C:

C: Cover management (factor)

C (cover-management factor): See Cover-management (factor) (C).

C&F: Cost and Freight

c.i.f: Cost, Insurance, and Freight

CAB: Crop Acreage Base

Cabotage: Coastal shipping from one port to another within the waters of one country.

CACFP: Child and Adult Care Food Program

CACM: Central American Common Market

CAFO: Concentrated animal feeding operation

CAFTA: Dominican Republic-Central America-United States Free Trade Agreement

CAFTA-DR: Dominican Republic-Central America-United States Free Trade Agreement

Cage(s)(ed): (1) See Battery cage(s), and Caged layer operation. (2) In aquaculture, cages are used for cultured fish not easily captured for harvest. Cages are more frequently used to hold fish for limited periods before the fish are stocked into ponds or processed for the market. Cages are also being used by some producers to rear small quantities of fish that are readily available for sale or for home consumption.

Caged layer operation: Modern egg production system using specially designed houses to accommodate large numbers of laying hens with minimal labor input. Laying hens are typically kept in tiered cages, with three to four birds per cage. Larger houses may have back-to-back tiers of cages and two to five walkways running the length of the house. These houses may be either a wide-span or high-rise design. Wide-span houses are one-story structures. The floor is usually concrete and is often recessed beneath the cages to form a shallow pit. High-rise houses (also called deep-pit houses) are two-story structures that have walkways and banks of tiered cages located on the second story. No floor exists beneath the cages. Both wide-span and high-rise houses are usually enclosed and incorporate fans for ventilation control. Caged laying hens are typically placed in houses at 18 to 20 weeks of age. When egg production starts to decline (usually in 12-14 months), the hens are either replaced or molted for a second, shorter, egg-laying period. In large facilities, egg collection and feed delivery are handled by automatic conveyer-belt systems. In all types of houses, water is provided to the laying hens through various types of automatic watering systems placed in or next to the cages.

Cairns Group: An informal group of nations formed in 1986 in Cairns, Australia, seeking removal of access barriers and substantial reductions in subsidies affecting agricultural trade. The original group included Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Hungary, Indonesia, Malaysia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Thailand, and Uruguay. Much of the group’s attention was directed toward the food and agricultural policies of the U.S. and the European Community.

Calculated fee: See Grazing fee(s).

Calf (calves): Young male or female bovine animal under one year of age.

Calf crop: Calves produced by a herd of cattle in one season relative to the number of cows and heifers in the breeding herd.

California milk marketing order: Currently, California, the largest dairy-producing state, has a state milk marketing order that is separate from federal orders. The Federal Agriculture Improvement and Reform Act of 1996 allowed California to have its own federal milk marketing order if California dairy producers petitioned for and approved such an order. As amended by the Omnibus Appropriations Act for FY99, California had until October 1, 1999, to become a federal order if the state wanted to retain its quota system. Under California’s quota system, each producer is assigned a quota for production and receives one price for production within quota and a lower price for production above quota. To date, California continues to maintain its own state marketing order and is not part of the federal order system, although pricing in California and under federal milk marketing orders have become much more similar.

Call price: The price level at which producers with grain in the Farmer-Owned Reserve must repay the nonrecourse loan plus any accumulated interest. See Farmer-Owned Reserve (FOR).

Call; call option(s): In commodity options trading, an option that gives the buyer the right, but not the obligation, to purchase (go long) the underlying futures contract at the strike price on or before the expiration date. See Expiration (of a contract); expiration date, Put; Put option(s), and Underlying futures contract.

Calve(d): Giving birth to a calf. Also Parturition.

Calving rate: Number of calves born divided by the number of cows exposed to a bull.

Calving season: The season(s) of the year when calves are born. Regulating calving seasons is the first step to performance-testing the whole herd, accurate records, and consolidated management practices.

Cambium: The layer of living cells between the wood and the innermost bark of a tree. Each growing season the cambium adds a new layer of cells (by cell division) on the wood already formed, as well as a layer of inner bark on the cambium’s outer face.

Camelidae; camelids: Camels (dromedary – one-humped; bactrian – two-humped), llamas, alpacas, vicugnas, and guanacos.

Campylobacteriosis: A foodborne illness caused by the Campylobacter bacterium. It is rarely associated with large outbreaks but with sporadic events such as eating raw or undercooked meat and poultry. See Foodborne illness(es).

Canadian Wheat Board (CWB): The monopoly marketing agency for western Canadian wheat and barley producers founded in 1935. It is one of the world’s largest grain marketing organizations and allows Canada’s 110,000 wheat and barley producers to sell as one; therefore, theoretically, they command a higher price for their product.

Cancellation (pesticide): Under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act, the Environmental Protection Agency may seek cancellation of a pesticide if it determines that a pesticide generally causes unreasonable adverse effects on the environment when used in accordance with widespread and commonly recognized practice. See Suspension (pesticide).

Candle(d); candling: The illumination of the interior of an egg, made possible through the translucency of the eggshell, to assure the elimination of practically all inedible eggs.

Cane sugar: Sugar derived directly or indirectly from sugarcane produced in the U.S. (including sugar produced from sugarcane molasses).

Cane sugar refiner: Anyone who processes raw cane sugar into direct-consumption sugar.

Cane syrup: Concentrated cane juice from which no sucrose has been extracted.

Canner(s) and cutter(s): Unfinished beef; salvage cattle or cull beef; slaughter cows.

Canola: A variety of rapeseed containing an oil low in erucic acid and glucosinolates that is used in cooking.

Canopy: (1) The more or less continuous cover of branches, dense foliage, or leaves formed collectively by field crops or the crowns of adjacent trees. (2) Vegetative cover sufficient to reduce the destructive impact of rainfall on the soil surface.

CAP: Commodity Assistance Programs

CAP: Common Agricultural Policy

CAP: Common Agricultural Policy

Cap(ped) (insurance): The 20 percent upward adjustment limit on the actual production history from one year to the next. See Cup(ped) (insurance).

Cap(s): The statutory limit for a fiscal year on the amount of new budget authority and outlays allowed for discretionary spending. The Budget Enforcement Act of 1990 required a sequester in a category if a cap was exceeded. See Payment cap(s) andPayment limitation(s).

Capital stock: For cooperatives, the required purchase of stock, notes, or membership certificates that provides some help in financing the cooperative and gives the member voting rights.

Capitalization of arrears: See Reamortization; reamortized.

Capon(s): Male chickens that have had their reproductive organs surgically removed.

Capper-Volstead Act of 1922 (CVA) (7 U.S.C. §§ 291 et. seq.): Known as the “Magna Carta” of agricultural cooperative marketing, this Act amended the Clayton Act of 1914 to exempt cooperatives composed of producers from federal antitrust laws, including both stock and nonstock organizations. The Act also gave the USDA limited oversight authority. The exemption from antitrust laws does not allow conspiracy with third persons to restrain trade.

Capriculture: The raising of goats.

Capsicums: Peppers.

Captive bolt stun gun: A device used during the slaughter process to render animals unconscious prior to bleeding. The gun fires a bolt into the brain of the animal; the bolt is considered “captive” in that it is not a bullet that flies free of the device. Also Penetrative stunning device(s).

Captive finance: The in-house financing arm of an equipment or input supplier.

Captive supply (livestock): Cattle that beef packers own or contract to purchase two weeks or more before slaughter. Packers may contract for future delivery of livestock through an exclusive marketing agreement with individual feedlots, in which price is based on market prices at the time of slaughter. Packers may also purchase cattle through forward contracts in which price is specified in advance or is based on the futures price or some other formula.

CAR: Crops at Risk

CARAT: Committee to Advise on Reassessment and Transition

Carbamate(s): A pesticide whose primary toxic action involves inhibition of an important enzyme in the nervous system. This enzyme, called cholinesterase, is important in the process where nerve impulses bridge the gap between two nerve cells. When inhibited, the communication of nerve impulses is disrupted and eventually causes death. The carbamate pesticides contain carbaryl, aldicarb, or carbofuran.

Carbohydrate(s): A class of organic compounds including sugars and starches.

Carbon cycle: The movement of forms of carbon, both organic and inorganic, between living things, inorganic matter, water (including glaciers and groundwater), and atmosphere. Living things extract and recycle carbon from their nonliving environment.

Carbon dioxide (CO₂): A colorless, odorless gas produced by respiration and combustion of carbon-containing fuels. Plants use it as a food in the photosynthesis process.

Carbon monoxide (CO): A colorless, odorless, poisonous gas produced by incomplete combustion.

Carcass evaluation: Techniques of measuring components of quality and quantity in carcasses.

Carcass merit: Desirability of a carcass relative to the quantity of components (muscle, fat, and bone), quality grade, and eating qualities.

Carcass merit discount: Downward price adjustments in the base livestock price based upon carcass characteristics, as determined by a packer’s specific carcass measurement system, where the packer’s system of discounts is known before sale and delivery, but the actual amount of any applicable discount is not known until after slaughter.

Carcass merit premium: Upward price adjustments in the base livestock price based upon carcass characteristics, as determined by a packer’s specific carcass measurement system, where the packer’s system of premiums is known before sale and delivery, but the actual amount of any applicable premium is not known until after slaughter.

Carcass traits: In cattle carcasses, the measurement of fat thickness, muscle, carcass weight, cutability, marbling, yield, and tenderness.

Carcass weight (dressed): For cattle, the weight of the carcass after removal of the hide or skin, the head where it joins the spine, the forefeet at the knee joint, the hind feet at the hock joint, the large blood vessels of the abdomen and thorax, the genitourinary organs (other than the kidneys), the offals (edible and inedible), the tail, and the slaughter fats other than kidney fats. The dressed carcass weight for hogs is the weight of the carcass after removal of the lungs, heart, liver, intestines and ancillary organs, bladder, reproductive organs, and blood.

Carcass-by-carcass inspection: See Continuous inspection.

Carcinogen; carcinogenic: Cancer-causing substance.

Carding machine: At textile mills, machines that separate and align cotton fibers into a thin web that is condensed into a rope-like strand.

Carding; carded: (1) A preliminary process in manufacturing spun yarn, after wool is scoured and dried. Wool is fed into a carding machine that opens it into an even layer, removing as much burr and seed as possible and a certain amount of short or broken fibers, then draws the fibers parallel to each other to form a continuous strand of fibers called a sliver. (2) A yarn preparation process where raw cotton is separated, opened, cleaned, and made into sliver.

CARET: Council on Agricultural Research, Extension, and Teaching

Carey Act: Signed into law August 18, 1894. The purpose of the Act was to aid in the reclamation of desert lands by granting to each of the states containing desert lands an amount not to exceed one million acres and directing that the states cause these lands to be reclaimed, occupied, and irrigated. The Act was expected to be a major milestone in the reclamation of desert lands in the western states.

Cargo preference: A law that requires a certain portion of goods or commodities financed by the U.S. government to be shipped on U.S.-flagged ships. The law has traditionally applied to P.L. 480 and other concessional sales or donation programs.

Cargo Preference Act (P.L. 83-644): Signed into law August 26, 1954. Passage of cargo preference legislation was intended to support U.S. maritime interests. See Cargo preference.

Caribbean Basin Economic Recovery Act of 1983 (CBERA) (P.L. 98-67): Signed into law August 5, 1983. The Act establishing the Caribbean Basin Initiative.

Caribbean Basin Economic Recovery Expansion Act of 1990 (P.L. 101-382): Signed into law August 20, 1990. The Act that made permanent the Caribbean Basin Initiative.

Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI): A U.S. initiative signed in 1983 that gave 27 Caribbean states duty-free access to U.S. markets for most of their exports in return for certain changes in tax and general economic policy. Textiles, clothing, footwear, tuna, and petroleum are excluded. Sugar and beef are subject to special treatment.

Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM): Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas (not a member of the Common Market, only of the Caribbean Community), Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, Montserrat, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent, the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago, and Suriname. First established as the Caribbean Free Trade Association (CARIFTA) in 1967 as a limited free trade agreement, it was superseded by CARICOM when Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago joined on July 4, 1973, to create the Caribbean Community. In July 1989, the Heads of Governments adopted several measures aimed at stimulating and promoting economic and political integration. One of the main objectives of CARICOM was a phased common external tariff on most goods by 1998.

CARICOM: Caribbean Community and Common Market

CARICOM: Caribbean Community and Common Market

Carousel retaliation: Following a World Trade Organization decision on unfair trade practices, the offending country or countries, if failing to come into compliance, may be subject to the imposition of duties on exports as retaliation. Carousel retaliation is the practice of rotating commodities and countries affected by retaliation as a means of inducing compliance.

Carrier: See Inert ingredient(s).

Carry-in: Stocks of commodities brought into the new marketing year.

Carrying capacity: See Grazing capacity, and Stocking rate(s).

Carrying charge: A charge assessed against the buyer in case of unforeseen delays in opening a letter of credit or in providing available freight space. In that case, the shipper would have to carry the commodity longer than foreseen in the contract and should be reimbursed by the buyer for the additional cost of interest, insurance, and storage.

Carryover: (1) Existing supplies of a grain, oilseed, or other commodity at the beginning of a new harvest for that commodity (end of a designated marketing year); the remaining stock carried over into the next marketing year. (2) Unexpended annual funds provided during one fiscal year that are carried into the new fiscal year.

Carryover crop insurance contract: A crop insurance contract that has been in force for at least one crop year term and continues in force for another crop year term after the cancellation date.

Cartel: An alliance or arrangement among enterprises in the same field of business aimed at securing an international monopoly. A cartel usually seeks to control production or the amount marketed to raise prices and maximize profits.

Case: The condition of tobacco with regard to its moisture content. Tobacco in proper keeping condition is said to be “in case.” When tobacco is too wet, it is said to be in “high case.”

Case ready: Beef cuts received by the retailer that do not require further processing before they are put in the retail case for selling.

Casein: The major portion of milk protein. It is manufactured from skim milk and is usually marketed in dry form. Food-grade casein is used in processed foods, and industrial-grade casein is used in making glue, paint, and plastics. During the cheesemaking process, casein solidifies, curdles, or coagulates into cheese through the action of rennet or acids. See Acid casein and Rennet casein.

Caseinate(s): Solubilized forms of casein that, unlike casein, can be put into water solution. Caseinates are produced by dissolving casein in dilute alkali to form a free-flowing powder commonly used as an emulsifier in cured meats and as a milk and cream substitute.

Cash (basis) method (accounting): The accounting method used by most producers. All taxable income, whether received in cash or property, is included in income in the year actually or constructively received. Farm expenses are deductible only in the taxable year paid, and inventories are not used to determine income. See Accrual (basis) method (accounting).

Cash commodity(ies): An actual physical commodity being bought or sold. Also Actuals.

Cash contract(ing): A sales agreement for either immediate or future delivery of a cash commodity.

Cash crop(s): A crop grown solely for selling rather than for basic food and feed needs of the producer.

Cash expenses: The outflows from production agriculture. These do not include depreciation (that flowed out at some other point in time), perquisites to hired labor (not cash outflow or already covered as a cash expense), and farm household expenses (not part of the farming business).

Cash Export Certificate Program: See Wheat and Feed Grain Export Certificate Programs.

Cash flow: The total funds generated internally by a firm for covering costs and investment. Farming presents unique cash-flow problems when income is generated only at the end of a production cycle.

Cash forward contract (sale): See Forward contract(s)(ing).

Cash grain farm: A farm on which corn, grain sorghum, small grains, soybeans, or field beans and peas account for at least 50 percent of the value of products sold.

Cash grain(s): (1) Grains commonly produced for sale (such as corn, oats, rice, and wheat), as opposed to hay and other grains that are grown principally as feed for animals or as seed. (2) Wheat, rice, corn, soybeans, barley, buckwheat, cowpeas, dry field and seed beans and peas, flaxseed, lentils, mustard seed, oats, popcorn, rye, safflower, grain sorghum, sunflowers, and other small grains.

Cash in lieu of commodities (CIL): Under the Nutrition Program for the Elderly and Child and Adult Care Food Program, program providers can choose to provide all or part of their subsidies in cash rather than commodities. These programs have evolved primarily into cash subsidy programs.

Cash lease(d): Relatively simple lease arrangement whereby the tenant pays a set sum for the use of a farm. The tenant receives all the income and often pays all of the expenses except for real property taxes, insurance, repairs directly associated with farm improvement, and depreciation on structures. The tenant has the major management responsibility. See Crop-share lease.

Cash market: A market where people buy and sell cash commodities such as a grain elevator.

Cash price: Market price paid in full and on the spot for immediate delivery of a given commodity. See Cash market, and Spot market.

Cash receipts: Receipts from the sale of crops and livestock plus the value of Commodity Credit Corporation loans in the year the loan is received, because producers will receive at least the loan rate amount for the crop.

Cash rent: See Cash lease(d).

Cash settlement: A method of settling certain futures or option contracts whereby the seller pays the buyer the cash value of the commodity traded, according to a procedure specified in the contract, rather than having the actuals delivered.

Cash-out option for generic commodity certificates: The option provided to original holders of a generic commodity certificate to redeem the certificate at its face value for cash from the Commodity Credit Corporation instead of exchanging it for commodities. To encourage exchange of certificates for surplus commodities, generic certificates could not be redeemed for cash until five months after the issue date. Those who purchased or traded the certificates from the original holders were not permitted to cash-out the certificates. Also, certificates issued under the Export Enhancement Program could not be cashed out.

Casing: Packaging material for sausage meat; it can be artificial or the lining or membrane of an organ from an animal that produces muscle foods.

Castor (bean): An ancient plant from which oil is extracted and used in high-performance lubricants, cosmetics, waxes, nylons, plastics, and coatings.

CAT: Catastrophic coverage

Catalysis; catalyze; catalytic: See Catalyst.

Catalyst: A substance that speeds up the rate of a reaction. Sodium hydroxide (lye) is used as a catalyst in biodiesel production, and sulfuric acid may be used to catalyze the conversion of biomass to sugars during acid hydrolysis.

Catastrophic coverage (CAT): Safety-net crop insurance to replace ad hoc disaster assistance programs. Under reforms contained in the Agricultural Risk Protection Act of 2000, producers will be compensated for losses up to 50 percent of their average yield at 55 percent of the expected market price. The premium is subsidized, but producers must pay an annual processing fee of $100 per crop per county, up to $200 per county, but not to exceed $600 for all counties. Limited-resource producers may have this fee waived. Sales and service of CAT policies are available through private insurance providers. Producers may purchase additional coverage crop insurance. See Additional coverage.

Catch crop: (1) A crop usually planted very early in the cropping season. It matures early or earlier than the main crop to produce some food before the main crop matures. (2) A short-duration crop grown in between two croppings of a main crop. See Cover crop(s).

Category 1 species: Species for which the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has enough information on biological vulnerability and threats to support their listing as endangered species or threatened species.

Category 2 species: Species for which the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has information suggesting the possible appropriateness for listing as endangered species or threatened species.

Cattle and Sheep Outlook: A quarterly Economic Research Service report containing detailed analysis and data covering the outlook for cattle and sheep, focusing on current production, slaughter, price, and trade statistics.

Cattle breeds: There are 275 recognized cattle breeds in the world. Cattle breeds (nondairy) in the U.S. include the Angus, Beefmaster, Brahman, Brahmousin, Brangus, Charbray, Charolais, Chianina, Florida Cracker, Galloway, Gelbray, Hereford, Limousin, Marchigiana, Piedmontese, Polled Hereford, Red Angus, Red Brangus, Salers, Salon, Santa Cruz, Santa Gertrudis, Senepol, Shorthorn, Simbrah, Simmental, South Devon, and Texas Longhorn. There are at least 50 breeds of beef cattle in the U.S., but fewer than 10 make up most of the cattle produced. See Dairy cattle breeds, Dual-purpose cattle breeds, and Triple-purpose cattle breeds.

Cattle committed: Cattle that are scheduled to be delivered to a packer within the 7-day period beginning on the date of an agreement to sell the cattle.

Cattle Feed Assistance Program: See Cattle Feed Program.

Cattle Feed Program: A USDA emergency feed assistance program for producers with foundation beef herds in Colorado, Nebraska, South Dakota, and Wyoming. Eligible producers will be provided feed credits of $23 per head of eligible cattle for use at a participating feed supplier of their choice. Participating feed suppliers will be reimbursed for feed made available for livestock producers for manufactured feed suitable to be fed to the foundation beef herd. Nonfat dry milk from Commodity Credit Corporation stocks will be provided at a minimal cost to the feed manufacturers and is intended to supplement the protein in the feed mix and reduce the price of the feed to the producer. At least 75 percent of the available forage in these four states was rated as poor or very poor.

Cattle type: Cattle purchased for slaughter, including fed steers, fed heifers, fed Holsteins and other fed dairy steers, and heifers, cows, and bulls.

CBER: Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research

CBERA: Caribbean Basin Economic Recovery Act of 1983

CBI: Caribbean Basin Initiative

CBOT: Chicago Board of Trade

CCC: Commodity Credit Corporation

CCC commercial credit: Refers to short- and intermediate-term commercial credit guarantee programs operated by the Commodity Credit Corporation. The Export Credit Guarantee Program (GSM-102) guarantees repayment of private, short-term credit (up to three years), while the Intermediate Export Credit Guarantee Program (GSM-103) covers credit extended for three to ten years.

CCC sales price (7 U.S.C. §§ 1427 et seq.): The designated price below which the Commodity Credit Corporation may not sell, with exceptions, its stocks of wheat, corn, grain sorghum, barley, oats, oilseeds, rye, or cotton. If loan repayments are permitted at lower than loan rate levels, the sales price is usually higher than the average loan payment rates for these crops.

