Glossary

Glossary | Acronyms

• Adjusted Gross Revenue (AGR) Pilot Program - A pilot revenue insurance program that allows farmers to receive a guarantee of a percentage of their revenue for multiple commodities, including some livestock revenue, rather than just the revenue from an individual commodity.
• Ad Valorem Duty: A tariff expressed as a fixed percentage of the value of the imported commodity or product.
• Agency for International Development (AID or USAID) - An independent agency of the executive branch that administers U.S. international development and humanitarian assistance programs.
• Agreement on Agriculture - Part of the Uruguay Round agreement covering issues related to agriculture, e.g., market access, export subsidies, and internal support.
• Agribusiness - producers and manufacturers of agricultural goods and services, such as fertilizer and farm equipment makers, food and fiber processors, wholesalers, transporters, and retail food and fiber outlets.
• Agricultural Credit Association (ACA) - An institution of the Farm Credit System that has direct lending authority to make short-, intermediate- and long-term loans to agricultural producers, rural homeowners and some farm-related businesses.
• Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) - A USDA agency that establishes standards for grades of cotton, tobacco, meat, dairy products, eggs, fruits, and vegetables. It also operates inspection and grading services and market news services, and provides supervisory administration for federal marketing orders.
• Agricultural pollution - Wastes, emissions, and discharges arising from farming activities.
• Agricultural zoning - A designation intended to protect farmland and farming activities from incompatible nonfarm uses.
• Agricultural Research Service (ARS) - A USDA agency which conducts basic, applied, and developmental research of regional, national, or international concerns in the fields of livestock; plants; soil, water, and air quality; energy; food safety quality; nutrition; food processing, storage and distribution efficiency; nonfood agricultural products; and international development.
• Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) - A USDA agency established to conduct inspections and regulatory and control programs to protect animal and plant health.
• Animal drugs - Drugs intended for use in the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of disease in animals.
• Animal feeding operation - Facilities where animals are kept and raised in confined situations; feed is brought to the animals.
• Animal identification and traceback - A private marketing system, assisted by computerization of records, which generally can trace products back to their original suppliers, although not necessarily all the way to the farm..
• Animal protein - Protein used in livestock feed that is derived from meatpacking or rendering plants, surplus milk or milk products, and marine sources.
• Animal unit - A standard measure, based on feed requirements, used to combine various classes of livestock according to size, weight, age, and use.
• Animal unit month (AUM) - The amount of forage needed to sustain one animal unit, or its equivalent, for one month.
• Antemortem - Before slaughter. As used in the meat and poultry inspection program, the term refers to the examination that USDA meat inspectors are required to conduct of all live animals just before they are killed.
• Antibiotics - Chemical substances produced by microorganisms or synthetically that inhibit the growth of, or destroy, bacteria. Used at therapeutic levels to fight disease in humans and animals.
• Artificial Insemination (AI) - Impregnating an animal through artificial means, not through natural breeding.
• Balance of trade - The difference in value between a country’s merchandise imports and exports in a specified period. A country’s balance of trade is only one factor — though an important one — in its balance of payments.
• Barrow – A castrated male hog.
• Biomass - The generic term for any living matter that can be converted into usable energy through biological or chemical processes. It encompasses feedstocks such as agricultural crops and their residues, animal wastes, wood, wood residues and grasses, and municipal wastes.
• Bio-security; bio-terrorism - Refers to the policies, and measures taken, for protecting a nation’s food supply and agricultural resources from both accidental contamination and deliberate attacks of "bio-terrorism."
• Biotechnology - a set of biological techniques developed through basic research and now applied to research and product development. In particular, the use of recombinant DNA techniques.
• Bonus commodities - From the agricultural perspective, these are commodities donated to domestic feeding programs that USDA acquires for unexpected surplus removal reasons or because Commodity Credit Corporation holdings are not needed for other purposes, or are in danger of waste or spoilage.
• Breeding stock - sexually mature male and female livestock that are retained to produce offspring.
• Brucellosis - A highly contagious disease of cattle, goats, sheep, and swine that can be transmitted to humans (undulant fever).
• Carcass weight - The weight of an animal after slaughter and removal of most internal organs, head, and skin.
