WASHINGTON - Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, with Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska and 26 other senators, is urging the top U.S. trade official to work to lift Russian trade barriers to U.S. pork products.

"Russia's unjustified position against U.S. pork has blocked products from plants that account for 60 percent of U.S. pork production capacity," Grassley said.  "Russia wants to join the World Trade Organization.  One of the issues Russia needs to address before joining is its unwarranted barriers to U.S. pork."

The Grassley-Nelson letter to United States Trade Representative Ron Kirk outlines two major barriers from Russia to U.S. pork.  The first is Russia's unilateral lowering of the amount of U.S. pork it allows to be imported, cutting the previously agreed-upon amount by about half.  The second is Russia's use of sanitary restrictions to limit U.S. pork exports to Russia.  The Russian restrictions are not supported by science or valid risk assessments.

The letter urges the trade representative to work toward encouraging Russia to ease the unwarranted restrictions and abide by commitments as a precursor to joining the World Trade Organization. The United States was able to obtain commitments from China and Vietnam to overcome similar obstacles as part of those countries' accession to the World Trade Organization.  Twenty-five percent of all U.S. pork is produced in Iowa. 

Grassley is a member of the Agriculture Committee and former chairman and ranking member of the Committee on Finance, with jurisdiction over international trade.  Signing the bipartisan letter include the chairman and ranking member of the Agriculture Committee.

The letter follows a similar letter that Grassley hand-delivered to top Russian officials on a trip to Russia last month.  The text of the latest letter is available here.

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Local farmer hosts Mobile Experience in the Quad Cities 

BETTENDORF, Iowa  (June 16, 2011) - Residents in the Quad Cities got a peek into the life of American farmers and had the chance to better understand the challenges they are facing by touring Monsanto's America's Farmers Mobile Experience.  The traveling exhibit is a 53-foot long trailer that expands into 1,000-square-feet of exhibit space, designed to showcase the lives and contributions of American farmers.

Kevin Green, local farmer, had the opportunity to host the Mobile Experience in his hometown at Isle Casino in Bettendorf on June 7 and 8.  "I think it is great that we as farmers now have this tool to help us better communicate with consumers," Green said. "This is a step in the right direction and hopefully it will bring greater awareness about where food comes from."

Visitors enter the Mobile Experience to find interactive tools that identify the challenges farmers face as they increase food production to meet the needs of a growing world population.  A 180-degree theater features a video spotlighting an American farm family and what they are currently doing to meet those challenges.  In the video, visitors hear three generations of farm women speak about what farming means to them.

The final phase of the tour highlights the tools and technologies farmers use every day that help them produce safe, affordable and abundant food, fuel and clothing.

America's farmers grow our economy and care for our land. Monsanto wants to involve the consumer in every aspect of the farmer's life, from food production to the challenges they face. America's farmers ship nearly $100 billion worth of crops around the world, and generate 24 million jobs in the United States. But even with these significant accomplishments, the reality is that many Americans aren't familiar with the increasing demands a skyrocketing population has placed on farmers to feed, fuel and clothe the world. Monsanto hopes to change that one person at a time through this new Mobile Experience.

For more information on Monsanto's America's Farmers Mobile Experience or to hear from other American farm families, please visitwww.AmericasFarmers.com.

About Monsanto Company

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The program, Bridging the Gap: Increasing Competitiveness of Ugandan Women Farmers in the Marketplace, is a year-long project funded by Weidemann and Associates through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). In late March, the first group of volunteers visited the Kamuli district of southeastern Uganda to conduct farmer training and education with Ugandan women farmers. The group included three volunteer Iowa farmers and ISU Extension specialist Margaret Smith. Their objectives included training for improved maize (corn) quality, facilitation of collaborative maize grain marketing, introduction of improved soybean production methods and improving written farm record keeping.

Iowa Farm Women Educate Ugandan Farm Women"Groups of Iowa women volunteers spend 10-12 days in the Kamuli District, Uganda, where the poverty rate is above 40 percent and much of it is concentrated in households that depend on agriculture," said Mary Holz-Clause, associate vice president for ISU Extension and Outreach.

