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.
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.
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.
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.
Vesicular stomatitis — Vesicular stomatitis is a viral disease that can affect horses, swine, cattle, and other ruminants. It causes affected livestock to develop blisters in the mouth and on the dental pad, hooves, and teats. These blisters swell and break, leaving raw tissue that causes affected animals to become lame and to refuse food and water. The disease also is of concern because its symptoms are similar to those of foot-and-mouth disease, a devastating foreign disease of clovenhoofed animals that was eradicated from the United States in 1929. The only way to diagnose and
differentiate these diseases is through laboratory tests. There was an occurrence of vesicular stomatitis in the southwestern United States in 1985, in 1995, and again in 1998. People who handle infected animals also can become infected. 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, 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 it had not been finalized by early 1999 due to a series of unresolved technical disputes.
VFD — Veterinary Feed Directive.
Visegrad Countries — The countries that entered into an agreement to coordinate their policies with a view to apply for membership in the EU. The countries in the original Visegrad agreement were Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia (now the Czech and Slovak Republics).
VOC — Volatile organic compounds.
Voluntary export restraint arrangement (VER) — An arrangement, usually a negotiated bilateral agreement, between countries in which suppliers or their government in an exporting country agree to limit to predetermined levels their exports of a particular product to an importing country. Under the Uruguay Round Agreement on Agriculture, VERs are to be converted into fixed tariffs or tariff-rate quotas.
Vomitoxin —Deoxynivalenol (DON), also referred to as vomitoxin, is a naturally occurring mycotoxin produced by several species of Fusarium fungi. Wet and cool weather from flowering time to maturity promotes infection, resulting in scab or head blight in barley, wheat, oats, and rye. Wheat infected with scab has a tendency to have lighter weight kernels, some of which are removed during normal harvesting and cleaning operations. Vomitoxin does not represent a threat to public health among the general population. However, it can—in rare cases—produce acute temporary nausea and vomiting in humans and animals. Food and Drug Administration does not have an advisory level for vomitoxin in raw wheat intended for milling purposes, and relies on processors to reduce the level in finished products for human consumption to a level that does not exceed 1 part-per-million (ppm). Advisory levels also exist for animal feeds.
WAOB — World Agricultural Outlook Board.
Warehouse receipt — A document certifying possession of a commodity in a licensed warehouse. Some warehouse receipts are recognized for delivery purposes by a commodity futures exchange.
WASDE — The acronym for World Supply and Demand Estimates, the official monthly report on supply, demand, prices and other data for major agricultural commodities published by the World Agricultural Outlook Board.
Wash versus trim — USDA requires that any time fecal contamination is detected during meat and poultry processing, it must be removed from the carcass. At issue is how this rule has been applied and enforced by USDA in meat and poultry plants. For a number of years, poultry processors have been permitted to either rinse (wash) off or cut (trim) away such contamination, but beef processors have only been permitted to (trim) it with a knife—which they argue costs them money in lost product weight and imposes a requirement that poultry producers do not have to meet. The policy jargon for this debate is "wash versus trim." USDA, early in 1997, clarified its zero tolerance rule for poultry; a year earlier it gave beef plants permission to use a new high-temperature vacuuming method to remove fecal contamination in lieu of cutting it off.
Waste treatment pond — A shallow lagoon or similar storage facility, often man-made, used to treat liquid agricultural wastes, particularly liquid manure from livestock production farms, through the interaction of sunlight, wind, algae, and oxygen. Through natural biological processes, microscopic organisms consume wastes present in the water.
Water 2000 Initiative — The program administered by the Rural Utilities Service whose goal is to improve the quality of drinking water in distressed rural areas with the most serious safe drinking water problems.
Water Bank Program (WBP) — A program to set aside wetlands for a period of 10 years (renewable) for conservation purposes. Participants receive annual rental payments. As these contracts expire, participants are offered the opportunity to place the land in the Wetland Reserve Program.
Water Quality Incentives Program — This program was authorized in the FACT Act of 1990 and is administered by the Farm Service Agency. It was repealed and replaced by the Environmental Quality Incentives Program in the FAIR Act of 1996. It provided cost-share assistance to implement comprehensive water quality protection plans and was funded by earmarking a portion of the Agricultural Conservation Program.
Water Quality Initiative — A multi-agency effort, initiated by USDA in 1990, to determine relationships between agricultural activities and water quality, and develop and implement strategies that protect surface and groundwater quality. This program, which builds on earlier USDA water quality protection efforts, includes research activities, projects involving landowners, and information and data development. Landowners participate in demonstration projects, hydrologic unit area projects, water quality special projects, and water quality incentive projects.
Water quality standards — State-adopted and the Environmental Protection Agency-approved ambient standards for water bodies. The standards prescribe the use of the water body and establish the water quality criteria that must be met to protect designated uses, and contain policies to protect against degradation of water quality once standards are attained and maintained.
