Richard G. Lugar, United States Senator for Richard G. Lugar, United States Senator for Indiana
Richard G. Lugar, United States Senator for Indiana
Home > Senator Lugar's Farm Bill > Agriculture: A Glossary of Terms, Programs, and Laws

Agriculture: A Glossary of Terms, Programs, and Laws

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Value-Added Producer Grants — The Value-added Producer Grants program was authorized by the Agriculture Risk Protection Act of 2000 and amended by the 2002 farm bill (P.L.107-171, Sec. 6401). The farm bill authorizes $40 million per year in grants for the development and marketing of value-added agricultural products, including organic agricultural production. Eligible applicants are independent producers, farmer and rancher cooperatives, agricultural producer groups, and majority-controlled producer-based business ventures.
Value-added products — In general, products that have increased in value because of processing; such products include wheat flour and soybean oil. Livestock are considered value added products because they have increased the value of pasture and feed grains going into them. The terms value-added and high-value are often used synonymously, if imprecisely.
Value-added agriculture — Value-added refers most generally to manufacturing processes that increase the value of primary agricultural commodities. Value-added agriculture may also refer to increasing the economic value of a commodity through particular production processes, e.g., organic produce, or through regionally-branded products that increase consumer appeal and willingness to pay a premium over similar but undifferentiated products. This concept has gained currency in the small farm policy debate, in response to the concern that the farm value of the consumer food dollar continues to decrease. Value-added agriculture might be a means for farmers to capture a larger share of the consumer food dollar. Examples include direct marketing; farmer ownership of processing facilities; and producing farm products with a higher intrinsic value (such as identity-preserved grains, organic produce, hormone-free beef, free-range chickens; etc.), for which buyers are willing to pay a higher price than for more traditional bulk commodities. Value-added agriculture is regarded by some as a significant rural development strategy. Small-scale, organic food processing, non-traditional crop production, agri-tourism, and bio-fuels development are examples of various value-added projects that have created new jobs in some rural areas.
Value-added tax — A tax on the amount that a business firm adds to the price of a commodity during production and distribution of a good. While the tax is collected at each stage of the production-distribution chain, it is effectively passed on to the final consumer because each seller receives a credit for their tax payments. This tax is used throughout Europe, and by many countries in South America, Asia, and Africa.
Value-based pricing — Packers are increasingly using this method of determining how much to pay cattle and hog producers for animals. Rather than simply paying a fixed rate based on the weight of the animals, value-based pricing attempts to establish the individual merits of each animal (or lot) purchased, factoring quality characteristics such as yield, fat thickness, likely grade (such as choice, select, etc.) into a formula to arrive at the price that will be paid. Under this system, the producer assumes the financial responsibility that the animals, once slaughtered, will meet these criteria. In traditional pricing methods, it is the packer that bears the greater financial risks associated with the uncertain quality of the animals purchased.
Value-chains — A term denoting the increased vertical integration of agro-food production. Commodity supply-chains are evolving into value-chains to rigorously control integration and management of all phases of food manufacturing from the farm to the grocery shelf. Of central importance to a value-chain is the capacity to assure quality and traceability throughout the chain by identity-preserved (IP) production for specific end-users.
Variable import levy — A charge levied on imports that raises their price to a level at least as high as the domestic price. Such levies are adjusted frequently (hence variable) in response to changes in world market prices, and are imposed to defend administered prices set above world market prices. Under the Uruguay Round Agreement on Agriculture, the variable levies of the EU have been converted into fixed tariffs or tariff-rate quotas.
Variable rate technologies — A system that uses measurements of varying conditions across a field to control the rate at which inputs, such as seed, fertilizer, or crop protection chemicals, are applied. Variable rate technologies are used in precision agriculture.
VAT — Value-added tax.
Vegetative controls — Nonpoint source pollution control practices that involve planting cover crops to reduce erosion and minimize loss of pollutants.
VER — Voluntary export restraint agreement.
Vertical coordination — The process of ensuring that each successive stage in the production, processing, and marketing of a product is appropriately managed and interrelated to the next, so that decisions about what to produce, and how much, are communicated as efficiently as possible from the consumer to the producer. Agricultural economists believe that vertical coordination of markets is particularly important in the food industry because of its complexity, the large number of firms that participate in one or more stages, and the relative perishability of the products involved. Vertical integration is a type of vertical coordination, but the latter does not necessarily require that a single organization own or control all of the stages. For example, the use of contracts and marketing agreements between buyers and sellers, and the availability of timely, accurate price and other market information are methods for achieving vertical coordination.
