The Texas Seed Trade Association staff wish each an every one a very Happy New Year filled with joyous prosperity!

It's been rather a slow news week in the world of seeds and agriculture. Please register for our upcoming annual meeting - see below.

Membership renewals were mailed several weeks ago. A big Thank You to those companies who have already renewed for 2023! Please check the mail for your membership renewal and member certificate and renew your support for the Texas Seed Trade as soon as you are able.

2023 Annual Membership Meeting Registration & Hotel Reservations

We are excited to return to Horseshoe Bay Resort for the 2023 Texas Seed Trade Association Annual Meeting, February 12th through February 14th. Join us for the 2nd Annual Scholarship Corn Hole Tournament and annual Super Bowl Party Sunday afternoon. Monday’s General Session will feature officer and board elections, a report on the state of the association, industry speakers and topics important to our business. The president for 2023 will host a dinner and auction that evening. The TSTA board will meet Tuesday morning and is open to all members in good standing.

We look forward to seeing you!

Dr. Jackie Rudd will be joining us for the meeting to discuss wheat variety development. Janie Hurley will also be with us. Janie has been Texas A&M and AgriLife intellectual property expert for 15 years. Along with program updates Jackie and Janie will participate on a panel discussing how we may be able to assist AgriLife regarding the protection of IP. We'll also have discussion on the appropriate procedures for recertification of wheat, should the need arise, in order to avoid the difficulties we experienced this last year. There is a connection between recertification and IP protection and we'll discuss that too.

Please join is for a state of the association update, election of board members and officers, and more!

Participants & Sponsors Meeting Registration & Sponsorship

Hotel Room Block: Texas Seed Trade Assoc. Annual Conference 2023

Independent Professional Seed Association (IPSA)

IPSA's 34rd annual conference will be held January 23-24, 2023 in Tucson, AZ.

There are some different things this year we would like to cover:

• We will have all receptions on site this year to take advantage of the beautiful scenery of the JW Marriott Starr Pass Resort! One of the receptions is titles the "Legends of Independence" where we will have a chili cook off and a salsa competition. During your registration, you will have the ability to register for each of those events - or judge!

• We will be offering a Flash Networking corner for you have quick 20-minute meetings during breaks! This is very new to IPSA and we hope this will bring a new benefit to our conference. These meetings will need to be prescheduled and can be done on the Conference App! For questions, please contact Cat at 

• In the agenda this year, we have built in a large amount of time for networking and visiting the exhibitors.

For more information click here.

In an effort to update and maintain our membership records we request you take a few moments and fill out the very brief info request at the following link.

https://forms.gle/SC6QDSgqUVixUqAo8

The link is secure and the information will be used internally by the Texas Seed Trade Association and never shared without your permission. This request is on behalf of your association's board of directors and officers and we greatly appreciate your cooperation. Thank you!

12/29/22 - If you have not updated your information please take a moment and do so now. We appreciate it! We continue to update this database and need your input!

News Bits

Syngenta will release a hybrid spring wheat to farmers in North Dakota and Minnesota next year.

The hybrids are not genetically modified. "Seed is produced using traditional wheat breeding tools and techniques," according to the AgriPro website.

PERCENTAGE OF U.S.'S TOTAL EXPORT VALUE FROM AG PRODUCTS HITS NEW HIGH

Dec. 28, 2022

National Association of Farm Broadcasting (NAFB) reports:

The total value of U.S. exports has grown at an average annual rate of six percent since 2002, reaching a record high of $1.4 trillion in fiscal year 2021. Agriculture's share of total U.S. exports has steadily increased between fiscal years 2002 and 2021.

The value of America's agricultural product exports rose by an average of 11 percent annually, exceeding the overall rate of increase for total U.S. exports. In 2021, ag exports accounted for 12 percent of the total value, up from nine percent in 2002.

Growth in agricultural exports has largely been resilient to market shocks like COVID-19. Even as total U.S. exports fell by 12 percent during the onset of COVID in 2020, ag exports remained steady on the strength of surging shipments of soybeans, corn, and pork to China. Ag exports surged 23 percent to $172 billion in 2021. The export forecast is a record $196 billion in 2022.

USDA REPORTS THE NUMBER OF H-2A FARM SEASONAL WORKERS

Dec. 28, 2022

Source: USDA news release

U.S. agricultural employers who anticipate a shortage of U.S. domestic workers can fill seasonal farm jobs with temporary foreign workers through the H-2A visa program. The Department of Labor certified around 317,000 temporary jobs in fiscal year (FY) 2021 under the H-2A visa program, more than six times the number certified in 2005. Only about 80 percent of the certified jobs in 2021 resulted in the issuance of a visa.

The program has grown partly in response to current U.S. domestic workers finding jobs outside of U.S. agriculture and a drop in newly arrived immigrants who seek U.S. farm jobs. The H-2A program continued to expand in FY 2020 despite the jump in U.S. unemployment caused by lockdowns associated with the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

Six States accounted for about half of the H-2A jobs filled in 2021 certified: Florida, Georgia, Washington, California, North Carolina, and Louisiana. Nationally, the average H-2A contract in FY 2020 offered 24 weeks of employment and 39.3 hours per week at an average hourly wage of $13.