• Carcass-by-carcass inspection - Refers to language in the federal Meat Inspection Act and the Poultry Products Inspection Act, respectively, that requires the Food Safety Inspection Service to inspect the carcass of each animal killed for human food, immediately after slaughter.
• Carrying capacity - The maximum stocking rate for livestock possible without damaging vegetation or related resources.
• Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (CFSAN) - The agency within the Food and Drug Administration responsible for developing and overseeing enforcement of food safety and quality regulations and coordinating FDA and states’ surveillance and compliance programs, among other activities.
• Center for Veterinary Medicine - An agency within the Food and Drug Administration that is responsible for assuring that all animal drugs, feeds (including pet foods), and veterinary devices are safe for animals, are properly labeled, and produce no human health hazards when used in food-producing animals.
• Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention - An agency within the Food and Drug Administration that monitors and investigates food borne disease outbreaks and compiles baseline data against which to measure the success of changes in food safety programs.
• Check-off program - Usually, a reference to the generic research and commodity promotion programs for farm products that are financed by assessments applied to sales of those products by producers, importers, or others in the industry.
• Chemical lean – process of determining the lean to fat ratio in trimmings and used for further processing.
• Clone - one that is an exact replica of another, i.e. organisms asexually derived by division from a single cell.
• Codex Alimentarius Commission - A joint commission of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Health Organization, comprised of some 146 member countries, created to ensure consumer food safety, establish fair practices in food trade, and promote the development of international food standards.
• Commodity exchange - An organization operating under a set of bylaws aimed at promoting trade in one or more commodities by providing services and rules for the conduct of trade.
• Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) - The set of legislation and practices jointly adopted by the nations of the European Union (EU) in order to provide a common, unified policy framework for agriculture.
• Competitive advantage - A situation in which one country, region, or producer can produce a particular commodity more cheaply than another country, region or producer.
• Composting - The controlled biological decomposition of organic material, such as sewage sludge, animal manures, or crop residues, in the presence of air to form a humus-like material.
• Concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO) - A facility where large numbers of farm animals are confined, fed, and raised, such as dairy and beef cattle feedlots, hog production facilities, and closed poultry houses.
• Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service (CSREES) - The USDA agency that administers federal funds appropriated for agricultural and forestry research, extension, and education programs at eligible institutions, including the land grant colleges of agriculture in the states, selected veterinary schools, and other institutions with capabilities in the food and agricultural science arena.
• Country-of-origin labeling – Referring to Section 304 of the Tariff Act of 1930, as amended, most products entering the United States must be clearly marked so that the "ultimate purchaser" can identify the country of origin. Imported meat products are subject to this requirement: imported carcasses and parts of carcasses must be labeled, and individual retail (consumer-ready) packages also must be labeled.
• Crossbreeding - the mating of animals of different breeds. For example, breeding a Hereford cow with an Angus bull.
• Custom feeders - Producers who provide the service of feeding animals (e.g., cattle, hogs) they do not own, in return for a fee paid by someone else (such as a packer) who does own the animals.
• Department of the Interior (DOI) - This cabinet-level agency, also known as the Home Department, was created to oversee and manage the vast national or public domain.
• Developing countries - A country with a low per capita income.
• Dietary Guidelines for Americans - Dietary recommendations for healthy Americans age 2 and older about food choices that promote health, specifically with respect to prevention or delay of chronic diseases.
• DNA - Deoxyribonucleic acid, a polymeric chromosomal constituent of living cell nuclei, composed of deoxyribose (a sugar), phosphoric acid, and four nitrogen bases - adenine, cytosine, guanine, and thymine. It contains the genetic information for living organisms, and consist of two strands in the shape of double helix. A gene is a piece of DNA.
• Domestic price - The price at which a commodity trades within a country, in contrast to the world price.
• E. coli (Escherichia Coli) - A bacterium that lives harmlessly in the intestines of animals such as cattle, reptiles, and birds. However, in humans the bacterium, which can be transmitted through foods, can cause bloody diarrhea, and also lead to hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS), a life threatening disease.
• Emergency livestock feed programs – Referring to USDA’s authority given by the Disaster Assistance Act of 1988 to implement an array of emergency livestock feed programs. These programs were designed to assist livestock producers who lose a significant amount of feed grown on the farm due to a natural disaster. 2002.
