efforts play out—and, how other groups choose to become involved, or not--such as the land grant universities and the so-called consumer advocates who seem to prefer almost no technology at all.

Producers, for their part have weighed in long and consistently in favor of high-investment, high tech operations that produce high yields of quality products. This suggests that the data-management approach that best supports that profile would seem to have a leg up in the competition to manage the modern ag data system, Washington Insider believes.

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(GH/CZ)

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