CCEP: Comprehensive Conservation Enhancement Program

CCP: Critical control points

CDC: Center for Disease Control and Prevention

CDP: Crop Disaster Program

CE: Competitive exclusion

CED: County Executive Director

Cede: The passing to the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation of all or part of the net book premium and associated liability for ultimate net losses on eligible crop insurance contracts written by a reinsured company.

Ceiling price: The highest price a buyer has agreed to pay for the volume of product involved in the transaction. Ceiling prices protect the buyer in an advancing market.

Cellulase: Any of several enzymes produced chiefly by fungi, bacteria, and protozoans that catalyze the hydrolysis of cellulose into glucose.

Cellulose: A polymer of glucose molecules found in biomass, along with hemicellulose and lignin. Cellulose is the sugar-containing component needed to make ethanol.

Cellulosic (lignocellulosic) (energy crop): Crops grown for energy uses that contain cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin, including switchgrass, elephant grass, giant reed, and hybrid poplar.

Census Advisory Committee on Agricultural Statistics: The USDA committee that makes recommendations on Census of Agriculture questionnaire content and design, publicity, publication plans, and data dissemination.

Census of Agriculture: A count taken by the National Agricultural Statistics Service, every five years, of the number of farms, land in farms, crop acreage and production, livestock numbers and production, farm spending, farm facilities and equipment, farm tenure, value of farm products sold, farm size, and type of farm. Data are obtained for states and counties.

Centennial center(s): See National Research and Training Virtual Center(s).

Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER): The center within the Food and Drug Administration responsible for ensuring the safety and efficacy of blood and blood products, vaccines, allergenics, and biological therapeutics. CBER’s regulation of biological products has expanded in recent years to include a wide variety of new products such as biotechnology products, somatic cell therapy and gene therapy, and banked human tissues.

Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (CFSAN): One of six centers within the Food and Drug Administration. With a work force of about 800, the CFSAN promotes and protects the public health and economic interest by ensuring that (a) food is safe, nutritious, and wholesome, and cosmetics are safe; and (b) food and cosmetics are honestly, accurately, and informatively labeled. CFSAN regulates $240 billion of domestic foods, $15 billion of imported foods, and $15 billion of cosmetics sold across state lines. This regulation takes place from the products’ point of U.S. entry or processing to their point of sale.

Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion (CNPP): The USDA focal point for linking scientific research to the consumer. The CNPP oversees improvements in and revisions to the USDA food guide, coordinates nutrition promotion and education policy within the USDA, champions public/private collaborations to promote nutrition, and provides national nutrition policy analysis.

Center for Veterinary Medicine (CVM): One of six centers within the Food and Drug Administration, the CVM regulates the manufacture and distribution of food additives and drugs that will be given to animals. These include animals from which human foods are derived, as well as food additives and drugs for pet (or companion) animals.

Center-pivot irrigation: An irrigation system that pumps groundwater from a well in the center of a field through a long pipe, elevated on wheels, that pivots around the well and irrigates the field in a large circular pattern.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC): Located in Atlanta, an agency of the Department of Health and Human Services composed of 11 centers, institutes, and offices, aiming to promote health and quality of life by preventing and controlling disease, injury, and disability.

Central American Common Market (CACM): A customs union created by El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua in 1961, and joined by Costa Rica in 1963. It has a goal of economic integration, and provided for immediate free trade on 95 percent of all goods.

CERCLA: Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980

CERCLA: Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980

Cereal(s): Generic name for certain grasses that produce edible seeds. The term is also used for certain products made from seeds. Cereals include wheat, oats, barley, rye, rice, millet, corn, and grain sorghum.

Certain polyhydric alcohols: Any polyhydric alcohol, except polyhydric alcohol produced by distillation or polyhydric alcohol used as a substitute for sugar as a sweetener in human food.

Certificate of inspection: A document certifying the condition of goods at a particular point of transit.

Certificate of origin: A document stating the country in which a commodity has been grown, milled, produced, manufactured, or assembled.

Certificate of quota eligibility: A certificate issued by the USDA to a foreign country authorizing the entry into the U.S. of sugar produced in such country.

Certificate(s); cert(s): See Generic commodity certificate(s).

Certified agent(s): See Certifying agent(s); certified agent(s).

Certified applicator(s): Any individual who is certified under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act to apply restricted-use pesticides. A certified applicator may be a private applicator or a commercial applicator.

Certified lender: See Certified Lender Program (CLP), and Preferred lender program (PLP).

Certified Lender Program (CLP): A Farm Service Agency program that enables family farm owners and/or operators to establish or continue a credit relationship with a commercial agricultural lender in situations where the lender could not otherwise extend credit. The program is designed to (a) minimize paper transfers between the lender and the FSA, (b) minimize the time required for certified lenders to obtain responses to requests for guaranteed loans, (c) give additional flexibility and authority to those lenders with a proven ability to process and service FSA guaranteed loans, (d) permit lenders to certify compliance rather than provide verifications, and (e) permit maximum use of forms normally used by the lender. See Preferred lender program (PLP).

Certified mediation program: A program for the resolution of disputes through mediation, authorized or administered by a state, that meets the requirements for certification as established by the Farm Service Agency (budget, training, scope of issues, management, identification of relevant state statutes, and state certification). See State mediation grants.

Certified milk: Milk produced and distributed under conditions that conform with high standards for cleanliness and quality set forth by the American Association of Medical Milk Commissions.

Certified organic; certified: Under the National Organic Program, operations or portions of operations that produce or handle and sell $5000 or more of agricultural products that are intended to be labeled or represented as “100 percent organic,” “organic,” or “made with organic ingredients.”

Certified scale(s): See Certified weight(s).

Certified seed(s): Seeds used for commercial crop production produced from foundation seeds under the regulation of a legally constituted agency. Typically, the seed must be bagged and tagged with an official certification label. Certification requires field inspection, an inspector’s sample for purity (kind, variety, weed seed, other crop seed, and inert and noxious weeds) and germination on clean seed that makes the grade for which the certification is sought, and labels printed and attached to the bagged seed.

Certified weight(s): Any weight that is obtained by a licensed weigher, using a certified scale. A scale shall be considered certified when it meets the requirements specified by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and has successfully passed inspection, at least annually, by the USDA or its approved agent, or a state Board of Weights and Measures or its approved agent. A scale, to remain certified, must be tested and pass inspection a minimum of once every 12 months or more frequently when required by the governing regulatory authority. See Affidavit weight(s).

Certified wetland determination: Also Wetland determination. See Wetland delineation.

Certifying agent(s); certified agent(s): State, private, and foreign organizations or persons accredited by the Agricultural Marketing Service and empowered to make decisions regarding organic certification, oversight, and enforcement of organic operations under the National Organic Program.

Cervidae; cervids: Cervids include deer, moose, elk, and caribou.

CES: Cooperative Extension Service

CET: Common external tariff

CF: Crude fiber

CFC: National Rural Utilities Cooperative Finance Corporation

CFO: Conservation Farm Option program

CFSA: Consolidated Farm Services Agency

CFSAN: Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition

CFTC: Commodity Futures Trading Commission

CGIAR: Consulting Group on International Agricultural Research

Chaff: The husks, other seed coverings, small stem pieces, and debris that are separated from the grain during harvesting or processing.

Champion communities: Under the Empowerment Zone and Enterprise Community (EZ/EC) program, applicants that are not designated as either an Empowerment Zone or Enterprise Community, but which have evidenced quality preparation and strong support for implementing their strategic plans, are eligible for designation as Champion communities. Champion communities are eligible for targeted technical assistance, information and outreach programs, and preferences for financial assistance towards implementing parts of their strategic plans.

Changes In Mandatory Programs (CHIMPS): Cuts administered by the Appropriations Committee in mandatory programs. Although House (House Rule XXI, Clause 2) and Senate (Senate Rule XVI) rules generally prohibit in varying degrees legislating on appropriations bills or providing unauthorized appropriations, appropriators can skirt limitations by restricting spending for salaries or program expenses. See Rider(s) (appropriations).

Channel catfish: The predominate warmwater, pond-raised food fish; channel catfish adapt readily to intensive production systems, eat a wide variety of natural and manufactured foods, convert feed to meat more efficiently than other catfish species, and are easier to propagate. In 1949, the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission collected channel catfish from the Red River that were used as brood fish and subsequently became the ancestral stock of 95 percent of all channel catfish cultured in the U.S. today.

Channel catfish culture: The production sequence of channel catfish: (a) brood fish spawning in late spring or early summer in the first year, (b) fry being placed in production ponds in the early spring of the second year, and (c) the harvesting of stocker fish (approximately one pound in size) in the fall of the second year or the winter of the third year. It will take an additional one to two years to produce channel catfish from two to five pounds in size.

Chapter 12: See Family Farmer Bankruptcy Act of 1986.

Char: The remains of solid biomass that has been incompletely burned.

Character (cotton): The strength, uniformity, and cohesive quality of cotton fibers.

Charges (CCC): All fees, costs, and expenses incurred by Commodity Credit Corporation in insuring, carrying, handling, storing, conditioning, and marketing commodities tendered to CCC for loan. Charges also include any other expenses incurred by CCC in protecting the CCC’s or producer’s interest in such commodity. See Storage charges; storage costs.

Charitable institutions (CI): Nonprofit charitable institutions that serve meals to needy persons regularly that are eligible to receive commodities from USDA surplus stocks (Section 416 and Section 32) as available. These charitable groups range from churches operating community kitchens for the homeless and destitute, to orphanages, hospitals, group homes for the mentally retarded, correctional institutions offering rehabilitative activities, and homes for the elderly.

Check(s): (1) A row or plot of a selected variety included in an experiment for comparison with other treatments. (2) An egg that has a broken shell or crack in the shell, but has its shell membrane intact and the contents are not leaking. See Leaker(s).

Checkoff(s); checkoff programs: Generally, programs that require producers and importers to pay a given amount per unit of production (assessments) at point of sale in order to finance market development and research. These programs must be authorized by legislation or government rule-making and may require approval by producers in a referendum. See Commodity research and promotion program(s), and Research and promotion order.

Cheese price: A weighted average, based on a weekly National Agricultural Statistics Service survey of cheese manufacturing plants throughout the country, of the prices of cheese sold in 40-pound blocks and 500-pound barrels (38 percent moisture with a 3-cent addition to the barrel price). The price of cheese is used to calculate the Class III price under the federal milk marketing orders.

Chef ready: Cuts portioned and trimmed to food service specifications, so that the chef need only season, cook, and serve.

Chemical fallow: See No-till fallow.

Chemical fixation: The process by which certain nutrient elements in a soil are converted from their available form to an unavailable form.

Chemical tenderization: The process of utilizing proteolytic enzymes to attack or digest complex protein within the cell fiber. Proteolytic enzymes commonly used by the meat industry are papain, bromelin, and ficin, and are activated by heat. These enzymes can be applied by the use of a pumping machine, or simply by hand dipping the retail cut into the enzyme solution. In addition, if proteolytic enzymes are incorporated into a meat product, the ingredient statement on the label must reflect this. SeeMechanical tenderization.

Chemical Use Survey: In states that supply significant amounts of a given commodity, the USDA conducts surveys to estimate agrichemical use in the production of that commodity. Commodities included in these studies are corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton, rice, potatoes, the major vegetables, and the major fruits and nuts.

Chemigation: Application of pesticides through irrigation.

Chemosterilant: A pesticide that interrupts reproduction of pests.

Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT): The world’s largest commodity exchange for futures contracts, in terms of the number of contracts traded, and founded in 1848, the oldest commodity exchange in the U.S. The CBOT trades both financial and commodity futures, with U.S. Treasury bond futures being the most frequently traded instrument.

Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME): Founded in 1898 as the Chicago Butter and Egg Board and evolved into Chicago Mercantile Exchange in 1919. The CME (also called the “Merc”) has four major product areas: futures and options contracts for interest rates, stock indexes, foreign currencies, and agricultural commodities. In November 2000, the CME became the first U.S. exchange to “demutualize” by converting its membership interests into shares of common stock that can trade separately from exchange trading privileges.

Chicken breeds: In the U.S., these include the Brahma, Cochin, Cornish, Delaware, Dorking, Dutch Bantam, Holland, Java, Jersey Giant, Langshan, New Hampshire Red, Orpington, Plymouth Rock, Rhode Island Red, Sussex, White Rock, and Wyandotte.

Chickpeas: Also known as garbanzos or garbanzo beans. Traditionally, a buff-colored, mild-flavored, marble-sized legume high in protein and low in fat that can be purchased dried and cooked like other beans, purchased in cans ready for use, or roasted for snacks.

Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP): USDA subsidies are available to nonprofit child care centers, family and group day care homes, and certain adult day care centers for meals and snacks. Enactment of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (P.L. 104-193) provided for reimbursements based on income testing in family day care homes.

Child Nutrition Act of 1966 (P.L. 89-642) (42 U.S.C. §§ 1771 et seq.): Signed into law October 11, 1966. An Act to extend, expand, and strengthen under the USDA a measure to safeguard the health and well-being of the nation’s children, and to encourage the domestic consumption of agricultural and other foods, by assisting the states, through grants-in-aid and other means, to meet more effectively the nutritional needs of our children. The Act extended the Special Milk Program, which had been functioning since 1954 under a separate authorization (P.L. 85-478), and made it a part of the Child Nutrition Act. A pilot School Breakfast Program was authorized for two years for schools drawing attendance from areas where poor economic conditions existed and to those schools where a substantial proportion of the children enrolled must travel long distances daily. The breakfasts were required to meet the nutritional standards established by the USDA, on the basis of tested nutritional research. Schools were required to serve the meal free of charge or at reduced charge to children who were unable to pay the full charge, and as in the case of the National School Lunch Program, there could be no segregation of, or discrimination against, any child because of inability to pay. The Act also centralized school food programs under the USDA. The goal was to promote uniform standards of nutrition, sanitation, management of funds, supervision, guidance, use of equipment and space, and some guarantee of program continuity.

Child Nutrition and WIC Reauthorization Act of 1989 (101-147): Signed into law November 10, 1989. The Act amended the Child Nutrition Act of 1966 and the National School Lunch Act (NSLA) to extend certain authorities contained in such Acts through FY1995. It amended the National School Lunch Act to eliminate certain duplicate provisions, amended the Child Nutrition Act of 1966 to provide for expansion of the School Breakfast Program, and revised provisions for determination of total commodity assistance for the school lunch and child care food programs under the NSLA.

Child Nutrition Commodity Support Program: See Child Nutrition Programs.

Child Nutrition Programs: Includes the National School Lunch Program, School Breakfast Program, Special Milk Program, Child and Adult Care Food Program, and Summer Food Service Program, which are designed to assist state and local governments in providing food services that serve healthful, nutritious meals to children in public and nonprofit private schools, child care institutions, summer recreation programs, and certain adult day care centers.

Children, Youth, & Families At Risk program: Smith-Lever 3(d) program that focuses on America’s children, youth, and families to help promote and provide positive, productive, secure environments and contributions to communities and the nation. See Smith-Lever 3(d) (funds).

Chilled-carcass weight: The carcass weight after it has completely cooled off, resulting in shrinkage from the hot-carcass weight.

China Safeguard: Under Section 421 of the Trade Act of 1974, the International Trade Commission determines whether imports of a product from China are causing or threatening to cause market disruption to the domestic producers of like or directly competitive products. If the ITC finds market disruption, it recommends remedies to the President and the U.S. Trade Representative. The President makes the final decision whether to provide relief to the U.S. industry and the type, amount, and duration of the relief. Under Section 422 of the Trade Act of 1974, the ITC determines whether an action by China to prevent or remedy market disruption in a WTO member country, or an action or provisional action by a WTO member to prevent or remedy market disruption from imports from China, is causing or threatening to cause a significant diversion of trade into the U.S. market.

Chipper: A machine that produces wood chips by knife action.

Chips: Woody material cut into short, thin wafers. Chips are used as a raw material for pulping and fiberboard or as biomass fuel.

Chisel planter; chisel plow: A system for breaking and loosening soil without inversion. Most of the residue remains on the surface.

Chiseling and subsoiling: Loosening the soil, without inverting and with a minimum of mixing of the surface soil, to shatter restrictive layers below normal plow depth that inhibit water movement or root development.

Chlorophenoxy herbicides: Herbicides used for control of broadleaved weeds. The common chemical names of chlorophenoxy active ingredients include 2,4-D; 2,4-DP; 2,4,5-T; MCPP; MCPA; and 2,4-DB.

Cholera: A serious foodborne illness caused by drinking contaminated water or eating contaminated shellfish. Cholera can cause a rapid loss of body fluids, shock, and death. See Foodborne illness(es).

Cholinesterase: An enzyme found in animals that regulates nerve impulses.

Cholinesterase inhibitors: See Carbamate(s).

Chronic food insecurity: A state of food insecurity that arises and endures as a result of long-term, not easily changed conditions, such as the lack of access to land. See Transient food insecurity.

Chronic vulnerability: Long-term conditions that predispose a particular group or region to food insecurity.

Chronic wasting disease (CWD): A fatal, neurological disease of farmed and wild deer and elk. The disease has been identified in wild and captive mule deer, white-tailed deer, North American elk, and captive black-tailed deer. CWD belongs to the family of diseases known transmissable spongiborm encephopathy (TSE).

CHRP: Critical Habitat Reserve Program

Chuck Culver: The drafter, compiler, and babysitter of this glossary. His e-mail address is cculver@uark.edu.

CI: Charitable institutions

CIC: Commodity Improvement Council

CIL: Cash in lieu of commodities

CIP: Cleaned-in-place

Circle of poison: The exportation of pesticides for use in other countries that are not registered for use in the U.S. Foods treated with these pesticides are then imported back to the U.S. for consumption.

Circuit breaker tax relief: A tax abatement program that permits eligible landowners to take some or all of the property tax they pay on farmland and farm buildings as a credit to offset their state income tax. Generally, producers are eligible for a credit when property taxes exceed a set percentage of their income.

Circuit rider program: See Rural Water Circuit Rider (Technical Assistance) Program.

Circumvention: (1) Measures taken by exporters to evade antidumping or countervailing duties. (2) Avoiding quotas and other restrictions by altering the country of origin of a product.

CIS: Commonwealth of Independent States

Citrus canker: A highly contagious bacterial disease that attacks all parts of citrus plants, including the fruit. Symptoms include brown, raised lesions surrounded by an oily, water-soaked base and a yellow ring or halo. Citrus canker is one of the most devastating diseases known to attack citrus. It does not, however, present any health risks to humans or any animals.

Citrus tristeza (virus): A virus that causes the collapse and death of all types of citrus trees through the sudden drying and wilting of leaves.

Civic agriculture: Innovative food production and marketing initiatives designed to sustain and strengthen farm families, local communities, and natural resources by linking producers, communities, and consumers.

Civil Rights Action Team (CRAT): Established December 12, 1996, by the Secretary of Agriculture to conduct a comprehensive audit of civil rights in USDA to determine how both employees as well as stakeholders were treated. The team developed 92 recommendations which were compiled in the report released in February 1997: “Civil Rights at the United States Department of Agriculture – A Report by the Civil Rights Action Team.” The USDA committed to take action on all 92 recommendations.

Clarification: The process of removing suspended material. In milk processing, clarification is achieved by centrifugal treatment, which removes sediment (extraneous matter) and somatic cells.

Class action: A lawsuit brought by a group of people on behalf of themselves and others who have similar claims. See Pigford v. Veneman.

Class I (milk); (use): Under the classified pricing system of milk marketing orders, milk used for fluid milk products.

Class I butterfat price: Price based on the Class III/Class IV butterfat price, plus the Class I differential.

Class I differential(s): Added to the base price of milk in a region to determine the minimum price processors must pay for milk used for fluid consumption. The USDA’s differential pricing structure is based on the location value of milk – that is, calculating how far a milk consumption region is from a milk production region, and establishing a minimum price that will attract sufficient milk to the market. See Differential(s).

Class I price: The price per hundredweight that is 0.965 times the Class I skim milk price, plus the Class I differential, plus 3.5 times the Class I butterfat price. See Class price(s).

Class I price mover: See Higher of (provision) (dairy), and Price mover.

Class I skim milk price: The price that is the higher of two formulas: the Class III formula, using cheese, butter, and whey prices; or the Class IV formula, using nonfat dry milk prices; plus a Class I differential.

Class II (milk); (use): Under the classified pricing system of federal milk marketing orders, milk used for fluid cream or in soft, perishable manufactured dairy products such as ice cream, cottage cheese, and yogurt.

Class II butterfat price: The Class IV butterfat price plus 0.007 cents per pound.

Class II nonfat solids price: The Class II skim milk price divided by 9.

Class II price: The price per hundredweight that equals the Class II skim milk price times 0.965, plus the Class II butterfat price times 3.5. See Class price(s).

Class II skim milk price: The price that equals the Class IV skim milk price (calculated from the nonfat dry milk powder price) plus 70 cents per hundredweight.

Class III (milk); (use): Under the classified pricing system of federal milk marketing orders, milk used in most cheese, including cream cheese.

Class III butterfat price: The same price formula used in the Class IV butterfat price, based on butter prices.

Class III price: The cheese price based on the value of the principal components of cheese. The Class III price per hundredweight shall be 0.965 times the Class III skim milk price, plus 3.5 times the Class III butterfat price.

Class III protein price: The price formula is (a) the National Agricultural Statistics Service weighted cheese price, minus the $0.165 make allowance, times 1.383 (the yield effect of one pound of protein at the farm); this resultis then added to (b) the NASS weighted cheese price, minus the $0.165 make allowance, times 1.572 (the yield effect of one pound of butterfat at the farm); then minus the butterfat price times 0.9 (butterfat retention); then multiplied by 1.17 (butterfat to protein ratio in producer milk).