Water service contract — A type of contract, authorized by the Reclamation Project Act of 1939, whereby water is furnished for irrigation or municipal or miscellaneous purposes at rates to produce revenue sufficient to cover charges reimbursable to the federal government.
Waterfowl production areas — A small component of the National Wildlife Refuge System. There are over 2,000,000 acres of this prime duck-producing land, mostly prairie potholes in the Dakotas, Minnesota, and Montana. The Fish and Wildlife Service owns, leases, or holds easements on the lands.
Watershed — The total land area, regardless of size, above a given point on a waterway that contributes runoff water to the flow at that point. It is a major subdivision of a drainage basin. The United States is generally divided into 18 major drainage areas and 160 principal river drainage basins containing about 12,700 smaller watersheds.
Watershed and Flood Prevention Act of 1954 — P.L. 83-566 (August 4, 1954) established USDA’s small watershed program administered by the Natural Resources Conservation Service; purposes of projects built under this authority include flood reduction, sediment and erosion control, and water conservation. Since its inception, over $4.2 billion has been appropriated to this program which has constructed more than 1,600 projects. Also known as the PL-566 program.
Watershed and flood prevention operations — A program area of the Natural Resources Conservation Service that includes Flood Prevention Operations (under the Flood Control Act of 1944, P.L. 78-534), Emergency Watershed Protection, and Small Watershed Operations (under the Watershed and Flood Prevention Act of 1954. These programs have built small watershed projects that reduce floods, protect watersheds, improve water quality, reduce soil erosion, improve water supply, and provide recreation. They involve strong partnerships with local interests.
Wellhead protection area — A surface and subsurface land area regulated to prevent contamination of a well or well-field supplying a public water system. This program, established under the Safe Drinking Water Act, is implemented through state governments.
WEQ — Wind erosion equation.
Wetlands — Areas of predominantly hydric soils that can support a prevalence of water-loving plants, know as hydrophitic vegetation. Transitional between terrestrial and aquatic systems are wetlands typified by a water table at or near the surface, or the land is covered by shallow water at least part of the year. Types of wetlands are distinguished by water patterns (the frequency and length of flooding) and location in relation to upland areas and water bodies. Wetlands perform many functions including wildlife and fish habitat, storage and conveyance of flood waters, sediment and pollution control, and recreation. Under the swampbuster program, landowners may produce crops in these areas, but only if the water patterns, or hydrology, in the wetland area is not altered and any woody vegetation is not removed.
Wetlands Reserve Program (WRP) — A program authorized by FACT Act of 1990 to provide long-term protection for wetlands. Producers enrolling in the program must agree to implement an approved wetlands restoration and protection plan. In return, participating producers receive payments based on the difference in the value of their land caused by placing an easement on a portion of it. The FAIR Act of 1996 limits enrollment of the WRP to 975,000 acres. USDA is required to divide new enrollments among permanent easements, 30-year easements, and restoration cost-share agreements. Previously, all enrollment had been permanent easements.
Wet-milling — A process in which feed material
is steeped in water, with or without sulphur dioxide, to soften the seed
kernel in order to help separate the kernel’s various components. For example,
wet-milling plants can separate a bushel of corn into more than 31 pounds
of starch (which in turn can be converted into corn sweeteners or ethanol),
15 pounds of animal feed, and nearly 2 pounds of corn oil.
WFP — United Nations World Food Program.
WFPO — Watershed and Flood Prevention Operations.
WGA — Western Growers Association.
WHIP — Wildlife Habitat Incentive Program.
William F. Goodling Child Nutrition Reauthorization Act of 1998 — This law (enacted as P.L. 105-336; October 31, 1998) extended expiring authorizations for child nutrition and commodity assistance programs, and the WIC program, through FY2003. It also made modest revisions to child nutrition and WIC program rules. Most prominently, it significantly expanded the availability of federal subsidies (through the school lunch program and the CACFP) for snacks served in after-school programs, authorized demonstration projects providing free breakfasts for elementary schoolchildren without regard to family income, and added a number of provisions to child nutrition law to protect the integrity of the WIC program and the CACFP.
WHO — World Health Organization.
Whole herd buyout program — Another term for the dairy termination program.
Wholesale price index — A composite index of prices of commodities sold in primary U.S. markets. "Wholesale" refers to sale in large quantities by producers, not to prices received by wholesalers, jobbers, or distributors. In agriculture, it is the average price received by farmers for their farm commodities at the first point of sale when the commodity leaves the farm.
WIC — Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children.
WIC Farmers’ Market Nutrition Act of 1992 — P.L. 102-314 (July 2, 1992) established a program authorizing projects that provide participants in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) with food coupons that can be used to purchase fresh, unprocessed foods, such as fruits and vegetables at farmers’ markets.
WIC vendors — Grocery and other stores authorized as eligible to accept WIC coupons or vouchers and to receive reimbursement from the state WIC program for purchases made with these food instruments.
WIC vouchers (coupons) — Food instruments commonly issued by WIC agencies to participants that are used in grocery and other authorized food stores to buy certain quantities and types of foods listed on the coupon, which are designated by the state as being authorized for purchase under the WIC program.
