Texas agriculture commissioner: I'm co-chairing Trump ag team Presented by Boehringer Ingelheim Animal Health

With help from Ian Kullgren, Jason Huffman and Catherine Boudreau

IT'S MILLER TIME FOR TRUMP'S AG TEAM: Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller says he will help lead Donald Trump’s agriculture advisory committee, which is still in the process of coming together. Miller revealed his involvement in an interview Friday with Texas radio station KFYO, noting he’d serve as a co-chair. He added that the effort would be formally announced early this week.


Miller’s comments suggest he may be joining forces with Charles Herbster, a Republican donor and agribusiness leader, to spearhead agricultural and rural concerns for the Republican nominee. After Herbster made an appearance at an ag event on the sidelines of the Republican National Convention last month, POLITICO reported Herbster would head up Trump’s rural and agricultural advisory committee. On Friday, Herbster and his associates would not provide further details about his efforts, and the Trump campaign, which has included POLITICO among its media blacklist, declined to field questions from MA about Miller’s involvement.

“Personally, I think Donald Trump will be great for agriculture,” Miller said during the KFYO interview, arguing that Trump would appoint conservative judges and combat regulations that adversely affect agriculture — from WOTUS to the Endangered Species Act. “You know he understands over-regulation, and I think that will be tremendous for our producers,” he added.

Miller, a pro-life, conservative, rodeo cowboy, cattle and horse rancher, tree nursery owner and former chairman of the Texas House Agriculture Committee, has been the state’s agriculture commissioner since Jan. 2015. His short tenure has not been without controversy. Earlier this year, he came under fire for a taxpayer-funded trip to Oklahoma, during which he received a “Jesus shot,” a controversial treatment that’s supposed to relieve chronic pain. Miller later repaid the state for the cost of the trip. More on that dust up here. The radio interview is here.

He’s a fan of deep-fryers: Miller has also become infamous in nutrition circles — and made national headlines — for trying to bring deep-fryers and full-calorie sodas back to public schools. During the KFYO interview, he criticized an effort to establish Meatless Mondays in Texas schools. In response to the push for Meatless Mondays, Miller launched Farm Fresh Fridays, which encourages cafeterias to source local meats and produce on Fridays. Farmers also make school visits as part of the effort, he said.

HAPPY MONDAY, AUGUST 8! Welcome to Morning Ag, where your host would like to give a shout-out to Brandon Blue at WHO Radio in Des Moines. After hearing that squirrels were eating my tomatoes, Blue put out a call to his listeners for tips, and I now have a long list of things to try, from purchasing a BB gun to using bone meal to ward off the critters. Wish me luck! You know the deal: Thoughts, news, tips? Send them to [email protected] or @hbottemiller. Follow the whole team at @Morning_Ag.

TRUMP AG ADVISER CASHED IN ON CROP SUBSIDIES: We still don’t know much about The Donald’s agriculture platform, but his top agriculture adviser has benefited handsomely from crop subsidies, according to the Environmental Working Group’s Farm Subsidy Database. As Mother Jones first reported last week, the aforementioned Charles Herbster — the Nebraska cattle rancher and business owner plucked by Trump to head his rural advisory council — received $577,179 in subsidies between 1995 and 2014. About $200,000 of that is under Herbster’s name, and another $380,422 was given to Cairco Farms, an operation in Richardson County, Neb., for which Herbster is listed as the sole owner.

That would put Herbster in the top 8 percent of subsidy recipients in the nation, according to EWG. As Pro Ag’s Ian Kullgren reported last month, Herbster has been a prodigious donor to Republican candidates, including Mitt Romney and Alabama Rep. Robert Aderholt, the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee’s agriculture subcommittee. More on that here.

WAPO: ‘ACTIVISTS HATCH A MAJOR VICTORY’: Recent gains in the cage-free egg movement are largely due to a renewed focus on farm animals by animal welfare activists, who developed an effective, two-pronged approach of targeting big companies and consumers, writes Karin Brulliard for The Washington Post. The story, which ran Sunday, gives credit to the Humane Society of the United States and the Humane League, specifically, for efforts on college campuses. “The group began a decade ago, pressuring college dining halls to switch their eggs, getting student governments to pass resolutions and student newspapers to write editorials, knocking on dorm rooms for petition signatures and asking graduates to withhold donations,” Brulliard writes. “It has since taken those tactics to corporations, targeting them with protests, shaming websites and systematic outreach to clients and investors.” Read the full story here.