• European Community (EC) - A regional organization created by the Treaty of Rome (1957), which provided for the gradual elimination of customs duties and other interregional trade barriers, a common external tariff, and gradual adoption of other integrating measures, including the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), and guarantees of free movement of labor and capital.
• European Union - The term used to describe the European Community and related institutions. Originally composed of six European nations, it has expanded to 15. The EU attempts to unify and integrate member economies by establishing a customs union and common economic policies, including CAP. Member nations include Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Finland, France, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom.
• Export subsidy - A direct or indirect compensation provided by government to private commercial firms to promote exports of domestic products.
• Family Farm - As defined by USDA regulations, a farm that (1) produces agricultural commodities for sale in such quantities so as to be recognized in the community as a farm and not a rural residence; (2) produces enough income (including off-farm employment) to pay family and farm operating expenses, pay debts, and maintain the property; (3) is managed by the operator; (4) has a substantial amount of labor provided by the operator and the operator’s family; and (5) may use seasonal labor during peak periods and a reasonable amount of full-time hired labor.
• Farm - Any place that has, or has the potential to produce, $1,000 or more in annual gross sales of farm products.
• Farm bill - A phrase that refers to a multi-year, multi-commodity federal support law. It usually amends some and suspends many provisions of permanent law, reauthorizes, amends, or repeals provisions of preceding temporary agricultural acts, and puts forth new policy provisions for a limited time into the future.
• Farm equity - The net worth of the farm sector’s assets (i.e., farmland, machinery, equipment, facilities, crop and livestock inventories) against which there is no debt.
• Farm income - Several measures are used to gauge the earnings of a farming operation over a given period of time:
• Farm income and balance sheet - The income statement measures the profitability of a farm business for a particular period of time, usually one year.
• Farm inputs - The resources that are used in farm production, such as chemicals, equipment, feed, seed, and energy.
• Fast track authority - A legislative procedure that may be adopted by Congress for considering bills to implement trade agreements. The procedure calls for consultation between the President and Congress as trade agreements are negotiated.
• Fat free lean index - One of several measures of hog quality (in this case, leanness) that can be used in determining value. The index was developed by NPPC.
• Federal Meat Inspection Act of 1906 - Requires USDA to inspect all cattle, sheep, swine, goats, and horses when slaughtered and processed into products for human consumption.
• Federal Register (FR) - Each federal working day, this federal document publishes current Presidential orders or directives, agency regulations, proposed agency rules, notices and other documents that are required by statute to be published for wide public distribution.
• Feed grain - Any of several grains most commonly used for livestock feed, including corn, grain sorghum, oats, rye, and barley.
• Feed ratio - The relationship of the cost of feeding animals to their market weight, expressed as a ratio to the sale price of animals, such as the hog/corn ratio. This serves as an indicator of the profit margin or lack of profit in feeding animals to market weight.
• Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) - A UN organization that collects and disseminates information about world agriculture. FAO also provides technical assistance to developing countries in agricultural production and distribution, food processing, nutrition, fisheries, and forestry.
• Food and Drug Administration (FDA) - An agency within the Public Health Service of the Department of Health and Human Services. FDA is a public health agency, charged with protecting consumers by enforcing the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act and several related public health laws.
• Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) - The USDA agency whose goals are to provide needy people with access to a more nutritious diet, to improve the eating habits of the nation’s children, and to stabilize farm prices through the distribution of surplus foods.
• Food-borne illnesses - Illnesses caused by pathogens that enter the human body where food is the carrier.
• Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) - An within USDA responsible for ensuring food safety in some 6,400 meat and poultry plants throughout the United States; the agency also certifies the safety programs operated for state and foreign plants.
• Food borne pathogens - Disease-causing microorganisms found in food, usually bacteria, fungi, parasites, protozoans, and viruses.
• Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) - A major disease of cloven-footed animals (e.g., cattle and pigs) that does not exist in the United States.
• Gate Price: The gate price is the minimum import price on pork imports, and is based on the blended price of all products covered by a shipment (those containers under a single invoice.)
• Genetic engineering - The use of recombinant DNA or other specific molecular gene transfer or exchange techniques to add desirable traits to plants, animals, or other organisms, or to enhance biological processes.
• Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO) - A term, currently used most often in international trade discussions, that designates crops that carry new traits that have been inserted through advanced genetic engineering methods (e.g., Flavr Saver tomato, Roundup Ready soybeans, Bt cotton, Bt corn).
• Genome - All the genetic material in the chromosomes of a particular organism.
  Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration (GIPSA) - An agency established in 1994 that combines the Federal Grain Inspection Service (FGIS) and the Packers and Stockyards Administration (P&S). FGIS provides grain marketing standards and an official inspection system. P&S programs are regulatory in nature to protect livestock producers by ensuring open and competitive markets.
• Gilt - sexually mature female hog, prior to having her first litter.
• Grazing - consumption of native forage from rangelands or pastures by livestock.
• Income Protection (IP) - A form of revenue insurance that protects a grower of an insurable crop whenever low prices, low yields, or a combination of both causes revenue to fall below a guaranteed level selected by the producer.
• International Monetary Fund (IMF) - A multilateral financial institution established in 1945 to help member countries with international payments problems and to maintain orderly exchange rate policies. U.S. agricultural exports benefit indirectly from activities of the IMF that maintain the global trade in commodities and food.
• International trade barriers - Regulations used by governments to restrict imports from other countries. Examples include tariffs, embargoes, import quotas and unnecessary sanitary restrictions.
• International Trade Commission (ITC) - An independent, quasi-judicial federal agency that provides objective trade expertise to both the legislative and executive branches of government and determines the impact of imports on U.S. industries.
• Irradiation - a process involving the use of low levels of radiation to reduce the presence of disease causing agents, for example during the processing of food products.
• Land-use plan - A coordinated collection of data, programs, and activities related to existing and potential uses of land and resources within a defined area.
• Live weight - The weight of live animals purchased or sold by a producer.
• Market access - The extent to which a country permits imports. A variety of tariff and nontariff trade barriers can be used to limit the entry of foreign products.
• Market structure - Characteristics of an industry that relate to its economic performance, such as the number of buyers and sellers, product differentiation among firms, barriers to entry, costs, degree of integration, and diversification.
• Minimum access - In the Uruguay Round Agreement on Agriculture, countries are obliged to provide minimum levels of imports for products subject to tariffication. Access is assured by tariff-rate quotas.
• Most-favored Nation (MFN) - A commitment that a country will extend to another country the lowest tariff rates it applies to any third country.
• Multilateral agreement - A trade agreement involving three or more countries (as with the World Trade Organization) in contrast to a bilateral agreement (as with the US-Canada Free Trade agreement) involving only two countries.
• National Academy of Sciences (NAS) - An institution created by Congress in 1863 to provide science-based advice to the government.
• National School Lunch Program - This child nutrition program provides cash and commodity assistance to public and private nonprofit elementary and secondary schools and residential child care institutions to support lunches served to all children in schools and institutions that choose to participate; snacks served in after-school programs also are federally subsidized.
• Net cash income - A farm’s actual cash receipts and expenses in a given year, regardless of the year the goods sold were produced.
• Net farm income - The return (both monetary and non-monetary) to farm operators for their labor, management and capital, after all production expenses have been paid (that is, gross farm income minus production expenses). It includes net income from farm production as well as net income attributed to the rental value of farm dwellings, the value of commodities consumed on the farm, depreciation, and inventory changes.
• Noncompetitive imports - A term used by the Economic Research Service in its reporting of agricultural trade statistics to refer to imports of commodities not produced in the United States.
• Nontariff trade barriers - Any restriction, charge, or policy other than a tariff, that limits access of imported goods.
• North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) - A trade agreement involving Canada, Mexico and the United States, implemented on January 1, 1994, with a 15-year transition period. The major agricultural provisions of NAFTA include: 1) the elimination of nontariff barriers - immediately upon implementation, generally through their conversion to tariff-rate quotas or ordinary quotas; 2) elimination of tariffs - many immediately, most within 10 years, and some sensitive products gradually over 15 years; 3) special safeguard provision; and 4) country-of-origin rules to ensure that Mexico does not serve as a platform for exports from third countries to the U.S.
• Nutrition Assistance Programs - Federal programs in Puerto Rico and American Samoa that provide food assistance through block grant funds in lieu of food stamps, and to the Northern Marianas under a covenant governing U.S. relations with that jurisdiction.
