Northern Agriculture Highlighted at Ashland DATCP Board Meeting

By Joan Sanstadt, News Editor
Thursday, August 23, 2007 9:34 AM CDT

Aquaculture, exports, price gouging, Friday night fish frys and some special guests received attention from Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection board members on Aug. 15 at a meeting held in Ashland.

“This is really the NORTH,” board member Mike Krutza proclaimed during the board member reports.

Cindy Brown, board member and dry bean producer, said tours on Aug. 14 had offered “a wonderful opportunity to see a different side of agriculture.” She mentioned “grain, corn and sunflowers being processed locally, rather than exported.”

However, Brown said it was important to keep the export office in Superior open “because businesses rely on their expertise.”

Board member Brian Rude reported how Vernon County farmers came together at the Vernon County Board meeting earlier in the month when a livestock facility’s permit to expand was being threatened. “”The agricultural community came together and was organized in a way I’ve never seen,” Rude said. (The Vernon County Board voted down a moratorium that would have put a hold on livestock expansion.)

Rude also called U.S. Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisconsin) “a real champion for us in the energy bill. She called for a study of the impact of increasing railroad rates on development of biofuels. She’s really tenacious on this issue, as is U.S. Rep. Dave Obey (D-Wisconsin).”

Board Chair Mike Dummer turned the floor over to former DATCP Board member Ken Lindquist, who lives in the area. Lindquist told the board of his disappointment over “the splitting up” of a cooperative effort by land conservation departments in Ashland, Bayfield, Langlade and Douglas counties who had worked together in a single office for several years. “It’s now split up and that seems to me to be a step backwards. It seems it would be to the benefit of the state if we worked together in shared/consolidated offices. When we can work together, we’re all better off,” Lindquist said.

Lindquist thanked the board for meeting in Ashland and said it confirmed the idea, “there is Wisconsin beyond Highway 29.”

DATCP Secretary Rod Nilsestuen replied to Lindquist’s comments by saying he was trying “to figure out how he could relocate the DATCP secretary’s office up here.”

Nilsestuen said there had been “some controversy over restructuring of rules” for the livestock auction at the recently-concluded Wisconsin State Fair.

The aim, the secretary continued, was “to put more emphasis on the 4-H and FFA experience. The auction was never intended to be a winner-take-all kind of effort. We’ve added guarantees in the process of goals being met - but it’s not perfect yet. As usual, when you change something, you affect somebody else,” he added.

“The Wisconsin State Fair is now in the black and is being strengthened. The fair has been a kind of historic hodge-podge, but it is a business as well as an exposition and I think we’re definitely on the right road,” Nilsestuen said.

Price gouging

Before approving the final draft of ATCP 106 - Price Gouging During an Emergency, the board heard from Jeff Schoepke, Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce (WMC), and from Robert Fassbender, an attorney and consultant for WMC.

Their comments were also on behalf of Midwest Food Processors Association, National Federation of Independent Business, Wisconsin Builders Association, Wisconsin Grocers Association, Wisconsin Federation of Cooperatives, Wisconsin Merchants Federation, Wisconsin Paper Council, Wisconsin Petroleum Council and the Wisconsin Petroleum Marketers & Convenience Store Association.

While the board ultimately voted its approval of the draft rule it also voted to have Board Chair Mike Dummer write a letter of transmittal to the legislature on behalf of the board requesting greater clarification in the price gouging law.

“The department has the responsibility to create a rule dependent on the statutes that are given to us. Our responsibility is not to like or approve of the law. We don’t have to approve an implementing rule (DATCP’s consumer protection division has responsibility to implement this rule), although we normally do.

“This is the first time in my years as chair I’ve said that,” Dummer told the board.

During the discussion of the rule, Janet Jenkins, administrator of the consumer protection division at DATCP, asked the board to “keep in mind the distinction between the rule and the law. Are you saying the law doesn’t provide enough guidance for the department (to draft the rule)?” Jenkins asked.

The rule could not reflect something that was not in the statute, yet the statute was vague about what was covered by the “10 percent cap on price increases” that relate to price gouging.

The written testimony submitted by WMC and others reads: “Our primary concern is the combination of such a low price cap (10 percent) and the failure to provide an exception, such as for increased costs, if price increases are due to normal fluctuations of commodities markets.”

Fassbender warned “the 10 percent cap in this rule will result in shortages of vital materials at those times these supplies are most needed.”

