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BY CARYL VELISEK

USDA Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman paid a visit to Whitestone Farm in Aldie, Va., during the National Angus Conference and Tour, on Friday, Sept. 17. The visit was part of a weeklong whirlwind round of speeches.
Veneman began by noting the American Angus Association is the largest beef breed registry in the world.
“And one of the reasons for that is that you care about having a quality product and you have paid attention to your customers,” Veneman said.
“Therefore,” she continued, “you have contributed significantly to beef demand in the United States today.
“In the past few years you have faced challenges in new sciences and technologies and also with the BSE scare we experienced in December of 2003.
Sequencing the bovine genome was an advance for treating animal diseases and improving food safety, Veneman said.
“The cow is the first farm animal to be sequenced,” she added. “The more we learn about genetics the more improvements we can make.”
BSE was one challenge the country would have preferred not to have to deal with she said, but it is being addressed and “as of Monday (Sept. 13) 50,000 ‘at risk’ animals have been tested.
“We’re well on our way to a national animal identification program and more than 11 million dollars have been allocated for funding the program. We’re working to do everything we can to keep American beef safe,” she said.
Veneman then spoke about efforts to re-open foreign markets that were closed as a result of the cow with BSE last year, and she said 60 percent of the export value (of American beef) is flowing again, and negotiations with Japan continue to re-open that very important market.
“We are working tirelessly to re-open all markets,” Veneman said.
The secretary touched briefly on the beef checkoff, saying it was important to the industry, and that the Supreme Court will hear arguments in its coming session, which begins next month.
Veneman spoke about administration tax cuts that had benefited the farmers contributing to “an historically strong farm economy nationwide” and her mention of the administration’s efforts to eliminate the inheritance tax brought a round of applause.
She praised the Angus Association for an “amazing history and even more amazing future in continuing the “Angus Advance,” which was the theme of the conference.
The annual National Angus Conference and Tour was held Sept. 14 through 17, and based in Roanoke, Va.
After a reception on Sept. 14, the conference was held Sept. 15 at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Va. Topics included “Positioning Beef Industry Allies”, Wayne Purcell of Virginia Tech, speaker; “Protecting American Animal Agriculture”, Neil Hammerschmidt of USDA, APHIS speaker; “Assessing New Genetic Technology”, Ronnie Green, USDA, speaker; “Continuing the Angus Advance”, John Crouch, executive secretary, American Angus Association, speaker; and a panel discussion.
The final two days were spent touring a number of Virginia Angus farms like Whitestone, where Veneman spoke. Also on hand were Jan Lyons, president of the National Cattlemens Beef Association, and Chandler Keys, also of NCBA. There were more than 500 people registered for the event from all across the United States and Canada.