Class III skim milk price: Price based on the value of milk going into cheese and cheese whey, minus the value of the butterfat if it had been used for making butter. This formula causes the Class III skim milk price to go up with a higher cheese price and down with a higher butter price.

Class III-A: A special class and price established in 1993 for milk used to produce nonfat dry milk in plants regulated by federal milk marketing orders. Class III-A was effectively replaced with adoption of Class IV under the federal milk marketing order reforms mandated by the Federal Agriculture Improvement and Reform Act of 1996.

Class IV (milk); (use): Milk used to produce butter and all milk powders.

Class IV butterfat price: The National Agricultural Statistics Service Grade AA butter price per pound, minus the butter make allowance of $0.115 multiplied by the farm-to-plant loss adjustment factor of 1.20.

Class IV nonfat milk solids price: The National Agricultural Statistics Service survey price for nonfat dry milk minus the make allowance of $0.14 times 0.99 (the factor that includes farm-to-plant loss adjustment, solids ending up as dry buttermilk powder, and moisture).

Class IV price: The price for milk used for butter and powdered milks based on the value of the components going into the production of these products. The Class IV price per hundredweight shall be 0.965 times the Class IV skim milk price, plus 3.5 times the Class IV butterfat price.

Class IV skim milk price: Price based on nonfat dry milk powder prices. It is the nonfat solids price times 9.

Class member(s): One who has consented to be a member of a class action lawsuit. See Pigford v. Veneman.

Class price(s): For skim milk and butterfat, calculated from the prices of manufactured dairy products. The USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service asks dairy manufacturing plants around the U.S. what price they were paid for their products during the week; each week NASS calculates a weighted average of the responses. These are the prices used in the class price formulas.

Class(es): (1) See Class action, and Class member(s). (2) See Classification(s); classifying. (3) Under milk marketing orders, Class I, Class II, Class III, and Class IV.

Classer: See Cotton classer; cotton grader.

Classification(s); classifying: (1) The systematic grouping of plants based on natural relationships or botanical classification. (2) For cotton, the classification of samples based on official standards. Leaf grade, preparation, and extraneous matter determinations are made by cotton classers. All other fiber properties of both upland cotton and American Pima cotton are determined by High Volume Instrument (HVI) systems. The HVI systems currently consist of instrument measurements for fiber length, length uniformity, strength, micronaire, and color. See Cotton classer; cotton grader, and Cotton classing; cotton classification. (3) See Classified price plan. (4) See Land classification, and Soil classes (classification). (5) See Asset (quality) classification(s). (6) See Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States (HTSUS).

Classified: (1) See Classification(s); classifying. (2) Under milk marketing orders, milk is classified and priced based upon the uses of the milk. See Classified price plan, and Classified pricing. (3) See Asset (quality) classification(s).

Classified price plan: A plan providing different classes and prices for different uses of milk. Milk used in fluid products is placed in Class I, the highest-priced class. Milk used to produce ice cream, yogurt, and other soft products is placed in Class II. Butter, cheese, nonfat dry milk, and other storable manufactured dairy products are placed in Class III and Class IV.

Classified pricing: A structure of prices that differ according to category of use. In particular, it is the federal milk marketing order pricing system under which regulated processors pay for Grade A milk according to the class in which it is used. See Classified price plan.

Classing: See Classification(s); classifying.

Clay(s): The smallest particle of soil, some forms of which swell or shrink depending on whether wet or dry. See Texture.

Claypan: A dense layer of subsoil, composed of clay, that resists water percolation.

Clayton Act of 1914 (15 U.S.C. §§ 12-27): Signed into law Oct. 15, 1914. This Act authorized producers to form cooperatives and provided that antitrust laws are not to be construed so as to forbid their existence. However, it only applied to nonstock organizations.

CLDAP: Crop Loss Disaster Assistance Program

Clean Air Act (42 U.S.C. §§ 7401-7671q): Signed into law July 14, 1955, and amended in 1963, 1965-67, 1969-71, 1973, 1974, 1977, 1978, 1980-83, 1988, 1990, 1991 and 1994-96. The Act was originally enacted in 1955, but the amendments made to the Act in 1970 established the core of the clean air program as it is known today. The primary objective of the Act is to establish federal standards for air pollutants from stationary and mobile sources and to work with the states to regulate polluting emissions. The Act is designed to improve air quality in areas of the country that do not meet federal standards and to prevent significant deterioration in areas where air quality exceeds those standards.

Clean cultivation: Mechanical removal of weeds and the keeping of the surface of the soil loose to lessen weed-seed germination.

Clean till(age); clean culture: A process of frequent cultivation or plowing during the growing season to prevent growth of all vegetation except the particular crop desired.

Clean Water Act of 1972 (CWA) (P.L. 92-500) (33 U.S.C. §§ 1251 to 1387): Signed into law October 18, 1972. The common name that refers to the main federal law for protecting water quality. Also known as the Federal Water Pollution Control Act (FWPCA) and Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972. It extensively amended the Water Pollution Control Act of 1948 (P.L. 80-845), as previously amended in 1956, 1961, 1965, 1966, and 1970. The Act significantly expanded provisions relating to pollutant discharges. Provisions included determining limitations for point sources which were consistent with state water quality standards, procedures for state issuance of water quality standards, development of guidelines to identify and evaluate the extent of nonpoint source pollution, water quality inventory requirements, and the development of toxic and pretreatment effluent standards. Section 402 of the Act established the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System to authorize EPA issuance of discharge permits. Section 404 of the Act authorized the Corps of Engineers to issue permits for the discharge of dredged or fill material into navigable waters. See Clean Water Act of 1977 and Water Quality Act of 1987.

Clean Water Act of 1972 (CWA) (P.L. 92-500) (33 U.S.C. §§ 1251 to 1387): Refers to the main federal law for protecting water quality; originally known as the Federal Water Pollution Control Act (FWPCA). The Act contains nonpoint source pollution provisions dealing with agricultural runoff, and establishes the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System for pollution permits that applies to concentrated animal feeding operations.

Clean Water State Revolving Fund (CWSRF): See State Water Pollution Control Revolving Fund (SFR).

Clean(ed)(s); cleaning: The phase or phases of the post-harvest operation during which impurities (such as dirt, twine, pebbles, hulls, chaff, stems, seeds, grease, sweat, twigs, and plant, animal, and insect waste) mixed with the commodity mass are removed. See Dockage.

Cleaned-in-place (CIP): The process of cleaning milk-handling equipment by circulating washing solutions through them without disassembly.

Cleanliness (grain): The visual inspection of grain and oilseeds, and stowage space. Grain and oilseeds are inspected for the presence of foreign material after dockage has been removed. Stowage space is inspected for remnants of previous cargoes, rust or paint that might come loose and contaminate the commodities, animal filth, rodents, decaying matter, or any unsanitary conditions or unknown substances.

Clear-cut(ting): Complete tree clearance. Strictly speaking, the removal of the entire standing crop; although in actual practice, it may refer to exploitation that leaves much unsalable material still standing.

Clearing and forwarding agent: A licensed firm or individual who takes responsibility for passing documents to customs and port authorities, and often for moving the commodities out of port to warehouses.

Clearing margin(s): Financial safeguards to ensure that clearing members perform on their customer’s open futures and options contracts. Clearing margins are distinct from customer margins that individual buyers and sellers of futures and options contracts are required to deposit with brokers. See Clearing member(s), and Customer margin(s).

Clearing member(s): A member of an exchange clearinghouse. Memberships in clearing organizations are usually held by companies. Clearing members are responsible for the financial commitments of customers that clear through their firms. See Clearinghouse.

Clearinghouse: An agency or separate corporation of a futures exchange that is responsible for settling trading accounts, clearing trades, collecting and maintaining margin monies, regulating deliveries, and reporting trading data. A clearinghouse is a third party to all futures and options contracts, acting as a buyer to every clearing member seller and a seller to every clearing member buyer.

Climax species: Plant species that will remain essentially unchanged in terms of species composition for as long as the site remains undisturbed.

Clip: One season’s yield of wool.

Clone: A group of cells or tissues that are in principle genetically identical.

Cloning: In biotechnology, making identical copies of a gene.

Close breeding: A form of inbreeding, such as mating brother to sister, sire to daughter, and son to dam.

Close-ended grant(s): A mandatory grant where the award constitutes an upper limit on the amount of funds the federal government may pay for the activities. The amount of the award is usually determined on a formula basis. For this reason, close-ended mandatory grants are sometimes referred to as formula grants. Block grants are close-ended grants. See Grant(s).

Closed herd: A herd in which no outside breeding stock are introduced.

Closing option transaction: Cancels a previously established long- or short-option position.

Clostridium ljungdahlii: The bacterium used to convert carbon monoxide, hydrogen, and carbon dioxide in synthesis gas to ethanol.

CLP: Certified Lender Program

Club wheat: A triticum aestivum subspecies compactum. Varieties of this subspecies may be either of winter or of a spring type. The kernels are small and flattened, and are principally used in the manufacture of flour.

CMA; Cooperative Marketing Association Program

CME: Chicago Mercantile Exchange

CMI: Crop Moisture Index

CNF: Cost and freight

CNMP: Comprehensive nutrient management plan

CNPP: Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion

CO: Carbon Monoxide

Co-dominant: Species in a mixed crop that are equally numerous and vigorous. In silviculture, it is one of the four main crown classes recognized on a basis of relative status and condition in the crop, more particularly for establishing thinning grades for pure regular crops; the trees have their crowns in the upper canopy, but are less free than the dominants and freer and taller than the dominateds.

Co-packer: Anyone who adds value to a licensed manufacturer’s product, or produces a product for export by a licensed manufacturer.

Co-packing: One processor who processes food for distribution by another company.

Co-precipitate(s): A mixture that contains whey proteins used in food products. Calcium chloride or dilute acid is added to skim milk, and the mixture then is heated to precipitate both casein and whey proteins. The precipitated proteins next are washed and dried to produce an insoluble protein mixture. Co-precipitates have approximately 5 to 10 percent moisture and 89 to 94 percent protein. Co-precipitates are insoluble unless they are treated with neutralizers.

CO_2: Carbon Dioxide

Coagulation; coagulate(s): A step in cheese manufacture when casein is clotted by the action of rennet or acids.

COAP: Cottonseed Oil Assistance Program

Coarse grains: Corn, barley, oats, grain sorghum, rye, and millet.

Coastal plain(s): Any plain of unconsolidated fluvial or marine sediment that has its margin on the shore of a large body of water, particularly the ocean.

Coastal waters: (1) In the Great Lakes area, the waters within the territorial jurisdiction of the U.S. consisting of the Great Lakes, their connecting waters, harbors, roadsteads, and estuary-type areas such as bays, shallows, and marshes. (2) Those waters, adjacent to the shorelines, that contain a measurable quantity or percentage of sea water, including, but not limited to, sounds, bays, lagoons, bayous, ponds, and estuaries.

Coastal zone: The coastal waters (including the lands therein and thereunder) and the adjacent shorelands (including the waters therein and thereunder), strongly influenced by each other and in proximity to the shorelines of the several coastal states, including islands, transitional and intertidal areas, salt marshes, wetlands, and beaches.

Coastal Zone Management Act of 1972 (P.L. 92-583) (16 USC §§ 1451-1464): Signed into law October 27, 1972. An Act, as amended in 1975, 1976, 1978, 1980, 1986, 1990, 1992, and 1996, to establish a voluntary national program within the Department of Commerce to encourage coastal states to develop and implement coastal zone management plans. Funds were authorized for cost-sharing grants to the states to develop their programs. Subsequent to federal approval of their plans, grants would be awarded for implementation purposes. In order to be eligible for federal approval, each state’s plan was required to define boundaries of the coastal zone, to identify uses of the area to be regulated by the state, the mechanism (criteria, standards, or regulations) for controlling such uses, and broad guidelines for priorities of uses within the coastal zone.

Coated seed: (1) Coating used to make seeds uniform in size to improve the efficiency of planting equipment. (2) Coatings containing fertilizer, pesticides, or other additives.

CoBank: A $24 billion international cooperative bank that is part of the Farm Credit System. CoBank specializes in providing credit to cooperatives, agribusiness, rural communications and energy systems, Farm Credit associations, and agricultural export businesses. CoBank has banking centers across the U.S. with representative offices in Mexico City, Singapore, and Buenos Aires, as well as a national office in Denver, Colorado. To facilitate the export of U.S. agricultural products, CoBank has 612 correspondent banking relationships in 85 countries. CoBank is the successor in interest to the former National Bank for Cooperatives.

COC: County Committee

Coccidiosis: Protozoan infection in the intestines of cattle that causes permanent damage leading to loss of gain and often death if untreated.

Cochran Fellowship Program (7 U.S.C. § 3293): Begun in 1984 and administered by the Foreign Agricultural Service, the program provides international participants with short-term technical instruction, practical field observations, and hands-on experience with a goal of providing actual trade benefits to the U.S. Participants attend trade shows, meet with U.S. agribusiness, attend policy and food safety seminars, and receive technical training related to short- and long-term market development.

Codex Alimentarius: The international standards-setting organization on food safety and science issues.

Codling moth: The common name for a species of moth, the larvae of which is known as the apple worm. Codling moths are common wherever apples are grown. They also attack pears, quinces, and English walnuts.

COE: U. S. Army Corps of Engineers

Coggins test: A test that screens the blood sample of horses for exposure to the virus causing Equine Infectious Anemia. Horses that are “Coggins positive” may not show any signs of clinical disease but act as a reservoir.

Cohort: A group of animals that share a common event within a defined period of time.

Cold germination test: A seed germination test designed to measure the ability of seeds to germinate under high soil-moisture content and low soil temperature. This vigor test simulates early season adverse field conditions and usually represents the lowest germination that would be expected from a seed lot planted under such conditions. A set number of seeds are placed in a high-moisture soil mix for seven days at a low temperature, then provided optimal heat for four more days. The test measures the percentage of healthy seedlings that emerge a certain height above the soil.

Cold germination test: A seed germination test designed to measure the ability of seeds to germinate under high soil-moisture content and low soil temperature. This vigor test simulates early season adverse field conditions and usually represents the lowestgermination that would be expected from a seed lot planted under such conditions. A set number of seeds are placed in a high-moisture soil mix for seven days at a low temperature, then provided optimal heat for four more days. The test measures the percentage of healthy seedlings that emerge a certain height above the soil.

Cold pasteurized: See Irradiation (pasteurization).

Cold storage: Product in refrigerated warehouses.

Colic: Abdominal irregularities in horses.

Coliform: A general term for a group of bacteria. It has special significance in public health because the bacteria inhabit the intestinal tract of humans and animals. Their presence in water indicates fecal pollution and potentially adverse contamination by pathogens.

Collateral acquisition: Under the nonrecourse loan program, if a producer does not redeem the commodity under loan by the end of the loan term, the Commodity Credit Corporation will take title and possession of the commodity pledged as collateral.

Collection: A gathering of different strains, varieties, or species for preservation until evaluated or multiplied. A set of varieties used and maintained by a researcher is called a working collection.

Collector well: A well, located near a surface water supply, used to lower the water table, thereby inducing infiltration of surface water through the bed of the water body to the well.

Colleges of Veterinary Medicine: There are 27 Colleges of Veterinary Medicine: 25 that are affiliated with Colleges of Agriculture and 2 that are located at non-land grant institutions (Tufts and the University of Pennsylvania). Fifteen additional states have veterinary science programs within their Colleges of Agriculture. The Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service distributes federal funds to these colleges and programs on the basis of a formula adopted in the National Agricultural Research, Extension, and Teaching Policy Act of 1977. The majority of funding for veterinary colleges comes from state appropriations and tuition fees.

Colonias: Subdivisions that exist outside incorporated areas located along the U.S.-Mexico border. Colonias are generally characterized as small communities with inadequate drinking water, poor sanitary waste disposal facilities, and substandard housing.

Colony: A complete bee community of several thousand worker bees including a queen, workers, and drones.

Color (cotton): Gives an indication of the fibers’ ability to accept dyes in the manufacturing process. Color measurements are made by a colorimeter. The instrument measures grayness (Rd), which indicates how light or dark the sample is, and also yellowness (+b), which indicates how much yellow color is in the sample.

Colorado River Basin Salinity Control program (CRSC): A program that provided financial and technical assistance to identify salt source areas in the Colorado River basin; to install conservation practices to reduce salinity levels in the Colorado River; to carry out research, education, and demonstration activities; and to carry out monitoring and evaluation. Several USDA agencies cooperated in this effort. In the Federal Agriculture Improvement and Reform Act of 1996 (Sec. 334), Congress amended the Colorado River Basin Salinity Control Act (P.L. 93-320) and combined the functions of the CRSC into the Environmental Quality Incentives Program.

Colorimeter: Also colormeter. See High Volume Instrument (HVI) colormeter.

Colt: An uncastrated male horse under four years of age.

CoM: Cost of money loans

Comb(ing): (1) A step subsequent to carding in the worsted spinning system, that separates the long, choice, desirable fibers, removes almost all foreign matter, and arranges fibers in parallel order forming a sliver. Combed yarns are finer, cleaner, more lustrous, and stronger than carded yarns. (2) A cotton yarn preparation process where cotton fibers are combed to make them parallel in the sliver and remove short fibers.

Combination rules: The payment limitation regulations that combine persons who are not deemed to be sufficiently economically independent to be entitled to payments in their own right. For example, spouses are generally combined as one person unless they meet the exceptions requirements. See Husband and wife rule.

Combinatorial chemistry: A technology for creating molecules en masse and testing them rapidly for desirable properties.

Combine header: Specially adapted equipment, on the front of a combine, used for gathering the crop and guiding it to the cutter bar.

Combine(s): A self-propelled machine for harvesting grain and other seed crops. In one pass it performs six major operations: cutting the standing grain (cutting unit); feeding the cut grain to the threshing unit (feeding unit); threshing and rethreshing the grain or seed from the heads; separating the grain from the straw and chaff; cleaning the threshed grain; and collecting the threshed grain for convenient handling (grain-handling unit).

Combined medical and agricultural research pilot program (7 U.S.C. § 3174a(d)): A Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service pilot research program that combines medical and agricultural research to link major cancer and heart and other circulatory disease research with agricultural research to identify compounds in vegetables and fruits that may prevent these diseases. The Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002 (Sec. 7105) extended the authority through FY2007. See Human Nutrition Intervention and Health Promotion Research Program.

Combing (wool): The process by which the short fibers, entangled fibers, and vegetable material are separated from the long fibers, and the latter are straightened out and laid parallel to each other.

Combing machine: At textile mills, machines that further clean and straighten cotton fibers in preparation for ring spinning high-quality yarn.

Combustion: (1) Burning. (2) The transformation of biomass fuel into heat, chemicals, and gases through chemical combination of hydrogen and carbon in the fuel with oxygen in the air.

Coming to the nuisance: The doctrine that those who choose to locate next to an existing nuisance (i.e., farming operation) are barred from bringing nuisance suits against the existing operation, unless the operation has significantly changed since the time of the initial move. See Nuisance.

Commenced-conversion wetland: A wetland, farmed wetland, farmed wetland pasture, or a converted wetland on which conversion was begun, but not completed, prior to December 23, 1985.

Commensurate share: Typically, the requirement that benefits received are in balance to contributions made such as contributions of land, labor, management, equipment, or capital.

Commercial applicator(s): An individual who is certified to use or supervise the use of any restricted-use pesticide for any purpose or on any property other than as provided under the regulations for a private applicator. See Certified applicator(s).

Commercial aquaculture: The harvesting of a commercially viable crop of aquatic organisms (plants, finfish, or shellfish) in controlled or semi-controlled conditions such as ponds or coastal waters.

Commercial elevator(s): A facility operation available to producers that is generally in the business of providing storage and handling of grain and other bulk, raw agricultural commodities; not generally an on-farm, proprietary operation controlled by an individual producer or farm. See Elevator(s).

Commercial food fish: Finfish maintained in captivity for the production of food, excluding those finfish maintained for ornamental or exhibition purposes.

Commercial forest land: Forested land which is capable of producing new growth at a minimum rate of 20 cubic feet per acre/per year, excluding lands withdrawn from timber production by statute or administrative regulation.

Commercial forestry: The practice of forestry with the object of producing timber and other forest produce as a business enterprise.

Commercial letter(s) of credit: An instrument by which a bank lends its credit to a customer to enable the purchase of commodities. It authorizes the seller to draw drafts on the bank under the terms set out in the letter. See Confirmed letter(s) of credit, and Letter(s) of credit.

Commercial poultry: (1) Under the National Animal Health Reporting System, domesticated fowl, including chickens, turkeys, waterfowl, and game birds, except doves and pigeons, which are maintained primarily for commercial production of eggs and meat. (2) Commercial production facilities with more than 3,000 birds. (3) Under a pilot program, the determination based on the number of birds housed at a facility; the management of a facility, local marketing and commerce of birds or bird products originating from the facility; and the potential of international trade of birds or bird products originating from the facility.

Commercial warehouse(s): See Elevator(s).

Commercially sterile: Food that has been treated such that the product is free of viable pathogenic microorganisms having public health significance, as well as microorganisms of nonhealth significance, that are capable of reproducing in the food under normal unrefrigerated conditions of storage and distribution.

Commercials: Common term for businesses that produce, transport, handle, store, or use physical commodities.

Commingled; commingled commodities: (1) Production owned by a producer on a farm that is mixed with similar commodities of other producers in a storage facility. (2) Physical contact between unpackaged, organically produced and nonorganically produced agricultural products during production, processing, transportation, storage, or handling, other than during the manufacture of a multi-ingredient product containing both types of ingredients.

Comminute(d): To grind meat or poultry.

Commission merchant: Under 7 U.S.C. §§ 1631, any person engaged in the business of receiving any farm product for sale, on commission, or for or on behalf of another person.