Wilderness — An area of federal land, usually 5,000 acres or more, where the impact of man is largely unnoticeable, and which has been designated as wilderness by Congress.
Wildlife Habitat Incentives Program — A program established by the FAIR Act of 1996 to promote voluntary implementation of on-farm management practices to improve wildlife habitat. Landowner activities under this program implement a state plan. Cost-sharing will be available with funding authorized at $50 million for fiscal years 1996-2002 from Conservation Reserve Program funds.
Wildlife Refuges — Units of the National Wildlife Refuge System. They may be designated under general authorities of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, the Endangered Species Act, or (rarely) by specific acts of Congress. There are over 500 refuges, with over 89,000,000 acres.
Wildlife Services (WS) Program — An Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service program to protect agriculture, natural resources, property, public health, and endangered species from unwanted and potentially harmful effects of wildlife species, including predators. WS also works to prevent wildlife/airplane collisions at civilian and military airports. The program was called the Animal Damage Control Program until August 1997.
Windbreak — A living barrier that usually includes several rows of trees, and perhaps shrubs, located upwind of a farm, field, feedlot or other area and intended to reduce wind velocities. Windbreaks, also called shelterbelts, can reduce wind erosion, conserve energy or moisture, control snow accumulations, and provide shelter for livestock or wildlife.
Wind erosion — The detachment and transportation of soil by wind. Wind erosion is a cropland management concern in the Plains states.
Wind erosion equation — An equation used to design wind erosion control systems, which considers soil erodibility, soil roughness, climate, the unsheltered distance across a field, and the vegetative cover on the ground.
Wool Act of 1954 — See National Wool Act of 1954.
Wool and mohair commodity programs — Income support was provided to producers of wool and mohair under authority of the National Wool Act of 1954, as amended, through 1995. Phase down and termination of the programs was mandated in the omnibus budget reconciliation act enacted November 1, 1993 (P.L. 103-130). Income support was achieved through incentive payments that provided higher benefits to farmers who had more production and/or obtained high market prices.
WORC, WORC petition — The acronym stands for the Western Organization of Resource Councils, a private advocacy organization representing some western ranchers who want USDA to play a more prominent regulatory role in live cattle markets. In 1996, WORC submitted a controversial petition calling on the Department to initiate rulemaking to limit most forward contracting and cattle feeding by meat packers. The Department published the petition for public comment in January 1997 but, as of early 1999, had not decided on whether to issue such a rule, which is opposed by packers and many cattlemen themselves.
Work/training programs, food stamp — Work/training programs have two meanings in the food stamp program: (1) most able-bodied unemployed or underemployed (less than 30 hours a week) adults not caring for very young children must register for work and, if assigned, participate in work/training programs that can include a wide variety of activities such as supervised job search or job search training, a "workfare" program (where they work off the value of their benefit in public service jobs), work experience program or programs involving on-the-job training, education programs to improve basic skills; and (2) in order to maintain eligibility beyond 3 months, able-bodied adult recipients between age 18 and 50 and without dependents must, if not working at least 20 hours a week, participate in and comply with a much narrower range of work/training activities, including only workfare programs, programs under the Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA) or the Trade Adjustment Assistance Act, and employment and training programs operated by states and political subdivisions that meet state-set standards. Work/training activities covered by the first (broader) definition are often referred to as food stamp program "employment and training" ("E and T") programs.
World Agricultural Outlook Board (WAOB) — As part of the Office of the Chief Economist, the WAOB coordinates the commodity forecasting program; monitors global weather and analyzes its impact on agriculture; and coordinates USDA’s weather, climate and remote sensing work.
World Bank — A multilateral economic development institution established in 1945 to extend loans and technical assistance for development projects in developing countries. It is formally referred to as the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
World Food Program (WFP) — A UN agency that contributes commodities, services, and cash to developing countries to meet emergency food needs or to carry out economic and social development projects using food or local currencies generated from the sale of food aid commodities.
World food security — See food security.
World price — The price at which commodities will move in international trade under existing marketing conditions. The concept "world price" lacks precision unless quality, location, and other factors are specified. See domestic price.
World price (rice) — As part of the rice marketing assistance loan program, USDA calculates the world price for each class of milled rice (long grain, medium grain, and short grain) based on the prevailing world market price for each of the classes, modified to reflect U.S. quality and the U.S. cost of exporting milled rice. USDA sets this prevailing market price after reviewing milled rice prices in major world markets, and taking into account the effects of supply-demand changes, government-assisted sales, and other relevant price indicators. The steps for calculating and announcing the world prices are prescribed in more detail in federal regulations.
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.
WPA — Waterfowl production areas.
WPS — Worker protection standard.
WQIP — Water Quality Incentives Program.
WRI — World Resources Institute.
WRP — Wetlands Reserve Program.
WTO — World Trade Organization.
WWF — World Wildlife Fund.