Great Bend Tribune
Published July 31, 2016
Part I
First, let’s update the drought monitor. As of Tuesday only small parts of the state were rated as abnormally dry, even with the heat of the previous week and not counting any precipitation over the last five days. Now, why discuss today’s topic? Sound kind of dull doesn’t it? Believe it or not the science of weighing and measuring, metrology, is vital in all aspects of your life and no more so than in the area of agriculture. Barton Community College is working with the Kansas Department of Agriculture providing continuing education and testing for the scale companies and technicians who certify the accuracy of the scales used in commercial settings.
The purpose of this and next week’s column isn’t to provide excruciating detail but a brief overview of weights and measures in the production of food fiber, and fuel and what is done to help insure accuracy. Everything in agriculture, well almost everything, is sold by weight or volume. Kansas produced a 400 million bushel wheat crop. While a bushel is a volume, what it really means is 400,000,000 times 60 pounds. Crops and livestock are sold by weight so the accuracy of the truck, livestock, floor, or bench scale is critical to both the buyer and seller. Using 400 million bushels, if the weight is off just one percent that amounts to 4,000,000 bushels. At $3 per bushel that amounts to 1.2 million dollars. This applies to the inputs producers buy. They must be accurately measured. When you purchase a package of meat or cheese at the deli counter or that box of cereal, everything is sold by weight. Take a moment and try to think of everywhere you have seen a scale. There are thousands in Kansas alone.
When items are sold by weight, any transaction where buying or selling is involved, these are defined as commercial weighing and measuring devices. Commercial devices are covered under Kansas Law and Statute. The KDA (Kansas Department of Agriculture, Division of Weights and Measures) is responsible for regulating the use and accuracy of commercial measuring devices. So what is done by Kansas to insure accuracy and prevent fraud?
- All scales manufactured after 1986 must have a Certificate of Conformance (CoC) describing the class of scale and various other attributes. Older scales may be and are in use following prescribed procedures. Each scale must be uniquely identifiable with a unique serial number. You might think this is no big deal but with the internet, many cheaper scales have no CoC and can’t be used commercially.
- Scales are to be selected, used, maintained, and certified yearly using two documents developed by NIST, the National Institute of Standards, Handbooks 44 and 112. Kansas and all 50 states voluntarily adopt all or parts of these documents. Handbook 44 provides all the requirements for weighing and measuring devices and is reviewed and updated yearly. Handbook 112 outlines the procedures for certifying weighing and measuring devices.
- Kansas lack the manpower to check commercial scales, which at a minimum must be certified once every 365 days. To have certifications done in a timely manner, in the 1980s the legislature passed legislation providing for scale companies and their technicians to obtain licensing from the state to serve, for a fee, as an agent for the state to certify scales.
Next week – what is done and what you as a consumer should look for.
Part II
Published August 7, 2016
Last week’s column was a brief review of what a commercial scale is and what is legally required for it to be used to buy and/or sell an item or product. This week, let’s go over what as a buyer or seller you should expect under Kansas Statute. This applies to both the agricultural community and consumers.
There are two types of transactions a buyer or seller may be involved in. First we have prepackaged sales. These are the sales for example where you go to the meat counter and pick up a three pound chub of ground chuck or buy a fifty pound bag of feed. Your assumption has to be that these scales are certified and accurate. Second are direct transactions. For the consumer these are at the deli counter when you ask for a pound of Swiss cheese or the meat counter and choose a particular cut. One of the most common weighing operations consumers are involved in use scanner scales, the scales at the checkout that read product bar codes and weigh items like produce. Maybe you are purchasing items at a hardware store by weight. For producers, it may involve taking cattle to an auction or grain to an elevator. Producers also are involved when they purchase inputs like fertilizers by weight. The following is a brief description of what your rights are.
- You must be able to view a continuous readout of the scale. The scale should be on zero at the start unless there is a tare weight (more on that in a bit). Then it should read a negative weight. Certain older vehicle and livestock scales do not have readouts for drivers to view. In this case the driver must be allowed to exit the truck to view the readout. Most but not all areas with truck scales have or are remodeling to allowing easy readout of the weight.
- You must be able to view the weighing operation from a reasonable position to insure nothing iffy is going on (think thumb on the scale).
- Now for the tare. The tare weight is the weight of the container. For the deli purchase it’s the package the product is placed in and/or the paper the product sits on depending on how the weighing is done. For the product on the truck it’s the weight of vehicle, perhaps trailer, and if onboard, the driver. This may be determined before or after for the truck scale depending on if the vehicle is bringing a commodity to a facility or picking it up.
- The scale and weighing area should be clean for conditions. There should be nothing interfering with the weighing platform’s operation. The weighing platform must move freely.
- Your ticket for the transaction must include the following: net weight, unit price, total price, and product name. The information must be clear and easily readable. For an elevator unless the grain is sold right then there likely isn’t price information of the ticket.
- You can ask to see the nomenclature plate and it should have the CoC as was mentioned in last week’s column, the scale manufacturer, model, capacity, and division of the smallest weight along with a unique serial number. Older scales, prior to 1986, may not have the nomenclature plate but should have a KDA sticker. For scales after 1986, scales without the nomenclature plate and CoC are not legal for commercial sales.
- The scale should have been certified for commercial use within the last 365 days. Most scales will have sticker on them with this information. You are allowed to ask if you have concerns. The facility should have a minimum of five years of records onsite for a commercial scale.
Naturally there is more but this is your pocket guide to commercial weighing operations.