Commission on 21st Century Production Agriculture: Under the Federal Agriculture Improvement and Reform Act of 1996 (Secs. 181-188), an 11-member board was established to monitor the agriculture economy during the 1996 to 2002 transition. The initial report to Congress was due June 1, 1998, and was to evaluate the success of the Agricultural Market Transition Act. In January 2001, the Commission made a final report on the appropriate role of the federal government in supporting production agriculture. The report can be accessed at http://www.usda.gov/oce/21st-century/.

Commission on the Application of Payment Limitations for Agriculture: The ten-member Commission, authorized by the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002 (Sec. 1605), to study the effects of payment limitations on the receipt of direct payments, counter-cyclical payments, loan deficiency payments, and marketing loan gains on producers and other entities. The Commission is also authorized to make recommendations it deems appropriate which may include the feasibility of improving the application and effectiveness of payment limitations.

Committee to Advise on Reassessment and Transition (CARAT): Formed in June 2000, following the disbanding of the Tolerance Reassessment Advisory Committee. This committee advises the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and USDA on ways to ensure smooth implementation of the Food Quality Protection Act through the use of sound science, consultation with stakeholders, increased transparency, and reasonable transition for agriculture. CARAT provides a forum for a diverse group of individuals representing a broad range of interests and backgrounds from across the country to consult with and make recommendations to the Administrator of EPA and the Secretary of Agriculture regarding strategic approaches for pest management planning and tolerance reassessment for pesticides.

Commodity (trade) organization(s): Generally, specialized farm and agribusiness interest groups that concentrate on impacting marketing and federal policy for a single commodity or few agricultural commodities.

Commodity Assistance Programs (CAP): As established by the FY1996 agricultural appropriations act, the programs combined funding for the Commodity Supplemental Food Program, administrative funding for The Emergency Food Assistance Program (including the Soup Kitchens/Food Banks Program), the Seniors Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program, and assistance for nuclear-affected zones in the Pacific Islands.

Commodity certificate exchange: The exchange of commodities pledged as collateral for a marketing assistance loan, at a rate determined by Commodity Credit Corporation, in the form of a commodity certificate bearing a dollar denomination. Such certificate may not be transferred or exchanged for the inventory of the CCC.

Commodity certificate(s): Negotiable payments issued by the Commodity Credit Corporation in lieu of cash payments to producers who have outstanding nonrecourse loans that have not matured. Holders of the certificates may exchange them with the CCC for CCC-owned commodities. Under provisions intended to minimize loan forfeitures and accumulation of stocks by the USDA, a producer who is facing the likelihood of loan forfeiture can acquire commodity certificates at the adjusted world price for rice and cotton, or the posted county price for other commodities, multiplied by the amount of commodity still under loan. The producer then immediately exchanges the purchased commodity certificate for the crop pledged as collateral on the nonrecourse loan. Certificates are not subject to payment limitations. See Commodity certificate exchange, and Generic commodity certificate(s).

Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC): A federally owned and operated corporation within the USDA that was created to stabilize, support, and protect farm income and prices through loans, purchases, payments, and other operations. The CCC functions as a financial institution (revolving fund) through which all money transactions are handled for agricultural price and income support and related programs. The CCC helps maintain balanced, adequate supplies of agricultural commodities and helps in orderly distribution. Under recent authority, the CCC also finances the Conservation Reserve Program, the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, and the Wetlands Reserve Program. The CCC does not have any operating personnel or facilities; personnel and facilities of the Farm Service Agency are used to carry out CCC activities. It is managed by a Board of Directors (USDA employees) subject to the general supervision and direction of the USDA. The CCC is authorized capital stock of $100 million and the authority to borrow up to $30 billion. Its specific powers are found at 15 U.S.C. §§ 714(c). As a revolving fund, the CCC is viewed as having a permanent appropriation that allows the funds to be obligated or expended without further action by Congress up to its borrowing limit, once authorized by the authorization committee. See Authorization(s); authorize(d)(s); authority(ies).

Commodity Credit Corporation Charter Act (P.L. 80-806): Signed into law June 29, 1948. It reestablished the CCC (first created in 1933) and specified its authorities to carry out price-support and income support activities.

Commodity Credit Corporation commercial credit: See CCC commercial credit.

Commodity Credit Corporation sales price: See CCC sales price.

Commodity distribution program(s): See Commodity Assistance Programs (CAP).

Commodity Distribution Reform Act and WIC Amendments of 1987 (P. L.100-237): Provided significant improvements in the distribution and quality of food donations to the child nutrition programs.

Commodity distribution(s): Direct donation of food products by the federal government to needy individuals, schools, and institutions. The commodities donated are generally in surplus, meaning supplies exceed market food demand at the given price, or prices are below desired levels. Section 14 of the National School Lunch Act authorized the use of Commodity Credit Corporation or Section 32 commodities or funds to buy commodities for the child nutrition programs.

Commodity donations: Under the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002 (Sec. 4202), this provision authorizes the USDA to distribute commodities, acquired in the conduct of operations of the Commodity Credit Corporation and under Section 32, to any program under the Secretary’s authority that involves acquisition of commodities for a domestic feeding program. This authority applies to commodities to the extent that they are in excess of the quantities necessary to carry out activities of the CCC, including any quantity reserved for a specific purpose.

Commodity futures: See Futures trading.

Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 (P. L. 106-554): Signed into law December 21, 2000. Incorporated by reference in the Consolidated Appropriations Act 2001, the Act creates a flexible structure for regulation of futures trading, codifies an agreement between the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission to repeal the 18-year ban on trading single stock futures, and provides legal certainty for the over-the-counter derivatives markets. This law, which reauthorizes the Commodity Futures Trading Commission for five years, also specifically grants the CFTC authority over retail foreign exchange trading.

Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC): An independent federal regulatory agency, established by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission Act of 1974 (P.L. 93-463), that oversees trading on the 11 U.S. futures exchanges. The CFTC also regulates the activities of numerous commodity exchange members, public brokerage houses, commodity trading advisors, and commodity pool operators.

Commodity Futures Trading Commission Reauthorization Act of 1995 (P.L.104-9): This law reauthorized, through the year 2000, the establishment of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission that oversees commodity futures trading.

Commodity graders (grading): See Agricultural commodity graders (grading).

Commodity group(s): Agricultural interest organizations that represent one commodity or a limited, but related, number of commodities, including groups based on agricultural production or agribusiness membership. Such limited-membership groups may be further divided by issues, agribusiness or production segmentation, and geographic areas. See General farm organization(s), and Production agriculture.

Commodity Improvement Council (CIC): Made up of the four Under Secretaries responsible for the Food and Nutrition Service, the Food Safety Inspection Service, the Agricultural Marketing Service, and the Farm Service Agency. The CIC is tasked with finding innovative solutions to problems with the commodity distribution programs.

Commodity Operations: The Farm Service Agency mission area that handles the acquisition, procurement, storage, and distribution of commodities, and the administration of the U.S. Warehouse Act of 1916.

Commodity option(s): In the commodity markets, a contract that provides the right to buy or sell an underlying futures contract of hogs, cattle, soybeans, corn, and wheat at specified prices within a certain time limit. A holder of a commodity option is not obligated to purchase the underlying futures contract. Also Option(s). See Futures contract(s), Option(s) buyer, and Option(s) seller.

Commodity pool: An enterprise in which funds contributed by a number of persons are combined for the purpose of trading futures contracts or commodity options.

Commodity procurement: The supplying of USDA (Agricultural Marketing Service, Foreign Agricultural Service, and Food and Nutrition Service) food assistance through domestic and foreign feeding programs, disaster programs, and humanitarian aid programs.

Commodity program(s): A collective term used to include the price and income support programs for designated agricultural commodities. See Program(s) (agricultural).

Commodity research and promotion program(s): Promotional activities sanctioned by the government, usually involving a per unit checkoff at the first stage of marketing and often managed by a commodity trade organization. Currently, Agricultural Marketing Service oversees research and promotion activities for beef, cotton, dairy products (including fluid milk), soybeans, eggs, honey, mushrooms, pork, potatoes, fresh-cut flowers and greens, and watermelons. Authority was provided in the Federal Agriculture Improvement and Reform Act of 1996 (Secs. 531-582) for similar programs in kiwifruit, canola, and popcorn. Also, the USDA was given generic authority to create such programs through the rule-making process. Under the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act (Sec. 10607), producers of 100 percent organic products who don’t produce conventional or nonorganic products shall be exempt from normally applicable provisions of commodity research and promotion programs.

Commodity Supplemental Food Program (CSFP): A program initiated in 1968 to provide benefits to infants, children up to age 6 years, women during pregnancy and up to 6 weeks postpartum, breast-feeding women up to 12 months postpartum, and persons over 60 years of age. Under the CSFP, administered by the Food and Nutrition Service, the USDA donates foods (such as fruit juice, beef, egg mix, and canned corn) and distributes them to eligible women, infants, and children through state and local agencies. Because the target population of women, infants, and children is similar to that of WIC, the program has naturally shifted its attention to low-income elderly. The program was reauthorized and amended by the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002 (Sec. 4201).

Commodity(ies): (1) For purposes of agricultural futures trading, wheat, cotton, rice, corn, oats, barley, rye, flaxseed, grain sorghum, millfeed, butter, eggs, Irish potatoes, wool, wool tops, fats and oils (including lard, tallow, cottonseed oil, peanut oil, soybean oil, and all other fats and oils), cottonseed meal, cottonseed, peanuts, soybeans, soybean meal, livestock, livestock products, frozen concentrated orange juice, and all other goods and articles (except onions), services, rights, and interests in which contracts for future delivery are presently or in the future dealt. (2) Broadly defined, any goods exchanged in trade, but usually used to refer to widely traded raw materials and agricultural products.

Commodity(ies) exchange: See Futures market(s).

Common Agricultural Policy (CAP): A set of regulations by which member states of the European Union seek to merge their individual agricultural programs into a unified effort to promote regional agricultural development, fair and rising standards of living for the farm population, stable agricultural markets, increased agricultural productivity, and methods of dealing with food-supply security. The variable import levies, government payments to EU producers, and export subsidies to shippers are the three principal elements of the CAP.

Common external tariff (CET or CXT): A tariff rate uniformly applied by a common market or customs union, such as the European Union, to imports from countries outside the union.

Common market(s): An agreement whereby countries agree to remove the internal barriers to the movement of capital and labor. The goal of the removal of internal trade barriers is to expand the size of the market available to the agriculture, industry, and service sectors of member countries.

Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS): Established December 8, 1991, with the original signatories of the Republic of Belarus, the Russian Federation, and Ukraine, the CIS has now expanded to include 12 former USSR republics: Azerbaijan Republic, Republic of Armenia, Republic of Belarus, Republic of Kazakstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Republic of Moldova, Russian Federation, Republic of Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Republic of Uzbekistan, Georgia, and Ukraine. The CIS agreement confirmed the devotion of the former USSR republics to cooperation in various fields of external and internal policies, and announced the guarantees for implementation of international commitments of the former Soviet Union. The Commonwealth was formed on the basis of sovereign equality of all its members, and that the member states were independent and equal subjects of international law. The CIS agreement promotes further development and strengthening of relations of friendship, good neighborhood, interethnic accord, trust and mutual understanding, and cooperation between states.

Community and Private Land Fire Assistance program: A Forest Service program, authorized by the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002 (Sec. 8003), that promotes firefighting efficiency at all levels (on federal and non-federal lands) and protecting communities from wildfire threats through expanding outreach and education programs directed at homeowners and communities.

Community development (element): For purposes of developing an area plan under the Resource Conservation and Development Program, the development of resources-based industries; the protection of rural industries from natural resource hazards; the development of adequate rural water and waste disposal systems; the improvement of recreation facilities; the improvement in the quality of rural housing; the provision of adequate health and education facilities; the satisfaction of essential transportation and communication needs; and the promotion of food security, economic development, and education.

Community facilities (programs): See Community Facility direct loan program, Community Facility grant program, Community Facility guaranteed loan program, and Tribal College and University Essential Community Facilities.

Community Facility direct loan program: Community Programs of the Rural Housing Service can make loans to develop essential community facilities in rural areas and towns of up to 20,000 in population. Loans are available to public entities such as municipalities, counties, special-purpose districts, nonprofit corporations, and tribal governments. Applicants must have the legal authority to borrow and repay loans; to pledge security for loans; and to construct, operate, maintain, and manage the facilities. Repayment of the loan must be based on tax assessments, revenues, fees, or other sources of money sufficient for operation and maintenance, reserves, and debt retirement. There are three levels of interest rates available (poverty, intermediate, and market), each on a fixed basis. The poverty rate is set at 4.5 percent. The market rate is indexed to the eleventh bond buyers rate as determined by the U.S. Treasury Department. The intermediate rate is set halfway between the market and the poverty rates. Eligibility for these different interest rates is determined by the median household income of the area being served and the type of project. Loan repayment terms may not exceed the applicant’s authority, the useful life of the facility, or a maximum 40 years.

Community Facility grant program: Community Programs of the Rural Housing Service provides grants to assist in the development of essential community facilities in rural areas and towns with populations of up to 20,000. Grants are authorized on a graduated scale and are available to public entities such as municipalities, counties, special-purpose districts, nonprofit corporations, and tribal governments. In addition, applicants must have the legal authority necessary for construction, operation, and maintenance of the proposed facility, and also be unable to obtain needed funds from commercial sources at reasonable rates and terms. Grant assistance may be available for up to 75 percent of project costs. Grant funding limitations are based on population and income, economic feasibility, and availability of funds.

Community Facility guaranteed loan program: Community Programs of the Rural Housing Service can guarantee loans to develop essential community facilities in rural areas and towns of up to 20,000 in population. Guarantees are available to public entities such as municipalities, counties, special-purpose districts, nonprofit corporations, and tribal governments. Applicants must have the legal authority to borrow and repay loans; to pledge security for loans; and to construct, operate, maintain, and manage the facilities. Repayment of the loan must be based on tax assessments, revenues, fees, or other sources of money sufficient for operation and maintenance, reserves, and debt retirement. Community Programs can guarantee loans made and serviced by lenders such as banks, savings and loans, mortgage companies that are part of bank holding companies, banks of the Farm Credit System, or insurance companies. Community Programs may guarantee up to 90 percent of any loss of interest or principal on the loan. For the guaranteed loan program, the interest rate is the lender’s customary interest rate for similar projects. The interest rates for guaranteed loans may be fixed or variable and are determined by the lender and borrower, subject to RHS review and approval.

Community Facility Programs: See Community Facility direct loan program, Community Facility grant program, and Community Facility guaranteed loan program.

Community grazing allotment(s): Grazing permits allocated to two or more ranchers to form community grazing allotments comprised of common-use lands regulated by federal oversight and federally sponsored grazing associations.

Community Programs: A division of the Rural Housing Service that administers programs designed to develop essential community facilities for public use in rural areas. These facilities include schools, libraries, child care, hospitals, medical clinics, assisted living facilities, fire and rescue stations, police stations, community centers, public buildings, and transportation. Community Programs utilizes three financial tools to achieve this goal: the Community Facilities guaranteed loan program, the Community Facilities direct loan program, and the Community Facilities grant program.

Community Renewal Tax Relief Act of 2000 (P.L. 106-554): Incorporated by reference in the conference report to the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2001, and signed into law December 21, 2000. It authorizes Housing and Urban Development to designate (upon local or state nomination) up to 40 renewal communities, of which at least twelve shall be in rural areas, and seven new urban Round III Empowerment Zones. It also authorizes the USDA to designate two new rural Round III Empowerment Zones.

Community(ies): See Empowerment Zone and Enterprise Community program (EZ/EC).

Community-supported agriculture (CSA): A community of individuals who pledge support to a farm operation. Community “share-holders” of the farm or garden pledge in advance to cover production costs and living expenses of the producer in return for a share of the farm production. Community share-holders share in the risks, but in some cases, shareholders may share in farm work and farm decisions as well. Producers are relieved of marketing concerns. See Subscription farming.

Compaction: (1) Increasing soil bulk density and decreasing porosity due to application of mechanical forces to the soil. (2) Closely packed feed in the stomach and intestines of an animal causing constipation or digestive disturbances.

Comparative advantage: The condition in which a state or country produces and exports those goods and services that it can produce relatively cheaply and imports those that other countries can produce relatively cheaply. Absolute advantage implies that a country produces all goods and services more cheaply than any other country. Whether one of two states is absolutely more efficient in the production of every product than the other, if each specializes in the products in which it has the greatest relative efficiency, trade will be mutually beneficial to both states. The term also applies to trade among more than two countries. Comparative advantage is the economic foundation for trade theory, and one of the economic bases for trade negotiations under the World Trade Organization. See Absolute advantage.

Compensation: The principle, central to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, that any country that raises a tariff above its bound tariff rate, withdraws a binding on a tariff, or otherwise impairs a trade concession must lower other tariffs or make other trade concessions to offset the disadvantage suffered by countries whose exports are affected.

Compensation contract: See Compensation for loss of quota asset value (peanuts).

Compensation for loss of quota asset value (peanuts): Under the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002 (Sec. 1309), current eligible peanut quota holders will be offered the opportunity to enter into a contract to provide compensation for the lost value of their quota. The rate of payment will be $0.11 per pound per year. Payments will be made in equal installments from the 2002 through 2006 fiscal years, or in a lump sum payment if requested by an eligible peanut quota holder. Also Compensation contract, Quota buyout, and Quota Buyout for Peanuts (QBOP).

Compensatory gain: Rapid weight gain for cattle in feedlots; these cattle had been nutritionally deprived prior to entering the feedlot.

Compensatory payment(s): See Deficiency payment(s).

Competition: Struggle among plants, grasses, and trees for limited nutrients, light, and water present on a site.

Competitive advantage: (1) Advantage that a producer or group of producers has over similar competitors due to the ability to produce and deliver a commodity cheaper. (2) The strategies, skills, knowledge, resources, or competencies that differentiate a business from its competitors. See Absolute advantage, and Comparable advantage.

Competitive exclusion (CE): The positioning and proliferation of beneficial bacteria that prevents pathogens from establishing or proliferating.

Competitive grant(s): Typically, peer-reviewed research grants administered by the Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service or other granting agencies. See Grant(s), and National Research Initiative (competitive grants program) (NRI).

Competitive imports: Identical or similar imports that compete directly with domestic products.

Competitive, Special, and Facilities Research Grant Act (7 U.S.C. §§ 450i et seq.): Signed into law August 4, 1965, and amended in 1977, 1981, 1985, 1990, 1991, 1996, and 2002. The Act establishes a program for competitive, special, and facilities grants. The USDA is authorized to make competitive grants for a maximum of five years for research to further the programs of the USDA. Recipients may include state agricultural experiment stations, colleges and universities, other research institutions and organizations, federal agencies, private organizations, corporations, or individuals. The USDA must allocate these grants to basic research and applied research that focuses on both national and regional research needs in plant systems, animal systems, nutrition, food quality and health, natural resources and the environment, biological diversity, engineering, products and processes, markets, trade, and policy. The USDA also may conduct a program to improve research capabilities in the agricultural, food, and environmental sciences. The USDA may award special grants for a maximum of five years to the same categories of recipients for research to facilitate breakthroughs in the food and agricultural sciences and to expand state-federal food and agricultural research programs. The Act allows the USDA to make annual facilities grants for the renovation of research space and the purchase of equipment to certain colleges and state agricultural experiment stations. Appropriations for facilities grants were discontinued following FY1997.

Complementary foods: Foods required in appropriate quantities to complement breast-feeding or basic foods by providing additional nutrients, especially vitamins and minerals.

Complementary imports: Agricultural import items not produced in appreciable commercial volume in the U.S., such as bananas, coffee, rubber, cocoa, tea, spices, and cordage fiber. See Supplementary imports.

Complete feed: A diet in which all feedstuffs are blended into a single mixture.

Complete fertilizer(s): A fertilizer composed of at least nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium.

Compliance: See Conservation compliance.

Compliant premises registration system: A state, tribe, or third party premises registration system that meets with NAIS data standards and communication security requirements. APHIS determines compliance or noncompliance.

Component pricing: The pricing method that assigns value to one, two, or three individual portions of milk, such as butterfat, protein, and nonfat solids. Producers are paid based on pounds of components and not the percentage of components. In the various federal milk marketing orders, value is assigned to different components based on the major use of milk in the region. See Multiple-component pricing.

Components (milk): In milk, the nutritional solids other than water, such as milk protein, butterfat, lactose, and ash.

Composite breed: A breed that has been formed by crossing two or more breeds.

Compost(ing): Organic residues, or a mixture of organic residues and soil, that have been piled, moistened, and allowed to undergo biological decomposition for use as a fertilizer.

Comprehensive Conservation Enhancement Program (CCEP): A program first authorized by the Federal Agriculture Improvement and Reform Act of 1996 (Title III, Subtitle D) as the Environmental Conservation Acreage Reserve Program and retitled in the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002 (Sec. 2006). It is designed to provide educational, cost-share, and technical assistance to reduce soil, water, and related natural resource problems. The CCEP includes the Conservation Reserve Program, the Wetlands Reserve Program, and the Environmental Quality Incentives Program. The CCEP places greater emphasis on preserving and upgrading water quality, identifying environmentally sensitive areas for special conservation treatment, and planting trees. The program is implemented through contracts and the acquisition of easements including permanent easements, 30-year easements, and restoration cost-share agreements.

Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA) (Superfund): Provided authority to respond to releases of hazardous waste from inactive hazardous waste sites that endanger public health and the environment, to establish a Hazardous Waste Response Fund to be funded by a system of fees, to establish prohibitions and requirements concerning inactive hazardous waste sites, and to provide for liability of persons responsible for releases of hazardous waste at such sites.

