At 02:52 PM 11/20/97 +0000, Richard Drutchas wrote:
>In regards to the two recent posts on the honey board,Aaron mentioned
>that Bill Gamber explained how Argentina shifted its honey exports from
>Germany and Europe to the US for the higher prices. Can somebody from
>Europe clear this up,
 
>I heard antibiotics where found in Argentina honey
>and was refused from Europe, probably a bogus rumor or maybe an isolated
>case.
 
I thought it was in honey from MEXICO? But will add that I did get some
personal e-mail from Argentina that almost confirmed it was Argentina honey.
 
>It was also mentioned that there are estimates of 10% of the honey sold
>in the US is adulterated. I thought the big packers already check the
>honey they buy.
 
I really think that 10% is way over the line, I would believe less then 1/2
of 1%, but no way is it 10%. I don't know who the big packers are but SUE
BEE does check honey for farm chemical and sugar adulteration. By law they
must report some chemicals to the regulatory agency's involved, and in
total their tolerances for chemicals are lower the what is allowed by law.
They do return honey to producers that is found to be adulterated with
anything.
 
>Forgive me for jumping around here but this all relates to the NHB. I
>have to ask what happens to these national promotion boards, what
>happened to the dancing raisins, do most of these boards usually go
>belly up, are there any dairy farmers out there that can tell us how
>they feel about thier promotion board, and are there other boards run by
>producers and packers.
 
Yes, there are many promotion boards run by producers and packers. Mostly
the packers can dominate these boards if the producers let them and much
information about the different boards can be found on the web for those
who are interested.
 
At any time almost any board can be under attack by dissatisfied groups of
producer who have not been very successful killing them on constitutional
grounds. Occasionally a board does go out of business but it is a painful
process at the least.
 
>Lastly, Vince wrote,"packing your honey or even selling it direct does
>not increase the value of your crop. The extra income is due to the
>increased value your additional labor has added". Vince, if this is true
>how come the retail price in my area anyway hasn't dropped along with
>the barrel prices?
 
>The big packers obviously are taking care of themselves.
 
Co-Op's members like those in SUE BEE pay twice or three times. They pay
for their own name brand advertising and honey promotion, they pay the
producers share, and they pay the packers share of the government honey tax
program.
 
>The big question now is how can the producers get the price
>up to where it should be and can a promotion board run by both packers
>and producers have the best interest of both in mind.
 
Actually these boards do not exist to effect prices one way or the other
for the farm commodities they represent but are mostly consumer information
agency's. They can increase demand and this could increase the price for a
commodity. But on the down side packers do little else in the way of name
brand advertising other then cutting prices and kick backs to buyer's and
brokers.
 
ttul, Andy-