• Offal - The less valuable byproduct material from the preparation of a specific product; primarily refers to the byproducts of meat and poultry plants, e.g., blood, bone, feathers, fat.
• Packer concentration - The degree to which a few large firms dominate total sales within segments of the meat packing industry.
• Pork bellies - One of the major cuts of the hog carcass that, when cured, becomes bacon. Futures contracts for pork bellies are traded in the futures market.
• Postmortem inspection - As used in the meat and poultry inspection program, the phrase refers to the inspection that Food Safety Inspection Service inspectors are required to conduct of all animal carcasses immediately after they are killed.
• Preferential trade agreements - Agreements among a group of countries to extend special trading advantages, usually tariff rates that are lower than most-favored nation rates.
• Quota - A limit imposed by governments on the quantity of goods produced or purchased.
• Recombinant DNA (rDNA) - The technique of isolating DNA molecules and inserting them into the DNA of a cell ("recombining DNA"). Also known as genetic engineering.
• Referendum - In agriculture, referendum generally refers to a vote by farmers on whether to approve or disapprove a farm program, such as mandatory production or marketing controls, assessments for generic commodity promotion, or marketing orders.
• Safeguard: A trade policy tool to remedy actual or threatened injury by imports to a domestic industry.
• Safe Meat and Poultry Inspection Panel - A permanent advisory panel that could be created under a provision of the FAIR Act of 1996. The panel would review and evaluate inspection policies and procedures and any proposed changes to them.
• Salmonella - A pathogenic, diarrhea-producing bacterium that is the leading cause of human food borne illness among intestinal pathogens.
• School Breakfast Program - Permanently authorized by the Child Nutrition Act of 1966. Federal funding is provided in the form of cash reimbursements for each breakfast served, varied in amount by the family income of the participating child. All children in participating schools and residential institutions are eligible for a federally subsidized meal, regardless of family income.
• Special Safeguard: Japan is permitted (Article 5 of the Uruguay Round) to invoke a special safeguard when the cumulative import volume of pork in a fiscal year exceeds 105 percent of the three previous years’ import average.
• Specific rate duty: A tariff levied on imports based on a specific amount per kilogram.
• State inspection programs - Often refers to the state-run meat and poultry inspection programs to which USDA contributes 50% of the cost.
• Stocking rate - The number of specific kinds and classes of livestock grazing or using a unit of land for a specified time. Not the same as carrying capacity.
• Surplus - The amount by which available supplies are greater than the quantity that will bring producers an adequate income.
• Sire - the male parent. To father or become the sire of.
• Sow - a sexually mature female hog, after having her first litter.
• Soybeans - a legume crop, native to the Orient, used mainly in the United States for high protein feed and oil.
• Tariff - A list or schedule of taxes
• Tariff Rate Quota: A quota imposed by an importer in conjunction with a specific duty to assure the import protection for a domestic industry. Imports entering during a specific time period under the quota portion of a TRQ are usually subject to a lower (or zero) tariff; import above the quota face a much higher tariff.
• Total mixed ration - a diet where all the feed ingredients are blended together to ensure every bit is nutritionally balanced.
• Trade Adjustment Assistance - Assistance provided by the Departments of Labor and Commerce to workers and firms that are adversely affected by increased imports.
• U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) - USDA was originally established in 1862 and raised to cabinet status in 1889. It is the agency that supports the production of agriculture and ensures for a safe, affordable, nutritious, and accessible food supply.
• Uruguay Round Agreement on Agriculture - Administered by the World Trade Organization bringing agricultural trade more fully under the GATT. It provides for converting quantitative restrictions to tariffs and for a phased reduction of tariffs. The agreement also imposes rules and disciplines on agricultural export subsidies, domestic subsidies, and sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) measures.
• Variable Levy: A charge levied on imports that raises their price to a level at least as high as the domestic price (i.e. the gate price in the case of Japan).
• Weight graded – process of classifying cuts into weight ranges.
• World Trade Organization (WTO) - The international organization established by the Uruguay Round of multilateral trade negotiations to oversee implementation of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and the agreements arising from the Uruguay Round, including the Uruguay Round Agreement on Agriculture.

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