Comprehensive nutrient management plan (CNMP): A farm-specific plan that describes a grouping of conservation practices and management activities that the owner/operator of an agricultural operation uses or will implement to sustain livestock or crop production in a manner that is environmentally sound (meeting environmental, public health, and water quality objectives), and that ensures agricultural production goals are achieved.

Comprehensive State Ground Water Protection Program (CSGWPP): Initiated in 1991 by the Environmental Protection Agency, it is a partnership between the EPA and the states, Native American tribes, and local governments to achieve a more efficient, coherent, and comprehensive approach to protecting the nation’s groundwater resources. The six strategic activities are (a) groundwater protection, (b) establishment of priorities, (c) roles and responsibilities, (d) program implementation, (e) information management, and (f) public participation and education.

Compress standard density: Flat or modified flat bale re-compressed at the warehouse to a density of at least 23 pounds per cubic foot but less than 28 pounds per cubic foot.

Compress(ed) (cotton): Cotton compressed, or pressed and baled, or packaged to a density greater than approximately 20 pounds and less than approximately 28 pounds per cubic foot.

Compressed (wool): See Dump(ed).

Concentrate: A feed high in digestible energy and low in fiber.

Concentrated acid hydrolysis: The use of concentrated acid (most often sulfuric acid) to convert biomass to sugars prior to fermentation. The acid is usually recycled after use. See Dilute(d) acid hydrolysis.

Concentrated animal feeding operation(s) (CAFO): Under Environmental Protection Agency regulations adopted December 15, 2002, a CAFO is defined under the Clean Water Act of 1972 for purposes of the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System of pollution control as an operation that meets the animal feeding operation definition and that is further classified as a large CAFO, medium CAFO, or designated CAFO. The CWA (Sec. 502) defines CAFOs as point sources. All CAFOs have a mandatory duty to apply for a NPDES permit and must comply with the technology and water quality-based limitations in the permit as defined by the permitting authority. See Unified National Strategy for Animal Feeding Operations.

Concentrated milk: Milk that contains not less than 25.5 percent nor more than 50 percent total milk solids.

Concentration: (1) A measure of the market dominance of a few large companies. High levels of concentration have been associated with lower prices paid for inputs or higher prices charged for outputs. (2) A farm structure measure of determining the smallest number of farms necessary to produce a particular amount of product. For example, only 2 percent of farms produces half of the sales of agricultural products.

Concession(s): A grant of a position, privilege, or right by a negotiator to induce the other party to yield an equivalent position, privilege, or right. In GATT trade negotiations, a country normally makes concessions in the form of reductions or bindings in its tariff and nontariff trade barriers in exchange for reductions in the trade barriers of other countries to its exports.

Concessional sales: Credit sales of a commodity in which the buyer is allowed more favorable payment terms than those on the open market. For example, Title I of P.L. 480 provides for financing sales of U.S. commodities with low-interest, long-term credit; Food for Progress Program provides commodities to countries with commitments to expanding free enterprise in their agricultural communities; and Section 416(b) programs can provide for donations of any surplus Commodity Credit Corporation commodities.

Conditional most-favored-nation treatment: The extension of concessions by an importing country to other countries that provide equivalent benefits for its exports.

Conditional registration: Under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA), special permitting of pesticides on a conditional or limited basis. A conditional registration may be granted under Sec. 3(c)(7)(C) of FIFRA for a new active ingredient where certain data are lacking, on condition that such data are received by the end of the conditional registration period and do not meet or exceed established risk criteria; that use of the pesticide during the conditional registration period will not cause unreasonable adverse effects; and that use of the pesticide is in the public interest. Conditional registrations establish incentives for companies to develop pesticides that provide net environmental benefits and to practice environmental stewardship in the management of their pesticide products.

Conditioning: Treatment of cattle by vaccination and other means prior to putting them in the feedlot.

Condominium storage: A financing arrangement whereby new grain storage capacity is constructed at existing commercial elevator facilities under written arrangements with producers who in return obtain guaranteed occupancy of a proportion of the new space. The written agreements may consist of purchase agreements, limited partnerships, or long-term leases between commercial elevators and their producer-customers for storage of specified commodities.

Cone of depression: A lowering of the water table that develops around a pumped well.

Confined livestock operation(s): A livestock facility that stables, confines, feeds, or maintains animals for a total of 45 days or more in any 12-month period and does not sustain crops, vegetation, forage growth, or post-harvest residues within the confined area in the normal growing season over any portion of the confinement facility. Also Animal feeding operation (AFO). See Concentrated animal feeding operation(s) (CAFO), and Unified National Strategy for Animal Feeding Operations.

Confinement feeding operation(s): Typically, a totally roofed, animal-feeding operation in which wastes are stored or removed as a liquid or semiliquid. See Confined livestock operation(s).

Confirmed letter(s) of credit: A letter of credit that contains a guarantee of payment by both the issuing and advising bank to the seller as long as the seller’s documentation is in order and the terms of the letter of credit are met. See Commercial letter(s) of credit, and Letter(s) of credit.

Conformation: The structure or shape of an animal or its carcass.

Congressional Budget Act (CBA): Titles I through IX of the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 that created the House and Senate budget committees and established the Congressional budget process, which coordinates the legislative activities on the budget resolution, appropriations bills, reconciliation legislation, revenue measures, and other budgetary legislation. Section 300 of this Act provides a timetable so that Congress may complete its work on the budget by the start of the fiscal year on October 1.

Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 (P.L. 93-344) (2 U.S.C. §§ 601 et seq.): Signed into law July 12, 1974. Includes both the Congressional Budget Act (Titles I through IX) and the Impoundment Control Act of 1974 (Title X).

Congressional Hunger Fellows Act of 2002: Section 4404 of the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002, that established a fellowship program to (a) encourage future leaders of the U.S. to pursue careers in humanitarian service, recognize the needs of people who are hungry and poor, and provide assistance and compassion for those in need; (b) increase awareness of the importance of public service; and (c) provide training and development opportunities for such leaders through placement in programs operated by appropriate organizations or entities. See Bill Emerson Hunger Fellowship, and Mickey Leland Hunger Fellowship.

Conifer(s): A tree that is a gymnosperm, usually evergreen, with cones and needle-shaped or scale-like leaves, producing wood known commercially as softwood.

Conjunctive use: (1) The deliberate combined use of groundwater and surface water. (2) Actively managing the aquifer systems as an underground reservoir. During wet years, when more surface water is available, surface water is stored underground by recharging the aquifers with surplus surface water. During dry years, the stored water is available in the aquifer system to supplement or replace diminished surface water supplies.

Consent decree: A court-approved voluntary agreement between the parties to a lawsuit. See Pigford v. Veneman.

Conservation: Protection of natural renewable resources (for example, soil, water, wildlife, and forests) and their continuing management in accordance with principles that assure their optimum economic and social enjoyment.

Conservation buffer(s) strip(s): Areas or strips of land maintained in permanent vegetative cover, designed to intercept pollutants and erosion. Placed around fields, they can enhance wildlife habitat, improve water quality, and enrich aesthetics on farmlands. Various types of buffer strips include contour buffer strips, filter strips, riparian buffers, riparian forest buffers, field borders, windbreaks, shelterbelts, hedgerows, grassed waterways, and alley cropping. See Buffer strip(s); buffer acreage.

Conservation compliance: Since passage of the Food Security Act of 1985, a producer’s eligibility to receive farm program benefits is linked to his or her conservation activity. Producers who have highly erodible cropland must be practicing an approved conservation plan. Otherwise, they may be ineligible for certain USDA benefits. Since passage of the Food Security Act of 1985, the Natural Resources Conservation Service has completed one million conservation plans covering one hundred million acres. With passage of the Federal Agriculture Improvement and Reform Act of 1996 (Title III, Subtitle B), Congress amended the requirements by establishing new grace-period requirements and an expedited procedure for granting variances, and by requiring the NRCS to insure that plans were technically and economically feasible, cost-effective, based on local conditions and available conservation technology, and not causing an undue economic hardship. NRCS determines whether fields meet the criteria for highly erodible croplands or wetlands, assists producers to develop plans for complying with the law, provides technical assistance in implementing plans, and conducts annual spot checks to ensure that producers are complying with the law. The Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002 continued the conservation compliance provision and prohibited the USDA from delegating authority to make a compliance determination to a private person or entity.

Conservation Corridor Demonstration Program: A program authorized by the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002 (Sec. 2601 et. seq.) to establish a demonstration program on the east side of the Chesapeake Bay in Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia. The project is to demonstrate local conservation and economic cooperation using the integration of existing USDA conservation programs with those of state and local partners for the purposes of improving agricultural economic viability and watershed environmental integrity. There is required at least a 50 percent cost-share from the state and local partners. See DELMARVA.

Conservation corridor(s): The restoration of ecosystem processes through the use of connections, such as riparian buffers, windbreaks, shelterbelts, filter strips, field borders, and grassed waterways, between protected lands to improve area water quality and wildlife habitat, thereby limiting the potential deleterious effects of habitat fragmentation. See Wildlife corridors.

Conservation crop rotation: See Crop rotation(s).

Conservation district(s): A legal subdivision of state government, Indian tribe, or territory with a locally elected governing body that is responsible for developing and carrying out a program of soil and water conservation within a geographic boundary usually coinciding with county lines. The nearly 3,000 districts (also called soil and water conservation districts, natural resources districts, resource conservation districts, and resources districts) assist individual landowners, local groups, and others to find help in natural resource management from the USDA and many other agencies at all levels, as well as help those agencies design and carry out environmental programs. Also Land conservation committee, Natural resource district, Resource conservation district, Soil Conservation district, or Soil and water conservation district.

Conservation easement(s): A legal agreement between a landowner and a land trust or government agency that permanently restricts uses of the property in order to protect its environmental, conservation, or natural resource values. The landowner may continue to use the land, or donate, sell, or pass it on to heirs.

Conservation Farm Option program (CFO): A pilot program authorized by the Federal Agriculture Improvement and Reform Act of 1996 (Sec. 335) that would have allowed producers of wheat, feed grains, cotton, and rice who were enrolled in the Agricultural Market Transition program to enter into a ten-year contract that would combine Conservation Reserve Program, Wetlands Reserve Program, and Environmental Quality Incentives Program payments in exchange for adopting and following a conservation farm plan that would protect soil, water, and wildlife. Funding was discontinued in FY 1998 and the program was not reauthorized by the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002.

Conservation farm plan: (1) In order for a producer to be eligible for the Conservation Farm Option program, a conservation farm plan must have been prepared, approved, and made part of the program contract. The plan had to describe resource-conserving crop rotations and other conservation practices to be implemented, contain a schedule of implementation and maintenance, and insure compliance with highly erodible cropland and wetland conservation requirements. (2) See Conservation plan(s).

Conservation impacts: The differences between anticipated effects of treatment in comparison to existing or benchmark conditions. These differences may be expressed by narrative, quantitative, visual, or other means. Impacts are used as a basis for making informed conservation decisions.

Conservation innovation grants: Environmental Quality Incentives Program competitive grants to stimulate innovative approaches to environmental enhancement and protection, in conjunction with agricultural production. The USDA is authorized by the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002 (Sec. 2301) to use EQIP funds each fiscal year from 2003 to 2007 to award grants to governmental or non-governmental organizations or individuals that leverage federal funds to implement innovative and promising approaches to conservation. Grant amounts may not exceed 50 percent of the total cost of each project.

Conservation management system: Any combination of conservation and management practices that, if applied, will protect or improve the soil, water, or related natural resources.

Conservation of Farmable Wetland: Under Title XI of the Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2001, a Conservation Reserve Program pilot program was adopted for the prairie pothole region of Iowa, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota. Producers could enroll a wetland (including a converted wetland) that was cropped during at least three of the immediately preceding ten crop years; and buffer acreage that was (a) contiguous to the wetland, (b) used to protect the wetland, and (c) of such width necessary to protect the wetland. The pilot program was continued nationwide in the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002 (Sec. 2101). Also Farmable Wetland Pilot Project (FWP). See Pilot Program for Enrollment of Wetland and Buffer Acreage in the Conservation Reserve.

Conservation of Private Grazing Land Program (CPGL): As first authorized by the Federal Agriculture Improvement and Reform Act of 1996 (Sec. 386) and reauthorized in the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002 (Sec. 2502), a coordinated educational and technical assistance program for owners and managers of private grazing lands designed to enhance water quality, improve wildlife and fish habitat, address noxious weed problems, enhance recreational opportunities, maintain and improve the aesthetic character of private grazing lands, provide long-term economic opportunities, and encourage the use of sustainable grazing systems. See Grazing Lands Conservation Initiative (GLCI).

Conservation payments: Under the Conservation Security Program, payments to producers including base payments determined by the treatment level selected, maintenance payments for conservation practices, enhanced payments for treatment that exceed the minimum quality or practice criteria, and cost-share payments for producers who wish to increase their conservation treatment. See Tier I (conservation security) payment(s), Tier II (conservation security) payment(s), and Tier III (conservation security) payment(s).

Conservation plan(s): A combination of land uses and practices to protect and improve soil productivity and to prevent soil erosion. A conservation plan must be approved by local Soil Conservation Districts for acreage offered in the Conservation Reserve Program. The plan sets forth the conservation measures and maintenance that the owner or operator will carry out during the term of the contract. See Conservation compliance.

Conservation practice(s): (1) Methods that reduce soil erosion and retain soil moisture. Major conservation practices include conservation tillage, crop rotation, contour farming, strip cropping, terraces, diversions, filter strips, and grassed waterways. (2) Under the Conservation Security Program, practices that may be implemented under a conservation security contract including nutrient management; integrated pest management; water conservation (including irrigation water management) and water quality management; grazing management, pasture management, and rangeland management; soil conservation, quality, and residue management; invasive species management; fish and wildlife habitat conservation, restoration, and management; air quality management; energy

Conservation priority area(s): Designation by Natural Resources Conservation Service for Environmental Quality Incentives Program purposes of a watershed, area, or region of special environmental sensitivity or significant soil, water, or related natural resource concern such that special consideration is given to an applicant seeking financial, educational, or technical assistance who has a conservation plan that addresses the natural resource concern for which the priority area was designated.

Conservation Programs: Under agricultural appropriations, the Conservation Programs title includes the Office of the Under Secretary for Natural Resources and Environment, the Natural Resources Conservation Service, and the conservation programs of the Farm Service Agency accounts.

Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program (CREP): A refinement of the Conservation Reserve Program designed as a joint state-federal land retirement conservation program targeted to address state- and nationally significant agriculture-related environmental concerns through the use of higher per-acre payments. See Special Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program, and Super CREP.

Conservation Reserve Program (CRP): First authorized by the Food Security Act of 1985, a program designed to reduce erosion on 40 to 45 million acres of cropland. Under this Farm Service Agency program, producers who sign contracts agree to convert highly erodible cropland to approved conserving uses for no less than 10 nor more than 15 years. In exchange, participating producers receive annual rental payments (up to $50,000), and cash or payments-in-kind to share up to 50 percent of the cost of establishing permanent vegetative cover. To be eligible, land must have been planted or considered planted for four of the last six crop years prior to 2002 or be eligible marginal pastureland. In addition, this land must (a) have an Erodibility Index of eight or higher, or (b) be considered a farmed wetland, or (c) be devoted to highly beneficial environmental practices, or (d) be subject to scour erosion, or (e) be located in a national or state CRP conservation priority area, or (f) be cropland associated with or surrounding nonfarmed wetlands. Offers for CRP contracts are ranked according to the Environmental Benefits Index. Under the Food, Agriculture, Conservation, and Trade Act of 1990, the program was placed under the broader Environmental Conservation Acreage Reserve Program, now the Comprehensive Conservation Enhancement Program. The Federal Agriculture Improvement and Reform Act of 1996 (Sec. 332) capped the eligible acreage at 36.4 million acres and eased contract termination requirements. Funding for the CRP was changed from direct appropriations to funding from the Commodity Credit Corporation. The Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002 (Sec. 2101) authorizes enrollments through December 31, 2007, and caps the maximum acreage at 39.2 million acres. It also requires that there be an equitable balance among the conservation purposes of soil erosion control, water quality protection, and wildlife habitat; that existing covers be retained, if feasible, when expiring contracts are re-enrolled; and that a study on the economic effects of CRP enrollment be conducted.

Conservation security contract(s): On approval of a conservation security plan for a producer, the Natural Resources Conservation Service shall enter into a conservation security contract with the producer to enroll the land covered by the conservation security plan in the Conservation Security Program.

Conservation security plan(s): A plan under the Conservation Security Program that identifies land and resources to be conserved; describes the tier of conservation security contract and the particular conservation practices to be implemented, maintained, or improved on land covered by the conservation security contract for the specified term; and that contains a schedule for the implementation, maintenance, or improvement of the conservation practices described in the plan during the term of the conservation security contract. See Nondegradation standard, Tier I (conservation security) contract(s), Tier II (conservation security) contract(s), Tier III (conservation security) contract(s), Tier I (conservation security) payment(s), Tier II (conservation security) payment(s), and Tier III (conservation security) payment(s).

Conservation Security Program (CSP): Under authority of Title II, Subtitle A, Sec. 2001 of the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002, a new voluntary program, to first be available in FY 2003, that provides financial and technical assistance for the conservation, protection, and improvement of soil, water, air, energy, and plant and animal life on Tribal and private lands (cropland, grassland, prairie land, improved pasture land, and rangeland, land under the jurisdiction of an Indian tribe, and forested land that is an incidental part of the agricultural operation). The program provides conservation payments for producers who maintain conservation stewardship and implement and maintain additional needed conservation practices. Following an inventory to identify resource concerns and determine the extent of conservation treatment that is being applied and maintained on the producer’s land, payments will include a base payment determined by the treatment level, maintenance payments for currently applied conservation practices, and enhanced payments for exceptional conservation efforts. Cost-share payments are also available. Land enrolled in the Conservation Reserve Program, Wetlands Reserve Program, and Grassland Reserve Program, and land converted to cropland after the enactment of the CSP legislation is not eligible. See Conservation security contract(s), Conservation security plan(s), Nondegradation standard, Tier I (conservation security) contract(s), Tier II (conservation security) contract(s), Tier III (conservation security) contract(s), Tier I (conservation security) payment(s), Tier II (conservation security) payment(s), and Tier III (conservation security) payment(s).

Conservation technical assistance (CTA): A Natural Resources Conservation Service program designed to assist land users, communities, units of state and local government, and other federal agencies in planning and implementing conservation systems on private lands. These systems are designed to reduce erosion, improve soil and water quality, improve and conserve wetlands, enhance fish and wildlife habitat, improve air quality, improve pasture and range conditions, reduce upstream flooding, and improve woodlands. Under the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002 (Sec. 2701), the USDA can establish a program to certify qualified third parties to provide technical assistance.

Conservation till(age): Any of several farming methods that provide for seed germination, plant growth, and weed control, and yet maintain effective groundcover throughout the year and disturb the soil as little as possible. The aim is to reduce soil loss and energy use while maintaining crop yields and quality. No-till is the most restrictive (soil conserving) form of conservation tillage. Other practices include ridge-till, strip-till, and mulch-till.

Conservation till(age): Any of several farming methods that provide for seed germination, plant growth, and weed control, and yet maintain effective groundcover throughout the year and disturb the soil as little as possible. The aim is to reduce soil loss and energy use while maintaining crop yields and quality. No-till is the most restrictive (soil conserving) form of conservation tillage. Other practices include ridge-till, strip-till, and mulch-till.

Conserving base: A specified amount or share of cropland historically devoted to conserving uses, or the amount of conservation land recommended by good farming practices.

Conserving use(s) (acreage): An approved use of idled land for compliance with a commodity program or a general cropland retirement program. The use includes protecting soil from erosion by planting grasses, legumes, or small grains that are not allowed to mature.

Considered planted: (1) Under former farm bill programs, in calculating base acreage, land was considered planted to a program crop if it was used for conservation acreage under an acreage reduction, diversion, or set-aside program; was devoted to the production of commodities permitted under 0/85 and 50/85; was determined to be failed acres; or if the producer was prevented from planting the crop because of drought, flood, or other natural disaster. It could include any acreage on the farm that the USDA determined was necessary to be included in establishing a fair and equitable crop acreage base. This formula was also to be used by the USDA for purposes of calculating eligible cropland for production flexibility contracts under the Federal Agriculture Improvement and Reform Act of 1996 (Sec. 102). (2) Under the Noninsured Crop Disaster Assistance Program, the specified widths on either side of the actually planted rows. (3) Under the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002 (Sec. 1401), acreage considered planted for sugar or seed in the 1999, 2000, and 2001 crop years shall be included in determining the acreage base.

Considered planted (acreage) (tobacco): Acreage that is used for determining an old farm’s history acreage for a kind of tobacco when the acreage planted on the farm to the kind of tobacco in the current year is less than the farm acreage allotment established for such farm in the current year.

Consolidated Appropriations Act 2001 (P.L. 106-554): Signed into law December 21, 2000. The Act incorporated in its conference report the provisions of several appropriations bills by reference including the Labor, HHS, Education Appropriations bill; the Legislative Branch Appropriations bill; the Treasury Appropriations bill; the Miscellaneous Appropriations bill; the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000; the Medicare, Medicaid, and SCHIP Benefits Improvement Act and Protection Act; the Community Renewal Tax Relief Act of 2000; and the New Markets Venture Capital Program. The Act also included the Delta Regional Authority Act of 2000.