Vertical integration — The integrating of successive stages of the production and marketing functions under the ownership or control of a single management organization. For example, much of the broiler industry is highly vertically integrated in that processing companies own or control the activities from production and hatching of eggs, through the growth and feeding of the chickens, to slaughter, processing, and wholesale marketing. Hog production during the 1990s and early 2000s also was rapidly moving toward vertical integration (or at least vertical coordination.).
Vesicular stomatitis — Vesicular stomatitis is a viral disease that can affect horses, swine, cattle, and other ruminants. It causes affected livestock to become lame, and to refuse food and water due to mouth sores. The disease is of concern because its symptoms are similar to those of foot-and-mouth disease. The only way to diagnose and differentiate these diseases is through laboratory tests. There have been occurrences of vesicular stomatitis in the southwestern United States in 1985, 1995, and 1998. People who handle infected animals also can become infected. The Animal Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) is working with state officials to identify all cases of the disease and prevent its spread.
Veterinary biologics — Vaccines, antigens, antitoxins and other preparations made from living organisms (or genetically engineered) and intended for use in diagnosing, treating, or immunizing animals. Unlike some pharmaceutical products, such as antibiotics, most biologics leave no residues in animals. Veterinary biologics are regulated by the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), which licenses the facilities that produce them and conducts a program to ensure that animal vaccines and other veterinary biologics are safe, pure, potent, and effective.
Veterinary equivalency — The mutual recognition by two or more countries that each party's safety and sanitation standards for animal products, even where not identical, provide an equivalent level of protection to public and animal health. Aimed at facilitating trade, the practical effect of veterinary equivalency is that each country's individual products and facilities will not have to submit to the separate standards of importing countries and to cumbersome and costly inspections by foreign reviewers. Veterinary equivalency has been a contentious issue for the United States and European Union (EU). The two parties in 1997 agreed in principle to an agreement recognizing each other's standards, but did not sign the agreement until July 1999 due to a series of unresolved technical disputes. Some parts of this agreement remained in dispute in 2002.
Veterinary Feed Directive (VFD) — A veterinary feed directive is a written statement that authorizes the owner or caretaker of animals to obtain and use animal feed containing VFD drugs to treat their animals in accordance with the FDA-approved directions for use. A VFD drug is a new animal drug approved under section 512(b) of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. VFD drugs are limited to use under the professional supervision of a licensed veterinarian. No extra-label uses of a VFD drugs are permitted. VFD drugs are a category created as part of the Animal Drug Availability Act of 1996 (P.L. 104-250) and final regulations are published by the FDA's Center for Veterinary Medicine in 21 CFR 510, 514, and 558.
VFD — Veterinary Feed Directive.
Virus-Serum-Toxin (VST) Act — The VST Act (P.L. 430 of 1913, as amended; 21 U.S.C. 151-158) forbids the preparation, sale, barter, exchange, or shipment of worthless, contaminated, dangerous or harmful animal biologicals in interstate commerce. The Act provides for licensing of products and establishments, and requires permits for the importation of animal biologicals. Regulations (9 CFR 101-117) require preparation of biologicals in accordance with an approved Outline of Production so as to meet prescribed test requirements for purity, safety, potency, and efficacy. Regulations also require approval of all labeling and claims to be made in advertising. Animal biologicals are subject to both the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FFDCA; 21 U.S.C. 321 et seq.) and the VST Act. The USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) enforces the VST Act.
VOC — Volatile organic compounds.
Volunteer Fire Assistance — A State & Private Forestry program under which the Forest Service provides financial and technical assistance to states for grants and agreements with volunteer fire departments that protect communities of fewer than 10,000 people.
Volunteer plant — Generally, a plant that is not intentionally grown or cultivated, but which grows spontaneously. This includes plants derived from seeds unintentionally included in planting, plants derived from seeds dropped by a previous year's crop, or an uncultivated self-sown plant. In cases of genetically modified (GM) plants, some biotechnology critics have voiced concern that a volunteer GM plant may show up in non-GM crops. Biotechnology proponents argue that USDA's existing regulations regarding GM crops are sufficient to minimize chances of unwanted GM material in the food supply.
Vomitoxin — Deoxynivalenol (DON), also referred to as vomitoxin, is a naturally occurring mycotoxin produced by several species of Fusarium fungi. It can infect barley, wheat, oats, and rye. Vomitoxin is not a threat to public health among the general population. However, in rare cases it can produce acute nausea and vomiting in humans and animals. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which regulates animal feeds as well as human foods, sets an advisory level for its presence in livestock rations, and advises food manufacturers to limit its presence in finished products to less than 1 part per million.