January 11, 2017 - In This Issue:

NDGI has a Newly Designed Website! 

On January 5th, NDGI launched it's redesigned website. The new layout now provides information on the company, service information, and more information on what it means to be an official inspection agency. 

One of the highlights on the new website is the Service Requests page. This page now allows producers to learn and use all the different ways to request services from NDGI. Service requests can be made via text, email, and phone. NDGI now also has the Grain Inspection Assistant (GIA) iPhone app and web portal to effectively schedule services for on-site graind and sampling. 

NDGI customers can also use our Submitting Samples page to request sample bags, envelopes, and/or tickets. The Submitting Samples page also allows customers to view the types of commodities and their respective tests that are run at each NDGI location. By clicking on a commodity type it will also bring up the size of sample needed to run each test. 

There are a lot of new things to check out on our website, we encourage all of you to visit it and see what NDGI can do for elevators, merchandisers, producers, and processors! 
U.S. Drought Monitor

Precipitation was low across much of the Midwest. The largest totals were found in the eastern and southern Ohio Valley (0.5-1.2 inches). The upper Midwest and western Great Lakes region say 0.3 to 1 inch of precipitation. In northeastern Indiana and northwestern Ohio some of the D0 was taken away. Most of the northern portion of the Midwest was snow covered and drought free. Looking ahead, temperatures across much of the lower 48 states will be well-below normal except above-normal in the Southwest. From January 10-14, there are high odds of above-median precipitation in the Midwest. 


 

GIPSA Announces Fees for Official Inspection and Official Weighing Services under United States Grain Standards Act

The Department of Agriculture (USDA) Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration (GIPSA) is announcing the fee schedule for official inspection and weighing services performed under the United States Grain Standards Act (USGSA), in order to comply with amendments to the USGSA made by Agriculture Reauthorizations Act of 2015. 

GIPSA recently conducted the annual review of fees and operating reserve for the purposes of the annual adjustment of the fees. Because of this, GIPSA is setting new tonnage fees which took effect on January 1, 2017 for all field offices. GIPSA has determined that a 5 percent reduction in all Schedule A fees is necessary to attain the goal of 4 1/2 monthes of operating reserve.