Consolidated Appropriations Act for FY2000 (P.L. 106-113): Signed into law November 29, 1999. An omnibus appropriations act making consolidated appropriations for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2000, that included by reference H.R. 3428, a reform bill for federal milk marketing orders. The Act extended authority for the Northeast Interstate Dairy Compact for two years through September 30, 2001, and required that the USDA adopt an alternative milk pricing policy that would maintain minimum fluid milk prices close to current levels. The Act also contained a total of $576 million in additional USDA disaster assistance. Although the additional emergency assistance was provided in response to agricultural damage caused by Hurricane Floyd in the Southeast, most of the assistance was not limited to hurricane victims, but was available to any eligible producer or rural area. Included in the total were $186 million in farm disaster payments and $10 million in livestock assistance, added to the $1.2 billion in disaster payments and $200 million in livestock assistance provided by the Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2000. It also provided $80 million for the Watershed and Flood Prevention Program and $50 million for the Emergency Conservation Program to help restore flooded farmlands. Also included were an additional $178.6 million in USDA farm loans, $11.2 million (for loan modifications) to support $70 million in USDA rural housing loans, and $14.5 million in rural housing grants. An additional $20 million was provided to the noninsured assistance program for producers who grow a crop not eligible for crop insurance. The agreement waived the statutory requirement that the area in which the producer operates must experience a 35 percent crop loss before a producer can become eligible for a payment. This waiver applied to any county that had been declared a disaster area by the President or the Secretary of Agriculture. See Option 1A.

Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2004 (P.L. 108-199): Signed into law January 23, 2004. The bill consolidates seven regular appropriations bills for FY2004: Agriculture; Commerce, Justice, State; District of Columbia; Foreign Operations; Labor, Health and Human Services; Transportation, Treasury; and Veterans Affairs, Housing and Urban Development. Division A of the bill is the agriculture division. Agriculture spending is decreased $1.257 billion compared to FY2003 due to reductions in the following: Natural Resources Conservation Service ($224 million); other USDA activities ($269 million); Rural Housing Service ($200 million); Foreign Agriculture Service ($204 million); Rural Development ($176 million); Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension ($117 million); the Food and Nutrition Service ($69 million); and the 0.59 percent across the board reduction ($104 million). These decreases are partly offset by increases in the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service ($39 million); the Food Safety and Inspection Service ($25 million); the Agricultural Research Service ($15 million); the Food and Drug Administration ($11 million); the Farm Service Agency ($8 million); and other activities ($8 million).

Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2005 (P.L. 108-447): Signed into law December 8, 2004. The bill consolidates appropriations bills for Agriculture; Commerce; Energy and Water; Foreign Operations; Interior; Labor, Health and Human Services; Legislative Branch; Transportation, Treasury; and Veterans Affairs, Housing and Urban Development. The Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2005, is Division A of the omnibus Act. It provides $83.25 billion in both discretionary and mandatory spending, including a 2.5 percent increase in support for basic and applied research and development. The Act includes funding for the construction of a national animal identification system and increases funding forBSE detection and prevention activities. Significant funding increases were also provided for the Child Nutrition Programs, WIC, and the Food Stamp Program, while reductions in funding were authorized for Conservation Operations, PL-480, and the Rural Community Advancement Program.

Consolidated Appropriations Resolution, 2003 (P.L. 108-7): Signed into law February 20, 2003. The omnibus FY2003 Appropriations Act included eleven of the thirteen appropriations bills. For agriculture, the Act included increases for Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, Women, Infants and Children program, P.L. 480, and the Food and Drug Administration. The Act also included the Agricultural Assistance Act of 2003.

Consolidated Farm and Rural Development Act (P.L. 87-128): Signed into law August 8, 1961. The law authorized USDA farm credit activities through the Farmers Home Administration.

Consolidated Farm Service Agency (CFSA): Effective November 8, 1995, a final rule published in the Federal Register changed the name of the CFSA to the Farm Service Agency. See Farm Service Agency (FSA).

Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1985 (P.L. 99-272): Signed into law April 7, 1986. This law canceled the flue-cured and burley tobacco quotas announced for the 1986 program, and gave the USDA discretion to set the quotas and price-supports.

Consolidated region(s): Under authority provided in the Federal Agriculture Improvement and Reform Act of 1996, the 31 federal milk marketing orders at the time of passage were to be merged into no more than 14 and no less than 10 regions. The regions were consolidated into 11 orders effective January 1, 2000.

Consolidated; consolidating (loan): The restructuring of two or more loans into a single loan, typically with a reduced interest rate and a lengthened repayment term, for the purpose of avoiding loan default.

Consolidation: (1) The continuing concentration in American agriculture of agribusiness (agriculture suppliers, processors, livestock packers, and credit institutions) and agricultural production units. The benefits of consolidation are the potential for lower-priced, higher-quality food for consumers, and a leaner, more competitive industry in global markets. The concern is the potential of unfair trade practices created by the lack of competition. Consolidation is motivated by the desire to become more efficient or to gain a competitive advantage through the forging of supply/marketing strategic alliances, mergers, or acquisitions. (2) See Consolidated; consolidating (loan).

Construction of planting history: Under the Food, Agriculture, Conservation, and Trade Act of 1990, the county committees of the Farm Service Agency, for the purpose of determining a crop acreage base for any farm, could construct a planting history for any crop if (a) records for the crop for any of the last five crop years were incomplete, or (b) if a crop was not grown on the farm for at least one, but not more than four, of the last five years.

Constructive receipt: The IRS doctrine that imputes receipt of farm program payments to the earliest year receipt is possible, even if program options that allow participants to receive payments in an earlier year were not exercised.

Consultation(s): Discussions between two World Trade Organization members for the purpose of avoiding or resolving a trade dispute.

Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR): A group sponsored by the World Bank, the United Nations (UN) Development Program, and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN to coordinate and fund a majority of the 16 international agricultural research centers such as the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines, the International Potato Center in Peru, and the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center in Mexico.

Consumer price index: General measure of retail prices of goods and services usually bought by urban earners and clerical workers. Includes prices of nearly 400 items, including food, clothing, housing, medical care, and transportation.

Consumer Subsidy Equivalent(s) (CSE): An estimate of the amount of subsidy consumers would need to maintain their economic well-being if all agricultural programs were removed. It is negative when the net well-being of all programs affecting that commodity is to increase the price consumers pay for food, and positive when consimers pay less for food than they would in the absence of such programs.

Consumer-oriented foods: See High-value, consumer-oriented (foods and beverages).

Consumptive use: The part of water withdrawn that is evaporated, transpired, incorporated into products or crops, consumed by humans or livestock, or otherwise removed from the immediate water environment.

Contact herbicide: A herbicide that kills only the plant tissue at and very close to the site of application.

Contact insecticide: An insecticide that penetrates the outer covering or cuticle of an insect and kills it.

Contaminated grain: Depending on the grain and the amount of contaminant, grain containing animal filth, castor beans, cockleburs, crotalaria seeds, glass, stones, and unknown foreign material.

Contemporary group(s): A group of animals that are of the same sex and breed that have been raised in the same management group and given the same opportunity to perform.

Continued dumping and subsidy offset: See Continued Dumping and Subsidy Offset Act of 2000.

Continued Dumping and Subsidy Offset Act of 2000: Under Title X of the Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2001, duties assessed pursuant to a countervailing duty order, an antidumping duty order, or a finding under the Antidumping Act of 1921, shall be distributed on an annual basis under this section to the affected domestic producers for qualifying expenditures. Such distribution shall be known as the continued dumping and subsidy offset.

Continuing resolution: A resolution providing for the ongoing operation of government in the absence of enacted regular appropriations bills and until such are passed, often at the same spending rate as the prior year or at the level of either the current House-passed or Senate-passed bill, whichever is lower.

Continuous Conservation Reserve Program: A Conservation Reserve Program measure specifically focused to implement certain high-priority conservation practices on eligible land. It is a voluntary program that focuses on using grasses and trees to protect soil, improve air and water quality, and enhance fish and wildlife habitat through the use of buffers, filter strips, and windbreaks. Offers are automatically accepted provided the acreage and producer meet certain eligibility requirements. See Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), and Continuous sign-up (signup).

Continuous coverage: The ability of producers to select any level of crop insurance coverage between 50 percent and 85 percent of normal yield. See Prohibition on continuous coverage.

Continuous grazing: Grazing of specific pasture throughout the year. See Rotational grazing.

Continuous inspection: Slaughter inspection that examines every bird or animal carcass. See Meat and poultry inspection.

Continuous sign-up (signup): Under the Conservation Reserve Program, offers are automatically accepted provided the acreage and producer meet certain eligibility requirements. The per-acre annual rental rate may not exceed the Commodity Credit Corporation’s maximum payment amount. Eligible land must be (a) cropland that was planted or considered planted to an agricultural commodity four out of the six most recent crop years (including field margins), that is also physically and legally capable of being planted in a normal manner to an agricultural commodity; or (b) marginal pastureland that is suitable for use as a riparian buffer to be planted to trees. In addition, the land must be suitable for being placed in filter strips, riparian buffers, grassed waterways, field windbreaks, shelterbelts, living snow fences, salt-tolerant vegetation, shallow water areas for wildlife refuge, and acreage in wellhead protection areas designated by the Environmental Protection Agency. Under the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002 (Sec. 2101), producers may enroll entire fields as buffers through the continuous sign-up when more than 50 percent of the field is eligible (through continuous sign-up) and farming is infeasible on the remainder of the field.

Continuous stocking: A method of grazing livestock on a specific unit of land where animals have unrestricted and uninterrupted access throughout the time period when grazing is allowed.

Contour buffer strip(s): Agroforestry practice consisting of planting trees or shrub rows on the contour or cross-slope, and at multiples of the widest field equipment width. The primary purposes are to reduce sheet and rill erosion, increase sediment deposition, and convey excess water at a controlled grade.

Contour farming: Field operations (such as plowing, planting, cultivating, and harvesting) on the contour or at right angles to the natural slope to reduce soil erosion, protect soil fertility, and use water more efficiently.

Contour grass strip(s): The alternating in contour farming of row crops with permanent grass strips to reduce soil erosion and runoff, including pesticide runoff.

Contour stripcropping: Growing crops in a systematic arrangement of strips or bands on the contour to reduce water erosion. The crops are arranged so that a strip of grass or close-growing crop is alternated with a strip of clean-tilled crop or fallow cropland or a strip of grass alternated with a close-growing crop.

Contour(ing): See Contour farming.

Contract acreage: (1) Area planted by agreement between processors and producers, generally at an agreed price and conditions, including quality. (2) Under the Federal Agriculture Improvement and Reform Act of 1996 (Sec. 102) (7 U.S.C. § 7202), the crop acreage base that would have been in effect for 1996 under former farm bill authority less any crop acreage base enrolled in the Conservation Reserve Program, plus any base acreage exiting the CRP. See Base acres (acreage).

Contract authority: Statutory authority permitting an agency to enter into contracts or incur other obligations even though it has not received an appropriation to pay for them. Congress must eventually fund them because the government is legally liable for such payments.

Contract commodity(ies): Under the Federal Agriculture Improvement and Reform Act of 1996 (Sec. 102), for purposes of production flexibility contracts, crops that were eligible for contract payments – wheat, corn, grain sorghum, barley, oats, rice, and upland cotton.

Contract crops: See Contract commodity(ies).

Contract farming: A legally binding contract of a fixed term, entered before production begins, under which a producer typically agrees to (a) sell or deliver all of a specifically designated crop raised on identified acres in a manner set in the agreement to the contractor, and is paid according to a price or payment method at a time determined in advance; or (b) feed and care for livestock or poultry owned by the contractor until such time as the animals are removed, in exchange for a payment based on the performance of the animals. See Marketing contract(s), and Production contract(s).

Contract grades: Those grades of a commodity that have been officially approved by an exchange as deliverable in settlement of a futures contract.

Contract grower: (1) The person that provides housing, equipment, labor, litter, power and heat, and cares for the poultry during growout. The contract grower does not own the poultry, but receives a stipulated fee for the services. (2) Producers in vertically integrated agricultural operations who receive a price mainly for their labor and fixed assets.

Contract month: A specific month in which delivery may take place under the terms of a futures contract.

Contract payment(s): See Production flexibility contract payment(s).

Contract production: Producing crops or livestock under an agreement to deliver specified goods and services in certain quantities and of certain quality at a later time. See Contract farming.

Contract sanctity: The exempting of export sales of agricultural commodities, food products, and agricultural inputs from the imposition of economic sanctions on targeted countries if a valid contract or agreement was entered into before the sanctions are imposed. The arguments in support of contract sanctity are (a) sanctions and embargoes only hurt U.S. producers and businesses, (b) sanctions and embargoes undermine our reputation as a “reliable supplier,” and (c) sanctions and embargoes have no history of changing the behavior of targeted countries.

Contract violations: Under former production flexibility contract provisions, producers or owners who violated their contractual requirements were terminated on each farm in which the producer or owner had an interest. Once terminated, the producer or owner forfeited all rights to future contract payments on each farm and had to refund all contract payments received during the period of the violation. The USDA could modify penalties if circumstances warranted.

Contract(s): (1) Binding legal obligation between two or more parties in which goods and services are provided in exchange for payment or other valuable consideration. (2) Under the Federal Agriculture Improvement and Reform Act of 1996 (Sec. 102), contract meant production flexibility contract. (3) See Futures contract(s).

Contributed importantly: A cause which is important, but not necessarily more important than any other cause.

Control (commodity): For program purposes, condition of a commodity if the producer retains the ability to make all decisions affecting the commodity, including movement, sale, or enrollment in a government program. See Beneficial interest(s).

Control group: The group of subjects in a research study to whom a comparison is made in order to determine whether an observation or treatment has an effect. In an experimental study it is the group that does not receive a treatment. Subjects are as similar as possible to those in the test or treatment group. See Controlled experiment.

Control of plant gene expression: Also Trait protection system. See Terminator seeds.

Controlled account: See Discretionary account.

Controlled burning: Use of fire to destroy logging debris, reduce buildups of dead and fallen timber that pose wildfire hazards, control tree diseases, and clear land. Other functions of a controlled burn include clearing a buffer strip in the path of a wildfire. See Backfire.

Controlled experiment: In this type of research, study subjects (whether animal or human) are selected according to relevant characteristics, and then randomly assigned to either an experimental group or a control group. Random assignment ensures that factors known as variables, that may affect the outcome of the study, are distributed equally among the groups, and could not lead to differences in the effect of the treatment under study.

Controlled grazing system: See Intensive grazing system.

Controller(s) (tobacco): A person or entity who controls the land used to actually produce tobacco and shares in the risk of production.

Conventional agriculture: Large-scale farming practices consisting of heavy dependence on chemical pesticides and synthetic fertilizers.

Conventional tillage: Traditionally, mechanized tillage that involves the mechanical soil manipulation of an entire field by plowing followed by one or more harrowings. The degree of soil disturbance depends on the type of implement used, the number of passes, soil, and intended crop type.

Convergence: A term referring to cash and futures prices tending to come together (the basis approaches zero) as the futures contract nears expiration. It is also called a “narrowing of the basis.”

Conversion: See Agricultural conversion.

Converted wetland(s): For purposes of swampbuster regulations, wetlands that have been drained, dredged, filled, leveled, or otherwise manipulated after December 23, 1985, and before November 28, 1990, on which an agricultural commodity was produced; or wetlands that have been drained, dredged, filled, leveled, or otherwise manipulated after November 28, 1990, for the purpose of producing an agricultural commodity.

COOL: Country-of-origin labeling

Cool-season grass(es): Grass, such as fescue, that grows optimally in temperatures ranging from 60 to 80 degrees. Cool-season grasses are usually dormant during hot weather or are injured by it. See Warm-season grass(es).

Cooperating sponsor: Under P.L. 480, an entity, within or outside the U.S., such as a foreign government, the American Red Cross, an intergovernmental organization, a private voluntary organization, or cooperative, that enters into an agreement with the U.S. Government for the use of agricultural commodities or funds.

Cooperative association(s) (milk): Any cooperative marketing association of producers that is qualified under provisions of the Capper-Volstead Act of 1922 with full authority in the sale of milk of its members and is engaged in marketing milk or milk products for its members.

Cooperative Extension Service (CES): As mandated by the Smith-Lever Act, the state-based partner in the Cooperative Extension System. The Cooperative Extension Service is associated with the land grant university and state agricultural experiment station in each state, and also has offices in nearly all of the nation’s 3,150 counties and parishes. See Cooperative Extension System (CES).

Cooperative Extension System (CES): In general terms, a system of state, local, and federal organizations, established by the Smith-Lever Act of May 8, 1914, working together to provide a practical national educational network linking research, science, and technology to the needs of people where they live and work. The Cooperative Extension System provides educational services outside the classroom on agriculture, household management, nutrition, and other topics. The Cooperative Extension System encourages the application of such information by means of demonstrations, publications, and home and farm visits. States participate mostly through the Cooperative Extension Service at the land grant universities, while the federal partner is the USDA’s Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service. Other partners are the Extension professionals in nearly all of the nation’s 3,150 counties. In addition, thousands of paraprofessionals and nearly three million volunteers support this partnership and magnify its impact. The Cooperative Extension System’s strong linkages with other public and private groups enhance and expand educational activities. See Base programs (Extension), Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service (CSREES), Extension activities, Land grant(s); land grant institution(s); land grant university(ies); land grant college(s); land grant colleges and/or universities, and National initiatives (Extension).

Cooperative Forestry (Assistance): A Forest Service program providing financial and technical assistance to help rural and urban citizens, including private landowners, care for forests and sustain the communities where they live, work, and play. The program is targeted to nonfederal forest lands and other rural lands to assist in the advancement of forest management; the encouragement of the production of timber; the control of insects and diseases affecting trees and forests; the control of rural fires; the efficient utilization of wood and wood residues, including the recycling of wood fiber; the improvement and maintenance of fish and wildlife habitat; and the planning and conduct of urban and community forestry programs.

Cooperative Forestry Assistance Act of 1978 ( P.L. 95-313) (16 U.S.C. §§ 2101-2111): Signed into law July 1, 1978, and amended in 1990, 1991, 1992, 1996, and 2002. The Act authorizes the USDA to establish a variety of cooperative programs to protect and manage nonfederal forest lands. The Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002 (Title VIII, Subtitle A) amended the Act to create the Forest Land Enhancement Program.

Cooperative forestry research: Matching federal funds made available to certified state institutions for forestry and related resources research and development. Funds are apportioned to the eligible states based on the (a) volume of timber cut from growing stock in the state, (b) area of nonfederal commercial forest land in the state, and (c) the amount of nonfederal funds expended in the state for forestry research. Also McIntire-Stennis.

Cooperative management agreement: A document that describes agreements made between the Bureau of Land Management and the public on adjustments in grazing use. This document also defines the specific adjustments and the schedule of adjustments (usually over a five-year period).

Cooperative Marketing Act of 1926 (7 U.S.C. §§ 451 et. seq.): This Act provided for the promotion by the USDA of cooperative marketing and purchasing associations through the strengthening of research, service, and educational programs on cooperative principles and practices.

Cooperative Marketing Association (program) (CMA): A program, first begun in 1934, that allows approved feed grain, soybeans and other oilseeds, peanuts, wheat, cotton, pulse, wool, and rice marketing cooperatives to participate in Commodity Credit Corporation commodity marketing assistance loans and the loan deficiency payments program on eligible commodities delivered to them by eligible member producers. Approved cooperative marketing associations can use loans and LDPs as a marketing tool for their eligible members the same way individual eligible producers do. Approved cooperatives receive CCC funds minus authorized charges when a commodity is either placed under loan or used for an LDP. The approved cooperative may then market the commodity throughout the entire marketing season. Additional net proceeds may be paid to members based on the approved cooperative’s operations at the end of the marketing season.

Cooperative pool(ing): A method of calculating prices received by members of a specific cooperative. If permitted by the bylaws, a cooperative may base the price it pays to members on the revenue obtained from sales, less adjustments for operating expenses and reserves. As a result, the pooled price received by members of a cooperative may not necessarily correspond to federal or state marketing order announced pool prices.

Cooperative Research and Development Agreement(s) (CRADA): The Federal Technology Transfer Act of 1986 (FTTA) (P.L. 99-502) made technology transfer the responsibility of all federal laboratory scientists and engineers, and gave federal agencies the authority to enter into CRADAs with the commercial sector. Under a CRADA with the Agricultural Research Service, the cooperating firm provides the expertise needed for development and commercialization of a new product, process, or service. The firm may also contribute funds, personnel, equipment, or materials. The ARS provides research personnel, laboratory facilities, materials, equipment, supplies, and other noncash contributions. The cooperator has first right to exclusive licenses on patented inventions made under the agreement. The ARS benefits through improved opportunities to develop and transfer technology, increased familiarity with problems related to commercialization of a product or process, and the sharing of licensing fees and royalties. As with its other cooperative agreements, the ARS enters into a technology transfer agreement only when the research objective is commensurate with the agency’s mission.

Cooperative Services (programs) (CS): This component of the Rural Business-Cooperative Service is devoted to preserving and improving the cooperative business system. Under the authority of the Cooperative Marketing Act of 1926 and the Agricultural Marketing Act of 1946, the direct role of Cooperative Services is to provide knowledge to improve the effectiveness and performance of cooperative businesses. Technical assistance for rural cooperatives is provided in response to specific problems. Requests may come from a few rural residents wanting to organize a cooperative, from directors of established cooperatives, or from a federation of cooperatives comprised of hundreds or thousands of members desiring to improve operations. Help from CS may address business organization, operating efficiency, and member control issues.

Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service (CSREES): Following reorganization of the USDA, the agency that assumed the functions of the former Cooperative State Research Service (CSRS). CSREES is responsible for coordinating cooperative research, education, and extension programs with state and local partners, and is the USDA’s principal entree to the U.S. university system. CSREES administers nearly $1 billion in research, extension, and education funds including Hatch Act research formula funds and Smith-Lever extension formula funds.

