CropLife Retail Week: Farm Bill and Port Workers Updates, Product of the Year Voting, and ESA Webinar Details
October 11, 2024 Eric Sfiligoj and Lara Sowinski talk about developments in Washington, DC, and at the nation’s ports, plus two CropLife initiatives.
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*Below is partial and edited transcript:
Eric Sfiligoj: Hello. Welcome to another edition of CropLife Retail Week. I’m Eric Sfiligoj editor, CropLife and CropLife IRON. Here again with Lara Sowinksi. Lara, how are we doing today?
Lara Sowinksi: Very good. Thank you.
ES: Hey, you know, we’re into the fall season. Of course. And, I know folks are busy in the field harvesting what they can, bringing in the crops that will then will offer up the revenue that folks will be using moving forward through the next growing season. But, one of the bits of revenue that may be a little in question, of course, has to do with the farm bill.
Actually, we passed the September 30th expiration date for the farm bill in its current form, and Congress at the time made no move to extend it. So, and at the moment, from what I’ve read, you know, that, you know, we always were we’ve been saying for a couple of videos that the prospects for a new farm bill happening in ’24 being an election year and the divided Congress, as much as we’ve had, that the outlook looked pretty bleak.
And it appears that’s going to be the case for the remainder of the year. I guess Congress has, whether they’ve got a lame duck session coming up on November 12th, and at that time, they’re expected to hopefully extend the farm bill, because if they do not, it will expire at the end of calendar year ’24. And going into the ’25 growing season without an active farm bill, I think will cause a whole lot of uncertainty in a marketplace where we’ve already seen of ton of it.
And that, of course, will not help farmers sentiment or probably spending profiles for ag retailers, and it just will be a mess. So we probably won’t have a new farm bill until next year. But yeah, I’m hoping Congress actually does something on November 12th in that session to extend this one at least. So we’ve got some type of a safety net there for the grower community. Yeah, I think that’s the bare minimum of a kind gesture, for the community at this point.
It just compounds what’s already as we’ve talked about before, difficult environment out there. So yeah. And I know you know going you know covering this market for a quarter of a century. I mean I know the one thing that, you know, agriculture in general hates is uncertainty. Things that they have that they don’t have answers for. And this definitely qualifies at the moment.
So fingers crossed. In the next month things will change. But we will see. So hey, what good news do you have to share with our viewers?
LS: Well, the good news is that, as we all know, the, ports right on East Coast and Gulf coasts, with the ILA, representing the longshoremen, you know, three days in, they, got the pay raise, or close.
Well, they got a decent pay. Pay raise. Longshoreman went back to work, both sides agreed to, extend the contract until January 15th and keep on, negotiating to work out, a replacement. However, as we’ve mentioned a few times, the real sticking point and, I, you know, hard to ignore this. The conflict and, different feelings about are automation.
Really, are can’t be ignored. And, just I read another, great report from Paul Page, of the Wall Street Journal, the daily logistics report, that he and his team put together. And he was talking about just that, that this issue alone may really prove to be almost insurmountable. And I say that not, trying to make things worse than they are, but, it was very clear, leading up to October 1st, that the Ila was not going to budge on accepting more automation.
They were very, very clear about that. So, well, you know, they were able to patch things up enough to, you know, kick the can down the road a bit. You know, it’s really remains to be seen. And, you know, I can see both sides feel very clearly about, strongly, strongly, I should say, about the issue.
When it comes to productivity and throughput at ports, the US overall lags behind, Asia, the Middle East, really our, our counterparts around the world as far as, big container ports. But at the same time, what I like to see did say, you know, during, Covid, you know, while the ports were, were jammed, there were also other issues along the supply chain and at the warehouse. Much of the capacity that was constrained on the inland, he was talking about the ports of, Long Beach. So, you know, there was just capacity constraints along the entire supply chain. So, and, you know, while things may have moved quickly. Excuse me, at the ports of LA, Long Beach and, in particular the Long Beach container terminal, which is fully, it’s all robots all the time kind of thing.
And, you know, sure, things may move well there, but if you have problems with rail, warehouse, trucking, etc., you know, that’s not going to help much. So, kind of a, roundabout way of saying that how this issue will be resolved really is going to be tough. I mean, both sides and I really mean this both sides will have to make some concessions in order to get past that January 15th, date and get something, you know, put, put, together.
So we’ll see how that works out. I guess I’ll kick it back to you. And then, you know, before we wrap up, I do have some good news, at least something that we’re doing here at CropLife, with the CPDA and the EPA and ESA and the ABC’s of ESA. Can I throw another acronym in there?
So I’ll try and end on, on a good note today, but I guess back to you to see what else. Yeah. Okay.
ES: Yeah. Let me see if I can help a little bit. So again, it was we’re in mid-October as we record this. So of course everyone on everyone’s mind of course. And what you’re getting a lot of robocalls about and I’m sure a lot of fliers in the mayor mail about voting.
And I also want to encourage you to vote, but I’m not talking about the election or anything going on in the Beltway. This is stuff going on here at CropLife and our sister publication, CropLife IRON. Every year we do what we call the product of the year, where we nominate five approved products and one of them at the end of the year, based on votes from the readers and the viewers, that gets the big I trophy, which is a very, very coveted trophy in the equipment marketplace.
So, this year, the voting is now open. The five products that were nominated were the See and Spray Premium for Hagie STS sprayers from our friends at John Deere, the ZG-TS spreaders from Amazone, the SS400+ spinner spreader from the Salford Group, the ET electric tender from Doyle and the NL720 spreader from our friends at New Leader.
So those are the five products. I’m sure you’ve had seen pictures up on the screen from our videographer. And then if you look at the screen, there is the link for you to vote. So you have until Friday, November 1st to cast your vote for your favorite of these five products. And the winners then will be announced and the trophy presented at one of the winter trade shows.
LS: So that’s the CropLife Iron product the year for 2024. So that’s cool. Are you giving out an I voted sticker?
ES: We haven’t done that. But, that might be a little cumbersome given the fact this is all done online. So, but, yeah. So that’s my good news to share. This is always a joyous time seeing what product ends up winning the product of the year trophy.
So what good news do you have to give to our viewers? Well, is, you know, because you’re doing it with me. We are co-hosting a webinar on November 15th as part of our ABCs of ESA, and that’s a theme of our special report that we’re working on, in partnership with the CPDA. Talking about, the EPA’s obligations under the Endangered Species Act and, what that means for growers, what it means for retailers, suppliers and everyone, in the ag supply chain.
So, big topic and we’re devoting a lot of coverage to it. We’ll have a special report that’s printed, that will go out with the December issue of CropLife. And November 15th, we’ll have a webinar. We have three terrific panelists, Eileen Bernard from, Nutrient Solutions, Kyle Cochlear from American Soil Association, and Scott Eddy from Wilbur Ellis will be our panelists.
And again, it will be highly interactive. Eric and I will be, talking with the panel, but certainly inviting the audience to, participate in real time with some questions and so forth, which we will, engage with the panelists. So, we will be promoting the webinar, online and in our newsletter. We’re still and within the next few, few days, so early, the week of October 14th will have the link in the promos and all that set to go, but, put a hold the date on your calendar.
That’s November 15th at 2 p.m. EST. So we’re excited about that.
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