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House Agriculture and Livestock met on February 22nd to hear an overview of agencies and issues under the committee’s jurisdiction.

This report is intended to give you an overview and highlight of the discussions on the various topics taken up. It is not a verbatim transcript of the discussions but is based upon what was audible or understandable to the observer and the desire to get details out as quickly as possible with few errors or omissions.

 

Brittany Sharkey, Texas Board of Veterinary Medical Examines  

  • Reviewed mission and process of agency
  • Leadership challenges and ongoing lack of resources
  • Been in this role for 5 months
  • Surpassed 3 fiscal years for amounts of complaints resolved, etc.
  • Working with DIR to conduct a needs assessment
  • Working to increase transparency and accountability
  • Harris – asked about new FDA rule that requires all producers to get a prescription for basic livestock medication that can be purchased OTC at feed stores?
    • That is a new requirement, still waiting for more guidance to be released
    • Current guidance is to follow federal guidance as it exists but waiting for more details on this new rule
    • Harris – would suggest committee watch and possibly pre-empt if necessary
  • Anderson – appreciates agency work on making improvements
  • Bernal – ask for anything committee can do to help?
    • Seeing a historic underfunding of agency
    • First session asking for what they really need to address, so would like to see those requests funded

Sid Miller, Texas Department of Agriculture

  • Reviews mission and agency growth
  • Meets all performance measures set by State
  • They are a cost recovery agency – pay their own way
  • $6 billion operation but $5 billion is in the nutrition program
  • Schools used to be serving zero locally grown products, now they serve fresh grown products locally thanks to the agency work
  • Box lunch program during COVID was copied throughout the nation and USDA used their model
  • Another division is the consumer division covers weights and measures
  • Continued with discussions on various programs and efforts:
    • Discusses NASCAR Go Texan marketing
    • Wine Industry is now a $23B industry thanks in part to department’s work
    • Organize donations and animal shelters across the state when there is a disaster
    • Reached out to Go Texan partners that distilled spirits came in and donated hand sanitizers, many came together during COVID to help get supplies to hospitals
    • Instituted a hemp program, top program recognized by others outside of Texas
    • Oversee boil weevil eradication program
  • Need help in road stations, check trucks for invasive species that would impact the industry
  • In California there are 300 employees for road stations and last year did 20 million inspections, Florida 200 employees and did 10 million inspections
    • In Texas there are 3 stations, working part time and zero staff, and Texas did 184k inspections
    • Federal funding for this program will be going away
    • Provided examples of the importance of catching the species
    • Have taken out 4,400 citrus trees in Ft. Bend and Harris County but don’t really have the resources to do this
  • Suicide hotline, they have an agri-stress line to address mental health needs
    • Would like legislature to help fund and keep it going
  • Need help with retraining and recruiting doctors and nurses in rural Texas
  • Anderson – agrees with need for road station help
  • Wilson – Texas Tech discussion on ongoing litigation, potential meat packing monopoly and that they are in feed lots as well
    • Watching this issue, investigation occurred of big 4 packers, but it was not finished before changing Presidency
    • Investigation is back on; hope is they will be busted up
    • Agrees they also own half of cattle in feedlot
    • Wilson and Miller discuss the various methods for selling
    • Number of cattlemen have formed a Co-Op and building processing in Amarillo
    • Many people looking to buy locally processed beef
  • Wilson – anything to help address barriers for those getting into the business would be good to keep on the radar
  • Goodwin – asked about exports
    • Grain, cotton – but Texas exports almost anything you can think of
    • Can now ship grapefruit into Vietnam
  • Goodwin – agrees the hope is to get more inspectors into the road stations
  • Goodwin – mentioned pesticides that are ban, what happens to the collection?
    • Hire a company out of Dallas where they incinerate it, EPA approved disposal process
  • Goodwin – what is Waters of the U.S.?
    • Determinantal to oil and gas and production and agriculture
    • No one can define a navigable water way
    • TWDB report, municipalities lose 30% of water but Ag is over 90% efficient with their water
    • Federal declaration – Ag is suing on this issue, there is another case that could give a definite direction on this issue
  • Anderson – even after heavy rain in a spot, it could be a water way and regulations kick in and it would impact agriculture
  • Harris – Continued discussion on WOTUS, Waters of the U.S., provides historical context
  • A lot depends on court case once it is heard
    • Harris – this is a gross overreach of federal powers
  • Cain – asked if federal government already looks at thread counts on sheets
    • Oversee anything with weights and measures and they provided a serious reprimand for hurting the consumer
  • Bernal – appreciates the diverse nature of work, ask more about mental health
    • Two highest rates of suicide are veterans and farmers
  • Bernal – inquires about requests for rural health care, would like to know specific asks
    • Will list those out in Finance and Approps
    • Want to continue Agri-Stress, matching money to get out to rural hospitals, about $4.8 million for the rural program
    • Detailed in financial asks
  • Kitzman – again appreciates work on rural health care
  • Wilson – provides personal example of rural hospital need in Eaton, there are some places in that facility without sheetrock and doing the best they can
    • Can get PA’s to come in to fill the gap if they can’t get doctors, so need funding from committee for recruitment and retention
  • Wilson – Veteran programs for those looking to get into farming and ranching
    • Yes
    • Will provide more details to the committee
  • Wilson – what can we do differently this time to address need
    • Asking for a new program in road stations and it is needed to help protect against infestation
  • Challenge for the committee, have a Go Texan area that allows for a pig show, ask members to put the event on the calendar