Cooperative(s): A form of business owned by the customers. There are many types of producer-owned cooperatives that provide supplies and services or buy and sell agricultural commodities. The Capper-Volstead Act of 1922 exempted agricultural cooperatives from restrictions of the antitrust law, provided they did not operate to restrain trade, and it established government support and assistance to agricultural cooperatives as a national policy. See Agricultural cooperative(s).

Cooperator Program: See Foreign Market Development Program (Cooperator Program) (FMD) (FMDCP).

Cooperator(s): A nonprofit U.S. agricultural trade organization that has entered into a foreign market development agreement with the Foreign Agricultural Service. See Foreign Market Development Program (Cooperator Program) (FMD) (FMDCP).

Coordinated resource management plan: A plan for managing one or more grazing allotments that involves all affected resources such as vegetation, wildlife, soil, and water.

Cord: (1) Any timber product delivered to a receiving facility in short-length form (eight feet or less) and intended for use as a raw material in the manufacture of pulp and pulp products. A cord is approximately 5,200 pounds for pine, 5,400 pounds for soft hardwood, 5,600 pounds for mixed hardwood, and 5,800 pounds for hard hardwood. (2) A unit of measure of stacked wood that measures four feet by four feet by eight feet, or 128 cubic feet of wood, bark, and empty space within the stack.

Core testing: The coring of bales or bags of wool for the determination of yield and clean content.

Corm: A vertical underground plant stem that serves as a storage organ enabling the plant to survive adverse conditions; often mistakenly called bulbs.

Corn Belt: The corn-growing region in the U.S. The major corn-growing states are Iowa, Illinois, Nebraska, Minnesota, Indiana, Ohio, Wisconsin, South Dakota, Michigan, Missouri, Kansas, and Kentucky. Iowa, Illinois, Nebraska, and Minnesota account for over 50 percent of the corn grown in the U.S.

Corn bin: See Corn crib.

Corn borer: Known to feed on over 200 types of plants, this worm is noted for the injury caused to corn, including feeding on stalks and leaves and boring the entire length of the cob and ear. See Bt corn.

Corn classes: There are three classes of corn: yellow corn, white corn, and mixed corn.

Corn crib: A large bin with wire or solid sides where whole corn (on the cob) is dried and stored.

Corn earworm: See Bollworm.

Corn gluten feed: A by-product of processing corn typically containing protein, fiber, phosphorus, and potassium. Largely used as feed for cattle.

Corn header: Specialized harvest unit attached to a grain combine to allow the harvest of corn.

Corn Refiners Association: A national trade association, begun in 1913 and based in Washington, D.C., representing the corn-refining (wet-milling) industry of the U.S. The association conducts programs of research and technical service, public relations, and government relations for the association membership.

Corn-hog ratio: See Hog-corn ratio.

Cornish hen: In modern practice, a small broiler of approximately three pounds.

Corporate farm(s): A farm business that is legally incorporated under state law. The stock may be held by a farm family, closely held and not available for public purchase, or listed on a public stock exchange. The term may be used incorrectly when referring to large farm operations when they are sole proprietorships or partnerships.

Cosmetic appearance: (1) The grading of fruits and vegetables based on size, shape, and color, regardless of the lack of relation to taste and nutritional value. (2) The exterior appearance of an agricultural commodity, including changes to that appearance resulting from superficial damage or other alteration, that does not significantly affect yield, taste, or nutritional value.

Cost and freight (c&f; CNF): The seller provides the cargo, covers the loading costs, and charters an ocean vessel for a specific destination. The buyer provides the discharge facilities, usually specifying and guaranteeing the port conditions, and pays for discharge.

Cost of foreclosure: The combination of (a) the difference between the outstanding balance due on a loan made by a lender and the liquidation value of the loan, taking into account the borrower’s repayment capacity and the liquidation value of the collateral used to secure the loan; (b) the estimated costs of maintaining the loan as a nonperforming asset; (c) the estimated cost of administrative and legal actions necessary to foreclose a loan and dispose of property acquired as the result of foreclosure, including attorneys’ fees and court costs; (d) the estimated cost of changes in the value of collateral used to secure a loan during the period beginning on the date of the initiation of an action to foreclose or liquidate the loan and ending on the date of the disposition of the collateral; and (e) all other costs incurred as a result of the foreclosure or liquidation of a loan. See Cost of restructuring.

Cost of money (CoM) loans: Loans that bear interest at a rate equal to the current cost of money to the federal government on the date of the advance of the funds to a borrower.

Cost of money (loan): A loan that bears interest at a rate equal to the then-current cost to the federal government of loans of similar maturity.

Cost of restructuring: When comparing whether the potential cost to a lender of restructuring a distressed loan is less than or equal to the potential cost of foreclosure, a lender shall consider (a) the present value of interest income and principal foregone by the lender in carrying out a restructuring plan; (b) reasonable and necessary administrative expenses involved in working with the borrower to effect a restructuring plan; (c) whether the borrower has presented a plan and cash-flow analysis taking into account income from all sources to be applied to the debt and all assets to be pledged, showing a reasonable probability that orderly debt retirement will occur as a result of the proposed restructuring; and (d) whether the borrower has furnished or is willing to furnish complete, current, and acceptable financial statements. See Cost of foreclosure.

Cost of restructuring: When comparing whether the potential cost to a lender of restructuring a distressed loan is less than or equal to the potential cost of foreclosure, a lender shall consider (a) the present value of interest income and principal foregone by the lender in carrying out a restructuring plan; (b) reasonable and necessary administrative expenses involved in working with the borrower to effect a restructuring plan; (c) whether the borrower has presented a plan and cash-flow analysis taking into account income from all sources to be applied to the debt and all assets to be pledged, showing a reasonable probability that orderly debt retirement will occur as a result of the proposed restructuring; and (d) whether the borrower has furnished or is willing to furnish complete, current, and acceptable financial statements. See Cost of foreclosure.

Cost recovery: The concept that program expenses incurred by the U.S. government are offset by realized revenue.

Cost(s) of production: The sum, measured in dollars, of all purchased inputs and other expenses necessary to produce farm products. The three summary cost-of-production statistics are total cash expenses, cash expenses plus capital replacement costs, and total economic costs. The latter includes an opportunity cost for owned inputs. Cost-of-production statistics may be expressed as an average per animal, per acre, or per unit of production (pound, bushel, or hundredweight) for all farms in an area or in the country.

Cost, Insurance, and Freight (c.i.f.): Terms of sale frequently used in international trade whereby the seller’s price includes the costs of the goods being sold and all transportation charges and insurance expenses to the named point or destination. The seller’s liability for risk ends after the goods have been shipped and a bill of lading proving such shipment has been obtained by the buyer. The buyer’s liability begins when the goods have arrived at the destination point.

Cost-benefit analysis: The analysis of the potential costs and benefits of a project, which allows comparison with alternative forms of investment or activities.

Cost-share payments: (1) Under the Conservation Security Program, additional payments for producers desiring to move to a higher level of conservation treatment following implementation of all necessary practices and management. Participants may receive up to 75 percent (up to 90 percent for beginning farmers and ranchers) of the cost of maintaining conservation practices as determined by the county average costs for 2001 of conservation practice maintenance, unless a maintenance agreement exists or practices are required by conservation compliance. Participants may contribute to the cost of the new conservation practice through in-kind sources such as personal labor, use of personal equipment, donated labor or materials, and use of on-hand or approved used materials. Cost-shared practices are to be maintained for the life of the practice. (2) Under the Farmland Protection Program, the cost-share payment for purchasing a conservation easement or other interest in eligible land shall not exceed 50 percent of the appraised fair market value of the conservation easement or other interest.

Cost-share(d); cost sharing: (1) A program whereby a recipient of government aid shares in the cost of the service or good. The government also shares in the cost as an incentive to encourage compliance or adoption. The Environmental Quality Incentives Program, for example, is operated as a cost-sharing program. (2) The portion of an allowable project cost not borne by the federal government, including the value of in-kind contributions.

Cotton: See American Pima; Pima, Bt cotton, BXN cotton, Crazy cotton, Extra-long staple (ELS) cotton, Roundup Ready cotton, Seed cotton, Stub (soca) cotton, Transgenic cotton, and Upland cotton.

Cotton agent(s): Traditionally, a local commission agent who serves as a point of contact between the exporter and the mill, negotiating on behalf of the exporter, monitoring the letter of credit progress, and advising the mill on shipments.

Cotton Belt: Southern part of the U.S., stretching from Virginia in the east to California in the west, where cotton is grown commercially. The cotton areas are subdivided into production regions, e.g., southeast, midsouth, coastal bend, high plains, arid west. These areas have contrasting environments that necessitate different production systems.

Cotton classer; cotton grader: One who determines the official leaf grade and extraneous matter (pieces of bolls, leaves, twigs, undeveloped seeds, sand, or dust, and preparation defects) in accordance with official USDA cotton standards. See Classification(s); classifying and Cotton classing; cotton classification.

Cotton classing; cotton classification: Defining a cotton sample by the physical properties or attributes, such as fiber strength, fineness, grade, color, and staple, that affect its usefulness. See Classification(s); classifying, and Cotton classer; cotton grader.

Cotton growths: Traditionally, the specified origin of cotton to be exported. Common U.S. growths are American (i.e., no specific origin); San Joaquin Valley (SJV); California/Arizona; Orleans/Texas (Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Missouri, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Arkansas); and Memphis/Eastern Territory (Arkansas, Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Georgia, Alabama, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Florida).

Cotton lint: See Lint; lint cotton.

Cotton marketing association: See Marketing associations (cotton).

Cotton merchant: See Merchant(s) (cotton).

Cotton module: See Module(s) (cotton).

Cotton picking: See Pick(ed)(ing), and Picker; picker system; picker harvester (cotton).

Cotton product: Any product containing cotton fibers that result from the use of a bale of cotton in manufacturing.

Cotton user marketing certificates: See Upland Cotton Marketing Certificate Program.

Cottonseed oil: Oil used primarily for cooking oil, shortening, and salad dressing. It is also used extensively in producing snack foods such as crackers, cookies, and chips. See Oilseed(s).

Cottonseed Oil Assistance Program (COAP): See Sunflowerseed and Cottonseed Oil Assistance Programs.

Cottonseed; cotton seed: Seed removed from the cotton lint at the gin. The seed is crushed in order to extract the oil from the meal and hulls that are used separately and in combination as livestock, poultry, and fish feed and as a fertilizer.

Council for Agricultural Research, Extension, and Teaching (CARET): A national grassroots organization created in 1982 by the National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges’ Division of Agriculture. The CARET is composed of representatives from the 50 states, the U.S. territories, and the District of Columbia. The CARET offers testimony in support of land-grant agricultural programs of research, extension, and teaching to Congressional committees and Executive Branch agencies. It also works with national agricultural organizations to tell agriculture’s “story.”

Counter-cyclical income assistance: Supplementary income payments targeted to producers facing reduced revenues. See Counter-cyclical payment(s) (CCP), Counter-cyclical safety net, and Farm Safety Net Initiative.

Counter-cyclical payment(s) (CCP): (1) An income support payment that increases when prices are low and decreases when prices are high. (2) Under the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002 (Sec. 1104), payments available to eligible commodities whenever the effective commodity price is less than the target price. The effective commodity price is equal to the sum of (a) the higher of the national average market price for the marketing year or the national average loan rate for a covered commodity, and (b) the direct payment rate for the commodity. The payment amount for a producer equals the product of the payment rate, the payment acres, and the payment yield. Payments are considered counter-cyclical since they vary inversely with market prices. Counter-cyclical payments are similar to deficiency payments under former farm bill legislation. See Milk Income Loss Contract program (MILC).

Counter-cyclical safety net: Stabilizers to ensure adequate protection for producers by providing increased support when prices or revenues decline below historic levels. The goal is to provide decoupled support that does not distort market prices or alter market-oriented production decisions. As prices increase, these income supports decrease. See Counter-cyclical payment(s) (CCP).

Counter-cyclical savings accounts: See Farm counter-cyclical savings accounts.

Countertrade: Trade in which the seller is required to accept goods, services, or other instruments of trade, in partial or whole payment for its products.

Countervailing duty (duties) (CVD); countervailing measure(s): An additional levy imposed on imported goods to offset subsidies provided to producers or exporters by the government of the exporting country. A wide range of practices are recognized as constituting subsidies that may be offset. Disciplines on the initiation of countervailing duties are outlined in the World Trade Organization Agreement. Under U.S. law, however, countervailing duties can only be imposed after the U.S. International Trade Commission has determined that the imports are causing or threatening to cause material injury to a U.S. industry.

Country elevator(s): Also called local elevator. (1) A local facility, often in a small town, where producers may sell or store their grain. (2) An elevator that receives more than 50 percent of its commodities from local producers in the immediate vicinity.

Country schedule: The official schedule of subsidy commitments and tariff bindings as agreed to under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade for member countries.

Country-of-origin labeling (COOL): Federal law requires most imports, including many retail food items, to bear labels informing the purchaser of their country of origin. Under the Food Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002 (Sec. 10816), for muscle meats, ground meats, fruits, vegetables, fish, and peanuts, the USDA was required to provide guidelines for voluntary labeling by September 30, 2002. They became effective October 11, 2002. The program becomes mandatory on September 30, 2004. For a commodity to be labeled a U.S. product, it must be born, raised, harvested or slaughtered, and processed in the U.S. Commodities that are ingredients in processed foods do not fall under the labeling requirement. See Covered commodity(ies).

County agent(s): See County Extension agent(s).

County average: (1) Historically, the assigning of a yield, in the absence of records, of actual production by using the reported five-year average of area producers. (2) The assignment by the county committee of a yield based on at least three farms with similar agronomic and climatic conditions. See Assigned yield(s), Area yield; area yield history, Partial county yield average, and Update; updating.

County average yield(s): See County average.

County committee(s) (COC): A committee of political appointees composed of local producers who oversee the county Farm Service Agency offices, including the hiring of County Executive Directors and the operation of credit, commodity, and conservation programs.

County Executive Director(s) (CED): The staff director of the county Farm Service Agency office.

County Extension agent(s): Also called extension agent, county agent, farm and home advisor, agricultural agent, home demonstration agent, and 4-H or youth agent. A professional worker – jointly employed by the county, state Cooperative Extension Service, and the USDA – bringing agricultural and homemaking information to local people to help them resolve farm, home, and community problems. See Cooperative Extension Service (CES).

County loan rate: Farm program Commodity Credit Corporation loan values established by the Farm Service Agency and specified by county, zone (multiple counties), state, or national regions. Rates vary by crop: wheat, feedgrains, and soybeans are specified by county; cotton is specified by zones; rice may be specified on a state or national level. See Posted county price (PCP).

County office(s): Typically, the local, county-based USDA or Cooperative Extension Service office.

County price: See Posted county price (PCP).

Coupled: A term that describes government payments or other incentives to producers that have a direct effect on current production decisions.

Coupon: The interest rate on a debt instrument, expressed in terms of a percent on an annualized basis, that the issuer guarantees to pay the holder until maturity.

Cover crop(s): (1) A close-growing crop, such as a grass or legume, grown primarily to protect and improve soil between periods of regular crops. Cover crops are also grown in orchards and vineyards. Cover crops may be voluntarily planted by a producer, or planted to comply with a government conservation program. (2) A crop grown for its value as groundcover to reduce soil erosion, retain soil moisture, provide nitrogen for subsequent crops, control pests, improve soil texture, increase organic matter, or comply with erosion control requirements of federal commodity programs. Commonly used cover crops include clovers, vetch, alfalfa, and rye. See Catch crop and Conserving use(s)(acreage).

Cover cropping: Use of cover crops.

Cover(s): See Cover crop(s), and Permanent vegetative cover.

Cover-management (factor) (C): Used to reflect the effect of cropping and management practices on erosion rates. It is the factor used most often to compare the relative impacts of management options on conservation plans. The cover-management factor indicates how the conservation plan will affect the average annual soil loss and how that soil-loss potential will be distributed in time during construction activities, crop rotations, or other management schemes.

Coverage level(s): For crop insurance policies, the amount or percentage of protection chosen as shown on the actuarial documents based on crop, location, practice, and type.

Covered agricultural commodities (planting flexibility): Under the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002 (Sec. 1106(b)(3)), commodities, including fruits, vegetables (other than lentils, mung beans, and dry peas), and wild rice, that may not be planted on base acres (unless destroyed before harvest).

Covered benefits: Under the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002 (Sec. 1604), for purposes of the adjusted gross income limit, covered benefits are direct payments, counter-cyclical payments, marketing loan gains, loan deficiency payments, conservation payments, and any other payments under any program within Title II of the Act.

Covered commodity(ies): (1) Under Sec. 1001 of the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002, wheat, corn, grain sorghum, barley, oats, upland cotton, rice, soybeans, and other oilseeds. It does not include crambe and sesame seed. (2) Under the country-of-origin labeling provisions of the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002 (Sec. 10816), muscle cuts of beef, lamb, and pork; ground beef, lamb, and pork; farm-raised fish; wild fish; perishable agricultural commodities; and peanuts.

Covered crop(s): See Covered commodity(ies).

Covered lagoon: A system for capturing methane produced in an anaerobic lagoon. Methane is captured by placing a floating, impermeable cover over the lagoon. The cover can be placed over the entire lagoon or over the part that produces the most methane. The resulting biogas is harvested for fuel use.

Covered program: Under the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002 (Sec. 1613), a program administered by the USDA under which price-support, income support, or production or market loss assistance is provided to producers of agricultural commodities, and a conservation program administered by the USDA. It does not include agricultural credit programs or the federal crop insurance program.

Covered wheat: A term given to grains such as spelt, einkorn, and emmer whose kernels do not thresh free of their bracts as does wheat.

Cow(s): (1) A female bovine that is typically over three years of age. (2) Sometimes used to describe all cattle.

Cow-calf operation: Beef cattle operation where the product of sale is a weaned calf. The calf crop will be marketed at approximately 210 days.

CP: Crude protein

CPGL: Conservation of Private Grazing Lands Program

CRADA: Cooperative Research and Development Agreement

Crambe: A member of the mustard family. A crop requiring few inputs that can be planted and harvested with traditional wheat machinery, it is used to produce oil for industrial lubricants.

CRAT: Civil Rights Action Team

Crazy cotton: Unusual upper growth often caused by pest damage.

CRC: Crop Revenue Coverage

Credit (supervised): See Supervised credit.

Credit elsewhere test: To be eligible for Farm Service Agency farmer program loans, producer-borrowers must document that they are unable to borrow adequate funds at reasonable rates from commercial lenders.

Credit guarantees: See Export credit(s); export credit guarantee(s); export credit program(s).

Credit quality: See Asset (quality) classification(s).

Credit sales of acquired property loans: Farm Service Agency loans made in conjunction with the sale of security property previously acquired during the servicing of the FSA loan portfolio.

Credit-line operating loan(s): Short-term loans used to finance a producer’s daily farming operation. Typically, loan terms match the producer’s operating cycle using revolving lines of credit.

Creep feed: Specially designed feed for young livestock.

Creep feeder: Feeder structure specially designed to be accessible by young livestock only.

Creep grazing: The practice of allowing juvenile animals to graze areas that their dams cannot access at the same time through the use of gates through which only the offspring can pass.

CREP: Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program

Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD): A rare prion disease leading to fatal brain disorders in humans. See Variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD).

Crimp: The natural waviness of the wool fiber. Uniformity and abundance of crimp indicate superior wool.

Crinkle: The waviness of each individual wool fiber when separated from a lock. It is responsible for elasticity and is usually irregular.

CRIS: Current Research Information System

Criteria air pollutants: A group of very common air pollutants regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency on the basis of criteria – information on health and/or environmental effects of pollution.

Critical Agricultural Materials Act (P. L. 98-284) (7 U.S.C. §§ 178 et seq.): Signed into law May 16, 1984. The Act amends and renames the Native Latex Commercialization and Economic Act of 1978. It broadens the number of agencies and organizations recognized by Congress as participants in native latex research and commercialization to include the National Science Foundation and other public and private industrial research groups. The Act recognizes the need to develop domestic agricultural sources for products, other than rubber, that are of strategic and industrial importance.

Critical control points (CCP): See Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) system.

Critical emerging issues: Under the Initiative For Future Agriculture and Food Systems, agricultural genome; food safety, food technology, and human nutrition; new and alternative uses and production of agricultural commodities and products; agricultural biotechnology; natural resource management, including precision agriculture; farm efficiency and profitability, including the viability and competitiveness of small, mid-sized, and minority-serving dairy, livestock, crop, and other commodity operations; and rural economic and business and community development policy research, extension, and education priority programs.

Critical habitat: Under the Endangered Species Act, (a) the specific areas within the geographic area occupied by a federally listed species on which are found physical and biological features essential to the conservation of the species, and that may require special management considerations or protections; and (b) specific areas outside the geographic area occupied by a listed species, when it is determined that such areas are essential for the conservation of the species.

Critical Habitat Reserve Program (CHRP): A proposed program to protect and enhance critical habitat and to compensate private landowners for protecting critical habitat. Under this program, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service would provide technical assistance and annual rental payments to landowners that volunteer to establish a critical habitat reserve on their land. Land would be bid into the program under a five-year contract that would be renewable at the landowner’s option if the FWS determines that continuing the contract is beneficial.

Crop acreage base (CAB): Previously, the average number of acres planted and considered planted to a program crop for harvest in the previous five years (three years in the cases of cotton and rice), with provision being made for double-cropping practices. When the program crop was not grown on the farm in each of the previous five years, the law provided for procedures to develop a crop acreage base for that farm. Under the Federal Agriculture Improvement and Reform Act of 1996 (Secs. 102 and 171), crop acreage bases were suspended except as used to calculate contract acreage. The Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002 doesn’t specifically use the term crop acreage base, but does return to the use of base acres to determine participation in direct payments and counter-cyclical payments.