WALMART GIVES $1M TO HELP RICE FARMERS WITH CONSERVATION: The Walmart Foundation, the retail giant’s charitable arm, on Friday gave a $1 million grant to Ducks Unlimited to support its partnership with the USA Rice Federation, which is focused on conserving soil, water and wildlife in wetlands. The grant will mainly be used for technical assistance to train farm owners, operators and workers in the Mississippi Alluvial Valley and along the Gulf Coast in conservation practices.

The USA Rice-Ducks Unlimited Stewardship Partnership was established in 2013 and secured a $10 million grant from the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service the following year. But only 10 percent of that grant is dedicated to advising interested farmers, so the donation from the Walmart Foundation will complement those efforts, Scott Manley, Ducks Unlimited’s director of conservation innovation, said in a statement. The majority of the NRCS funding goes to helping farmers with the cost of implementing conservation practices that, for example, prevent erosion or create a more efficient irrigation system, a Ducks Unlimited spokeswoman said.

CHICKEN RACES: The Southern Poverty Law Center is urging the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to investigate a poultry processing plant in Guntersville, Ala., for allegedly forcing sanitation workers to race against one another to carry and unpack 80-pound crates of chicken, the law firm Shook, Hardy & Bacon reports. Farm Fresh Foods fired the two whistleblowers who brought attention to that matter as well as the company’s practice of requiring workers to unload raw chicken after cleaning the plant without washing their hands or changing clothes, SPLC says in a statement. SPLC notes that its complaints against Farm Fresh come as OSHA is conducting a poultry industry inspection and enforcement program in the Southeast. Farm Fresh could not be reached for comment.

PROPANE KEEPS FOOD COLD WITHOUT CO2: The new Whole Foods Market store that opened last week in Santa Clara, Calif., has “the most environmentally advanced grocery retail refrigeration system in the U.S.,” the organic grocery chain claims in a statement, released Friday. By using propane, a natural refrigerant, to condense CO2, and also a heat-reclaim system, the Santa Clara store’s refrigeration system emits none of the 7,000 metric tons of CO2 equivalent emitted by a typical supermarket store every year (more than the amount emitted by 1,000 homes), Whole Foods says.

“There is precedent for this type of system in North America and Europe, but this is the first installation of the technology in the U.S.,” says Tristam Coffin, sustainable facilities coordinator for Whole Foods Market Northern California.

The EPA recently has banned the use of some common refrigerants due to their climate impact, Whole Foods notes. Also, California Governor Jerry Brown’s directive for the state would, by 2030, cut greenhouse gas emissions to 40% below 1990 levels. Read more here.

VILSACK TO KEYNOTE LGBT RURAL SUMMIT: Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack will keynote an Iowa LGBT Rural Summit later this month. The event, co-sponsored and hosted by Drake University Law School, aims to foster dialogue about LGBT people, their families and the communities they live in.

“Many LGBT people choose to live, work, and raise their families in rural areas,” the law school said in announcing the event. “To highlight the unique needs of this community, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has partnered with Drake Law School, One Iowa, the National Center for Lesbian Rights, and True Colors Fund to organize the Iowa LGBT Rural Summit.” More on the event here.

OBAMA CELEBRATES B-DAY AT FIOLA MARE: President Barack Obama turned 55 on Friday, and as part of his celebration enjoyed a more than three hour dinner at Fiola Mare, a high-end restaurant in Georgetown. The details from Eater DC: “Chef Fabio Trabocchi's Fiola Mare, a favorite among Washington critics, is known for its pastas, seafood dishes, and raw bar offerings, and frequently attracts a star-studded crowd, particularly politicos. The President and First Lady have celebrated previous birthdays at such restaurants as Rose's Luxury, The Source and Rasika. The President and First Lady have visited Fiola Mare in the past, notably with White House adviser Valerie B. Jarrett in 2014.”

MA’s INSTANT OATS:

— Why Big Pharma wants to switch billions of farm animals from antibiotics to vaccines, from Bloomberg.

— Iowa farmers have long been ripping out prairie, but bringing some back might prove to be a key conservation tactic, The Washington Post reports.

— Consumers in the United Kingdom could see a rise in produce imports from African countries post-Brexit, The Guardian reports.

— Food workers should be vaccinated for Hepatitis A, argues food safety attorney Bill Marler in an op-ed published in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser.

THAT'S ALL FOR MA! See you again soon! In the meantime, drop your host and the rest of the team a line: [email protected] and @ceboudreau; [email protected] and @jennyhops; [email protected] and @hbottemiller; [email protected] and @iankullgren; [email protected] and @mjkorade; and [email protected] and @jsonhuffman. You can also follow @POLITICOPro and @Morning_Ag on Twitter.

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