Andy Schwartz, Animal Health Commission

  • Reviews mission, work, accomplishments of commission
  • Help coordinate and work with people who help with animal care during natural disasters
  • Addresses several diseases of concern and works toward eradication – list of several ones they are working on and some they have eradicated
    • Cattle and swine brucellosis- free of in domestic swine
    • Sudeo rabies- free of in domestic swine
    • Bovine trichomoniasis
    • Anthrax
    • Vesicular stomatitis virus
    • Equine infectious anemia & equine piroplasmosis
    • Infections laryngotracheitis
    • Fever tick outbreaks
      • Anderson – provided example of more problems with fever ticks, difficult and costly program
    • Avian influenza is a nationwide outbreak
    • Chronic Wasting Disease
      • Difficult to deal with because prion remains infectious and can contaminate water and hay
    • Cattle Tuberculosis
    • African Swine fever
  • Working on animal disease traceability
  • No questions

Rex Isom, Texas State Soil and Water Conservation

  • Provide details on the board and the mission
  • Thanks to Rep. Wilson for support of “On the Ground” program
  • Anderson- How you would describe dam maintenance?
    • Maintenance is more the fences, the shredding, preventing erosion, and everyday operation; have about 500 damns that don’t meet state standards
  • Cain- Is there anything we can do to encourage more voluntary compliance?
    • We do have an awards and recognition program, the more we can promote conservations efforts the better it is for Texas

 

John Foster, Soil and Water Conservation Board

 

  • Local entities are responsible for M&O on grant type programs
  • The Board has programs that support local government entities
  • Exceptional item dealing with the amount of funding all the district asked for that we are unable to provide
  • Exceptional item is the total amount for a 5-year running average that the board does not have the funds to pay for whatever applicants wanted done conservation wise
  • Plans for poultry incentive program are voluntary
  • Flood control dam grant programs are categorized in the district funds
  • Exceptional item asking for increase of $50M and 2 FTEs for flood control program to base budget
  • Exceptional item asking for 4 additional FTEs that address district operations
  • Exceptional item asking for additional $150M to address $2B backlog in rehabilitation need for dams in the state; In 2017 $150M was allocated from economic stabilization fund and has all been spent
  • Exceptional item deals with on the ground program, asking for 1 FTE
  • Wilson- Can you do anything about aggregate plants?
    • I would say that is out of our preview
  • Kitzman- Can you give us an example of dam we are concerned about?
    • Steve Bednars- These dams were built by USDA and those are the only ones that qualify for the program. The damns on average are 50-100ft in height, but all of them were originally designed to protect agri-land and county roads. Dams are classified based on standard; high hazard dam has the potential for loss of life. What the program does is upgrade the dams to meet high hazard safety criteria according to TCEQ standards. These dams are 50-70 years old, so you must spend money to repair them. However, they are important because they provide $180M per year in benefits to Texas.
  • Kitzman- Would you say that our maintenance and upgrades are on schedule?
    • No, we are way behind
  • Kitzman- So these items are of great importance then?
    • Yes extremely, if we don’t take care of them the damns they will go away, and then the flood control benefits will go away, then well never get them back.
  • Isom- Would like to reiterate that we have 515 damns that do not meet state standards and 20 more are being added every year