Crop and Pasture Flood Compensation Program: See 1998 Flood Compensation Program (FCP), and 2000 Flood Compensation Program (FCP).

Crop Disaster Program (CDP): The Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2000, and the Consolidated Appropriations Act for FY2000 included a total of $1.386 billion for the CDP. CDP assistance was for producers who suffered losses to 1999 crops due to natural disaster. Eligible crops were (a) insured crops by either Catastrophic coverage or buy-up crop insurance, (b) uninsured crops for which crop insurance was available but not purchased, and (c) noninsurable crops for which crop insurance was not available. Producers were compensated if their losses exceeded 35 percent of historic yields. The payment formulas provided greater benefits to producers who bought crop insurance on their eligible crops. Advance payments of 35 percent of projected CDP payments were issued. The program was extended to 2000 by the Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2001. The Agricultural Assistance Act of 2003 reauthorized the CDP for producers who suffered losses in either 2001 and 2002. Producers will have a choice of receiving payments for the 2001 or 2002 crops (but not both), and the payment rates will be slightly less than for the previous crop loss payments. Crop disaster payments will be calculated using the same formula used for the 2000 program using the price election for actual production history crop insurance policies, or if that price is not available, a 5-year average. CDP payments will be limited to $80,000 per producer. A producer’s disaster payments plus crop insurance and Noninsured (crop disaster) Assistance Program payments cannot exceed 95 percent of what the producer would have received in the absence of a crop loss. A producer is ineligible if the producer did not purchase crop insurance or NAP, unless the producer agrees to purchase crop insurance or NAP for each of the next two years. If the producer fails to purchase coverage, the producer must refund the disaster payment. See 2000 Crop Disaster Program.

Crop failure: A cropland-use classification term. It mainly includes acreage on which crops were not harvested because of weather, insects, and diseases; also includes some land not harvested due to lack of labor, low market prices, or other factors. The term excludes acreage planted to soil improvement and cover crops not intended for harvest. It may have significance for crop insurance or other farm-aid policy. See Failed acres (acreage).

Crop hail insurance: Typically, crop insurance protection from loss of crops due to hail, fire, and lightning damage while crops are in the field or harvester. Some crops are also protected in transit to the first place of storage. See Catastrophic coverage (CAT), Federal Crop Insurance program, and Multiperil crop insurance (MPCI).

Crop improvement associations: Typically, state-authorized or private, nonprofit organizations responsible for seed certification or foundation seed production and distribution.

Crop insurance: See Catastrophic coverage (CAT), Crop hail insurance, Crop revenue coverage (CRC), Federal Crop Insurance program, Multiperil crop insurance (MPCI), Noninsured (Crop Disaster) Assistance Program (NAP), Revenue insurance, and Yield-based insurance coverage.

Crop insurance contract(s): An agreement to insure the insurable interest of an eligible producer in a single crop in a single county under terms of the application or any other instrument or endorsement as approved by the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation.

Crop isolation: A cultural method requiring the planting of crops in relation to one another so that proximity to old cropping patterns or closely related plants is minimized, thus reducing the ability of pests to locate the primary crop.

Crop loan: Annual production debt secured from private, USDA, or cooperative lenders.

Crop Loss Disaster Assistance Program (CLDAP): Under the Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Appropriations Act, 1999, $1.5 billion in emergency financial assistance was provided to producers who suffered losses in 1998 due to natural disasters, and $875 million for multiyear losses was provided to eligible producers. Producers were eligible for compensation either for losses suffered to 1998 crops (single-year) or losses in any three or more crop years between 1994 and 1998 (multiyear), but not both. Single-year producers with insured crops, uninsured crops, or noninsurable crops were eligible, with payments being adjusted depending on which type of crop. The multiyear provisions only covered insured crops and noninsurable crops. For single-year losses, eligible producers must have had losses exceeding 35 percent of historic yields. Producers with multiyear losses could receive 25 percent of the insurance claim payment for insured crops or 25 percent of their Noninsured (crop disaster) Assistance Program payment for noninsurable crops. The payment limitation under this program was $80,000.

Crop Moisture Index (CMI): A formula for calculating short-term abnormal dryness or wetness affecting agriculture. The CMI is designed to indicate normal conditions at the beginning and end of the growing season. It was developed subsequent to the Palmer Drought Severity Index and responds more rapidly than the PDSI because it can change considerably from week to week. Although similar to the PDSI, it differs in that the CMI formula places less weight on the data from previous weeks and more weight on the recent week.

Crop of economic significance: A crop that has contributed, or is expected to contribute, 10 percent or more of the total expected value of all crops grown by the producer.

Crop production: The acts of seedbed preparation, harrowing, planting, fertilizing, cultivating, controlling pests, and harvesting in the production of an agricultural crop.

Crop Production – Acreage: Supplement: A National Agricultural Statistics Service report that presents acreage by planted or harvested areas by state for corn, soybeans, wheat, oats, barley, rye, grain sorghum, rice, peanuts, sunflower, flaxseed, canola, rapeseed, safflower, mustard seed, cotton, dry beans, potatoes, sweet potatoes, sugarbeets, alfalfa, hay, tobacco, and sugarcane. See Crop Production – Annual Summary, and Crop Production – Monthly.

Crop Production – Annual Summary: A National Agricultural Statistics Service report that contains annual U.S. data for acreage, yield, and production by crop. See Crop Production – Monthly.

Crop Production – Monthly: A National Agricultural Statistics Service report that contains crop production data for the U.S., including acreage, area harvested, and yield. See Crop Production – Annual Summary.

Crop Production – Prospective Plantings: Supplement: A National Agricultural Statistics Service report that presents the expected plantings as of March 1 for corn, all wheat, winter wheat, durum wheat, other spring wheat, oats, barley, flaxseed, cotton, rice by length of grain classes, all grain sorghum, sweet potatoes, dry edible beans, soybeans, sunflower, peanuts, and sugarbeets; and acreage for harvest of oats, hay, and tobacco. See Crop Production – Annual Summary, and Crop Production – Monthly.

Crop Production – Small Grains: Supplement: A National Agricultural Statistics Service report that presents data on the acreage, area planted and harvested, yield, and production of wheat, oats, barley, and rye by state and U.S.; and also wheat production by class. See Crop Production – Annual Summary, and Crop Production – Monthly.

Crop Production – Winter Wheat and Rye Seedings: Supplement: A National Agricultural Statistics Service report that contains the seeded acreage of the annual winter wheat and rye crops, and seedings of durum wheat. See Crop Production – Annual Summary, and Crop Production – Monthly.

Crop profiles; Recently introduced by the Office of Pest Management Policy, the profiles are a means to describe the production practices for a commodity, the pest problems associated with its production, and the pest management practices (chemical and non-chemical) currently used to control the pests. Crop profiles are most frequently developed on a state-by-state basis, but are sometimes developed on a regional or national basis for a specific crop. More recently, descriptions of the type and frequency of worker activities with the crop have begun to be added to crop profiles. Crop profiles can be used to identify areas of critical need including those crops or situations where few if any alternative pest control measures are available to producers.

Crop Progress: A National Agricultural Statistics Service publication that contains reports, issued weekly during the growing season, listing planting, fruiting, and harvesting progress and the overall condition of selected crops in the major producing states. The data, summarized by crop and by state, are republished along with any corrections in the Weekly Weather and Crop Bulletin. See Crop Production – Annual Summary, and Crop Production – Monthly.

Crop protectant: See Safened seed.

Crop reports: Reports compiled by the USDA on various agricultural commodities, released throughout the year, including information on estimates of planted acres, yield, and expected production, as well as a comparison to production of previous years.

Crop residue(s): See Residue(s).

Crop revenue coverage (CRC): A pilot revenue insurance program, authorized by the Federal Crop Insurance Reform Act of 1994, that protects an insured producer’s loss of revenue resulting from fluctuating crop prices or low yields. The premium is subsidized by the USDA. The program is designed to reward producers for both their risk management and marketing efforts. Under CRC, producers work with their local crop insurance agent to establish a benchmark revenue guarantee at planting time, using a formula that includes their approved yield and the current market price. If a fall in market prices, a loss of production, or combination of these two causes the actual revenue per acre at harvest time to be lower than the predetermined revenue guarantee per acre established at planting, the producer is paid the difference between the two. See Crop insurance.

Crop rotation(s); (1) The successive planting of different crops in the same field over a period of years. Producers using rotations typically plant a part of their land to each crop in the rotation. Crop rotation plans are usually followed for the purpose of increasing soil fertility and maintaining good yields. A common four-year rotation is corn-soybeans-oats-alfalfa. The USDA was given authority to insure that crop rotation practices did not adversely affect the calculation of crop acreage bases. (2) Growing crops in a recurring sequence on the same field for conservation purposes.

Crop tree crown release: The removal of cull trees, less desirable trees, and vines to release crowns of crop trees.

Crop trees: High-value trees selected for quality, species, size, timber potential, or wildlife value to form a component of the final crop. They are generally dominant or co-dominant in position, and are well-formed and free of major forest diseases and insects. Such trees are usually selected when the stand or plantation is young.

Crop Values: A National Agricultural Statistics Service report that contains the annual marketing year average prices and value of production of principal crops.

Crop Year 2001 Agricultural Economic Assistance Act: See Agricultural Economic Assistance Act of 2001.

Crop year(s): The calendar year in which a crop is produced. See Marketing year(s).

Crop-share lease: Under the crop-share lease (the most widely used type of farm rental arrangement), the landowner receives a share of the crop in return for contributing land to the farming operation. Typically, the landowner furnishes land and buildings and shares in the cost of certain inputs such as fertilizer, seed, and pesticides. The tenant provides labor, machinery, equipment, and fuel. See Cash lease(d).

Cropland(s): Land currently tilled, including cropland harvested, land on which crops have failed, summer fallow land, idle cropland, cropland planted in cover crops or soil improvement crops not harvested or pastured, rotation pasture, and cropland being prepared for crops or newly seeded cropland. Cropland also includes land planted in vegetables and fruits, including those grown on farms for home use. All cultivated hay is included as cropland.

Cropped wetland: See Farmed wetland(s) (FW).

Cropping history: The requirement under the Conservation Reserve Program that land must have been cropped or considered cropped at least four out of the six years prior to enactment of the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002. See Base acres (acreage).

Cropping system(s): A system, comprising soil, crop, weeds, pathogen, and insect subsystems, that transforms solar energy, water, nutrients, labor, and other inputs into food, feed, fuel, or fiber. The cropping system is a subsystem of a farming system.

Crops at Risk (CAR): A Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service, Integrated Activities, integrated pest management program designed to assist in the transition period with the at-risk crops or cropping systems as the focal point. The program is to develop multiple-tactic IPM strategies to ensure the economic viability and productivity of several crops that face potentially severe economic consequences as a result of the impending loss of certain pesticides due to implementation of the Food Quality Protection Act of 1996. Several crops and cropping systems face potentially severe economic impacts as a result of the impending loss of certain pesticides, mainly small-acreage fruit and vegetable crops in the short-term, due to the current elimination or restriction on organophosphate and carbamate insecticides. Many more crops, including the large-acreage grain, forage, and fiber crops, will be impacted in the long-term when additional pesticide groups are addressed in the FQPA. See Methyl Bromide Transitions Program (MBT), Organic Transitions (ORG), and Risk Avoidance and Mitigation Program (RAMP).

Cross-compliance: (1) A requirement that a producer participating in a program for one crop who meets the qualifications for production adjustment payments and loans for that crop must also meet the program provisions for other major program crops that the producer grows. This requirement is called full or strict cross-compliance. In a limited cross-compliance program, a producer participating in one commodity program must not plant in excess of the crop acreage base on that farm for any of the other program commodities for which an acreage reduction program is in effect. Strict cross-compliance provisions have not been enforced since the 1960s. Limited cross-compliance authority was implemented in the late 1970s and remained in effect under the Food Security Act of 1985. The Food, Agriculture, Conservation, and Trade Act of 1990 eliminated limited cross-compliance. (2) See Area cross-compliance, and Individual cross-compliance.

Cross-hedge; cross-hedging: A hedger’s cash commodity and the commodities traded on an exchange are not always of the same type, quality, or grade. Therefore, a hedger may have to select a similar commodity (one with similar price movement) for his hedge. This is known as a cross-hedge.

Cross-wind ridge: Ridges formed by tillage or planting and aligned across the prevailing wind erosion direction.

Cross-wind stripcropping; Growing crops in strips established across the prevailing wind erosion direction, and arranged so that strips susceptible to wind erosion are alternated with strips having protective cover resistant to wind erosion.

Cross-wind trap strips: Rows of perennial vegetation planted in varying widths and oriented perpendicular to the prevailing wind direction.

Crossbreeding; crossbred(s): The mating of animals of different breeds (or species), or offspring of two different plants. Crossbreeding usually results in heterosis.

Crossing permit: A permit issued allowing the crossing of public land or other land under Bureau of Land Management control with livestock for proper and lawful purposes, including any necessary temporary-use authorization for grazing use that will occur.

Crown: The upper part of a tree, including the branches and foliage.

CRP: Conservation Reserve Program

CRSC: Colorado River Basin Salinity Control program

Crude fiber (CF): That portion of feedstuffs composed of cellulose, hemicellulose, lignin, and other polysaccharides, which serve as structural and protective parts of plants.

Crude fiber (CF): That portion of feedstuffs composed of cellulose, hemicellulose, lignin, and other polysaccharides, which serve as structural and protective parts of plants.

Crude protein (CP): Total protein in feed. To calculate the protein percentage, feed is first chemically analyzed for nitrogen content. Since proteins average about 16 percent nitrogen, the percentage of nitrogen in the analysis is multiplied by 6.25 to give the CP percentage.

Cruise: Forest land survey that includes the location, volume, species, size, and quality of timber stands.

Crush margin (soybeans): The price difference between the value of a given bushel of soybeans and the price that its end products will fetch in the cash market, or theoretically, in the futures market.

Crush spread (soybeans): A commodity product spread involving the purchase of soybean futures and the sale of soybean oil and soybean meal futures.

Crush(ed)(ing): The processing of peanuts or soybeans and other oilseeds to extract oil for food uses and meal for feed uses.

Crust(s)(ed)(ing): (1) Typically, the formation of a hard crust on the soil surface of row crops, caused by heavy rain followed by hot temperatures. The problem is more prevalent where tillage operations leave minimal residue on the soil surface. Crust inhibits plant emergence and development. (2) A surface layer of soils with little porosity that becomes harder than the underlying horizons.

Crustbusting; The use of rotary hoes or cultivators to break up crust.

Crutchings: Wool removed from the fleece a month or two before the final shearing.

Cryobranding: See Freeze brand(ing).

Cryptosporidium parvum; C. parvum: A parasite, often found in the intestines of livestock, that contaminates water when the animal waste interacts with a water source. It can cause cryptosporidosis in humans.

Cryptosporidosis: A gastrointestinal illness caused by the one-celled Cryptosporidium parvum parasite. Symptoms may last for weeks.

CS: Cooperative Service

CSA: Community-supported agriculture

CSE: Consumer subsidy equivalent

CSFP: ommodity Supplemental Food Program

CSGWPP: Comprehensive State Ground Water Protection Program

CSP: Conservation Security Program

CSREES: Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service

CSRS: Cooperative State Research Service

CTA: Conservation technical assistance

Cud: In ruminants, a mass of food regurgitated from the first of four stomach chambers (the rumen), then chewed and swallowed again as the first stage of the digestive process.

Cull trees: Trees having no merchantable value because of defects or type of species.

Cull(ed)(ing): (1) The process of eliminating unproductive or undesirable animals due to substandard behavior, performance, conformation, age, or disease. (2) Tree or log that is unmerchantable because of defects.

Culling rate: The rate at which animals are culled from a herd.

Cultipacker seeder: A mechanical seeder that prepares the seedbed just ahead of placing the seeds at a shallow depth followed by firming the soil around the seed.

Cultivar(s): Plant varieties scientifically developed for cultivation. The word is a derivative of “cultivation” and “variety.”

Cultivate(d)(ing); cultivation: (1) To mechanically loosen or break up soil between the rows of growing crops, uproot weeds, and aerate the soil. The soil around crops is generally cultivated one to three times per season, depending on soil type, weather, weed pressure, and herbicide use. (2) The planting and management of agricultural plants.

Cultural method(s): The oldest forms of pest control practices that generally refer to physical or mechanical changes in an agricultural method rather than reliance on synthetic pesticides. These methods are preventative rather than curative and require long-range planning. Cultural methods may include clearing crop residue soon after harvest, crop rotations, clearing weeds from the field borders, changes in irrigation, changes in planting density and spacing, crop isolation, planting of trap crops, or altering the timing or way of planting.

Cultural pest control: See Cultural method(s).

Cultural practice(s) (CP): Cropping and tillage practices that minimize pest problems and the use of pesticides, or maximize nutrient use efficiency or natural pest management. See Cultural method(s).

Culture methods (fish): Includes extensive culture, intensive culture, and integrated culture.

Culture(d): (1) To artificially grow microorganisms or plant tissue on a prepared food material; a colony of microorganisms or plant cells artificially maintained on such food material. (2) The raising of plants and animals.

Cumulative risk(s): See Risk cup.

Cup(ped) (insurance): The ten percent downward adjustment limit on the actual production history from one year to the next. See Actual production history floor, and Cap(ped) (insurance).

Curd: Curdled milk from which cheese is made.

Curdling; curdle(s); curdled: See Coagulation; coagulate(s).

Curing (tobacco): The process of drying newly harvested tobacco of its sap by either natural or artificial processes. The four basic cure methods are air-cured, flue-cured, fire-cured, and sun-cured.

Current Research Information System (CRIS): The USDA documentation and reporting system for ongoing and recently completed research projects in agriculture, food and nutrition, and forestry. Projects are conducted or sponsored by USDA research agencies, state agricultural experiment stations, the state land-grant universities, other cooperating state institutions, and participants in a number of USDA research grant programs.

Current slaughter week: For livestock price reporting purposes, the period beginning Monday and ending Sunday of the week in which a reporting day occurs.

Current-use assessment(s): See Differential assessment(s).

Curriculum and Training Clearinghouse: Under the Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program, an on-line clearinghouse to make available to beginning farmers and ranchers education curricula and training materials and programs, including on-line courses, that could be available for direct use.

Custom farming: See Custom harvesting, Custom hire; custom work, and Precision farming; precision agriculture.

Custom feeding: The practice of sending calves, stockers, or yearlings to a commercial feedlot for feeding of finishing rations in order to get the cattle to slaughter weights. Custom feeders provide facilities, labor, feed, and care as a service but do not own the cattle.

Custom harvesting: The hiring, on a per-hour or per-acre basis, of the harvesting of crops or forage, in order to reduce labor and equipment costs, eliminate certain management decisions, insure a more consistent harvested product, and save time.

Custom hire; custom work: Specific farm operations performed under contract between the producer and the contractor. The contractor furnishes labor, equipment, and materials to perform the agricultural operation. Planting, plowing, and custom harvesting of grain, fiber, and forage; spraying and picking of fruit; shearing of sheep; and the application of fertilizer and chemicals are examples.

Customer margin(s): In commodity options and futures trading, financial guarantees required of both buyers and sellers of futures contracts and sellers of commodity options to ensure fulfillment of contract obligations.

Customer Statement: As part of the USDA electronic government initiative, an effort to provide farmers and ranchers online access to their business activities with the USDA 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, including their participation, application, and payment status in various commodity and conservation programs, information on farm loans, and conservation plan and land unit information. In the future, the USDA hopes to allow farmers and ranchers to cross-reference data with interactive maps of their operations using geographic information system technology with overlays for roads, soil types, water, and other geographic features.

Customs: The government service responsible for the assessment and collection of import and export duties and taxes and the administration of other laws and regulations that apply to the importation, transit, and exportation of goods.

Customs harmonization: International efforts to increase the uniformity of customs nomenclatures and procedures in cooperating countries.

Customs union(s): A group of nations that have eliminated tariffs and sometimes other barriers that impede trade with each other, while maintaining a common external tariff on goods imported from outside the union.

Cut flowers: All flowers cut from growing plants that are used as fresh-cut flowers and that are produced under cover or in field operations. It does not include foliage plants, floral supplies, or flowering plants.

Cut greens: All cultivated or noncultivated decorative foliage cut from growing plants that are used as fresh-cut decorative foliage (except Christmas trees), and that are produced under cover or in field operations. The term does not include foliage plants, floral supplies, or flowering plants.

Cutability: An estimate of the percentage of salable meat (muscle) from a carcass versus percentage of waste fat. Percentage of retail yield of carcass weight can be estimated by a USDA prediction equation that includes hot-carcass weight, rib eye area, fat thickness, and estimated percent of kidney, pelvic, and heart fat. See Yield grade.

Cutter: One whose primary job is to fell, buck, or limb trees before they are moved to the landing area.

Cutter(s) and canner(s): See Canner(s) and cutter(s).

Cutting loss: The actual weight lost from the carcass after processing (cutting, boning, and trimming).

Cutworm(s): Insect pests of corn, cotton, tobacco, beans, tomatoes, and cabbage that eat plants at or just below the surface causing plants to fall over. Common cutworms are the army cutworm, spotted cutworm, black cutworm, glassy cutworm, and bronzed cutworm. Also Armyworms.

CVA: Capper-Volstead Act of 1922

CVD: Countervailing duty (duties); countervailing measure(s)

CVM: Center for Veterinary Medicine

CWA: Clean Water Act of 1972; Clean Water Act of 1977

CWB: Canadian Wheat Board

CWD: Chronic wasting disease

CWSRF: Clean Water State Revolving Fund

cwt.: Hundredweight

CXT: Common external tariff

Cytokines: Growth factors important to cellular function.