Dana Foster, Chris Henning and Brenda Zylstra were the first three women to volunteer for the project. All three have agricultural backgrounds and are influential volunteers in their Iowa communities. While their similarities led them to this project, they each brought a unique perspective to the first volunteer visit to the Kamuli District.

Foster, a teacher and farm manager at Scattergood Friends High School in West Branch, uses organic farming methods as everyday practice to teach her students. While in Uganda, she noted the importance of making the Ugandan women's work easier along with increasing their crops' market competitiveness. Most of the farmers do nearly all of their field work by hand with just one heavy-duty, hand-held hoe.

"Our gardening at the high school involves a lot of hoes and hand weeding because of the small-scale, organic production," Foster said. "When I saw the Ugandan women farming on only a slightly larger scale, I thought of other kinds of tools they could be using. For example, just having access toa wheel hoe instead of always having to lift a hand hoe up and down could save a lot of energy."

Challenges: Tools, Grain QualitySome of the biggest challenges the program identified for these farmers include availability of tools and equipment, transportation and quality control for grain. Poor grain quality and the lack of adoptionof regional grain standards put small-scale farmers at a disadvantage. Much of the maize is shelled by using a stick to beat the kernels off the ear, resulting in a high percentage of damaged and cracked kernels that are subject to insect and rodent damage. Grain buyers come around to farms to purchase grain that is available for sale, but do not use inspected scales and there are no grain standards in place in the countryside. When grain does reach mills for processing, the clean-out losses of damaged and broken kernels can be as high as 40 percent of the original volume.

"The advantages we have in the U.S., such as standard weights and measures, ready availability oftools, motorized equipment and the mechanics to maintain it, are so often taken for granted," said Chris Henning, of Prairie Skye Productions in Cooper, Iowa. "A few strategically distributed maize shellers and some wheels and axles could make a huge difference for Ugandan farmers."

The project is introducing hand- and bicycle-powered maize (corn) shellers, both to speed the shelling process and to improve grain quality.

Henning's interest in the women-to-women farming program is vested in her roots as a farmer, the oldest sibling of six girls and a facilitator of various women's programs for almost 30 years.

Zylstra, also a farmer, raises corn, soybeans and a small goat flock in Lyon County while also working part-time as the staff lawyer at Frontier Bank in Rock Rapids. Her four young children were in the capable hands of her husband during her volunteer service. When sharing pictures and stories of her family, she quickly found the common bond of family linked the Ugandan and Iowa women.

VEDCO Essential Zylstra, Henning and Foster all recognized VEDCO as essential to their efforts through theirtranslation, cultural knowledge and marketing efforts.

"VEDCO was invaluable in that they had laid the groundwork in identifying the farmers and farmer groups with which we worked," Zylstra said. "If we had to start from scratch, we would have needed months of time in Uganda."

The next group of Iowa women farmers worked in Uganda in late May. They met with VEDCO administrators and continued the work begun by the first group to improve on-site farm production, crop quality and farm record keeping in the Kamuli district.

For more information, contact Margaret Smith, project co-director, ISU Extension Value AddedAgriculture Program at mrgsmith@iastate.edu.

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Registered attendees can park and meet the motor coach at the Dallas Center-Grimes High School,where the bus will depart from and return to at the end of the tour. The tour is free and is limited to 40 pre-registered participants. To register, phone 515-294-5429, or email jlundval@iastate.edu.

The tour will include stops at two sites–one site being readied for CREP wetland construction, and another site where CREP wetland restoration is complete. Matt Lechtenberg and Shawn Richmond, CREP specialists with IDALS, Iowa State University Extension water quality engineer Matt Helmers and farmer-landowners who have installed CREP wetlands will lead the tour and talk about the benefits, installation and financial incentives for these structures.

Thirty-seven counties in north-central Iowa are eligible for enrollment in CREP. Research at Iowa State University has demonstrated that strategically sited and designed wetlands can remove 40-90 percent of nitrates and more than 70 percent of herbicides from cropland drainage waters. These areas are as beautiful as they are functional. Tour participants are welcome to bring their hiking boots or waders to see these structures up close.

Iowa Learning Farms is building a Culture of Conservation, encouraging adoption of residue management and conservation practices. Farmers, researchers and ILF staff are working together to encourage farmers to implement the best in-field management practices that increase water and soil quality while remaining profitable.

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