Further written comment noted, “Most of the consumer goods needed most in an emergency - fuel, lumber, water, etc. - are considered commodities by a conventional understanding of the principles of economics. Because fungible commodities are, by definition, priced not by sellers but by market supply and demand, artificially capping prices during supply shortages or when demand increases in emergency areas will lead to the diversion of product to markets outside of an emergency area.”

Brian Rude, board member and former state senator, said he found “it ironic to have a state agency saying (to the legislature) ‘you’ve given us an inch and we’ll take a mile’.”

Rude and board members agreed to ask lawmakers to spell out what goods and services are subject to the cap. “It’s not a very thoughtful law,” they agreed.

Aquaculture

Representatives of the Red Cliff Tribal Hatchery and the UW-Stevens Point Northern Aquaculture Demonstration Facility at Bayfield were on hand to receive a $23,500 Agricultural Development and Diversification (ADD) program grant during the DATCP board meeting.

The grant will enable the aquaculture facility to look at the potential for raising lake herring, a new, high-value species, in an aquaculture setting.

Will Hughes, administrator of the Agriculture Development Division, described herring as “one of the last remnants of commercial fishing in the Great Lakes. There’s been a concern about how to make herring available for food markets and also for bait and for stocking. We’re looking at it as a new species that might be able to be raised in Wisconsin.”

Ron Johnson, outreach specialist, Greg Fischer, facilities manager, and Matt Zimbal, natural resources manager, for the Red Cliff tribe, accepted the ADD award.

Johnson described for the board, the activities at the facility regarding current research and programming that take place at the Northern Aquaculture Demonstration Facility.

DATCP has worked closely with the UW, the governor and the legislature to develop this northern facility and to guide its programming so that fish farmers throughout the state can benefit the research that takes place there.

Projects at the facility include: rearing of cool and cold water fish from egg incubation to production size and harvest; yellow perch rearing and feed-training; rearing fry and extended growth walleye with various feed and fertilization techniques, comparing production and performance of regional strains of trout; along with internship and education opportunities.

Johnson told the board the facility was ready to meet any aquaculture industry needs “with information and curriculum.”

Friday Night Fish Fry

Johnson also offered a word about the traditional Wisconsin Fish Frys that take place around the state on Fridays.

“Some restaurants use creative wording on their menus,” Johnson said. In violation of both state and federal rules, “what people think they are eating may not be yellow perch or walleye,” he warned. “Instead they could be eating European zander which may have been raised in polluted waters. Zander is a white perch and belongs to a different species.”

Estimates are that Wisconsinites eat 300,000 pounds of fish every Friday night in Wisconsin.

Budget

Nilsestuen described the current status of the state budget as “potentially one of the most challenging budgets the DATCP has ever faced.”

That’s because of the department is operating with 175 fewer employees than it had ten years ago - yet at the same time it is responsible for three dozen more programs than it had ten years ago, the secretary pointed out. “It has also been the leanest state agency for many years,” he added.

Cuts in General Purpose Revenue (GPR or tax money) funding would (most visibly) affect food safety and animal health programs. “Our options would be less service, no service, major cuts or huge fee increases,” Nilsestuen told the board.

Other business

In other business, the board:

* Approved a final draft rule to increase food and dairy license fees. The increase is needed to address a mounting deficit in DATCP’s food safety program revenue account. The proposal does not reflect the governor’s proposed one-time transfer from the Agricultural Chemical Fund to augment food safety funding. If the legislature enacts that transfer the DATCP will modify this final draft because the fee increases would then be slightly smaller.

* Approved the final draft rule for Dairy Food Safety. The changes in this rule brings Wisconsin rules into conformity with the Interstate Pasteurized Milk Ordinance, clarifies the current statutory prohibition against the sale of unpasteurized “raw milk” and updates current rules to reflect changing industry technology and practices.

* Authorized public hearings on a draft “permanent” rule related to voluntary certification of firewood dealers-only certified Wisconsin firewood dealers would be able to supply firewood to Wisconsin state parks.

* Heard a Wisconsin Agricultural Statistics Service Report from Bob Battaglia.

* Heard a report from Jill Makovec, the 60th Alice in Dairyland.

* Received an update on the Farm and Rural Services Bureau (Wisconsin Farm Center) from Paul Dietmann, who was named director of that bureau earlier this year.

* Approved the 2008 board meeting schedule that calls for meetings to be held on the second Wednesday of every month, with the exception of Aug. 6, when the meeting will take place at the Wisconsin State Fair. No meetings are planned for April, July or October.

Comments »

Comment on this story

Comments will be approved within 48 hours

Name:

Email: (optional)

Comments:

Image Verification: (Case sensitive)