Trump administration seeks overhaul of fishing industry with new executive order
As the coronavirus pandemic ravages the meatpacking sector, the Trump administration late last week made a major announcement about another essential food industry: seafood. With a late-afternoon executive order, the administration laid out a pathway for the approval of ocean aquaculture in federal waters, a controversial departure from existing policy that could reshape the country’s seafood production.<strong>(No paywall)</strong>
Coronavirus aid limits will be higher than initially proposed
Farmers and ranchers will need assistance from the federal government beyond the $16 billion in cash payments that were promised a month ago, said Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue. During a broadcast interview, Perdue said producers will be eligible for more than the $125,000 per commodity that was proposed by the USDA.<strong>(No paywall)</strong>
Two major meat processors part of USDA’s $1.2-billion Food Box program
Two of the largest meat processors in the country, Tyson Foods and Cargill Meat Solutions, are among roughly 200 "approved suppliers" for a USDA initiative to buy surplus fresh produce, dairy products and pre-cooked chicken and pork for distribution to needy Americans. The USDA said it approved $1.2 billion in contracts for the Farmers to Families Food Box program but did not list individual awards.<strong>(No paywall)</strong
Food Box purchases will precede coronavirus checks to farmers
Farmers and ranchers will begin signing up for $16 billion in coronavirus payments by the end of May if all goes according to plan, said a USDA spokesperson on Thursday. In that case, the payments would follow the USDA’s awarding of contracts for another part of the Coronavirus Food Assistance Program, the Farmers to Families Food Box. <strong>(No paywall)</strong>
Unsafe heat for farmworkers to nearly double by 2050, study predicts
Officially, about five farmworkers die every year from heat-related illness, though that number is likely an undercount. But whatever the true death toll, it’s expected to rise sharply in coming years. According to a study led by climate scientist Michelle Tigchelaar, the number of unsafe days in crop-growing U.S. counties will jump from today’s 21 per season to 39 days per season by 2050. The near doubling of unsafe days implies a near doubling in deaths. <strong>(No paywall)</strong>
Trump issues executive order to speed up fish farming
Saying he wants to expand U.S. seafood production, President Trump signed an executive order on Thursday to streamline federal review and approval of aquaculture sites. Meanwhile, the Commerce Department announced $300 million in coronavirus relief funds for the seafood industry. <strong>(No paywall)</strong>
Loeffler leaves Senate agriculture subcommittee amid controversy
Sen. Kelly Loeffler received stock and other awards worth more than $9 million from her former employer just before she was appointed to the Senate in January. To quash criticism of the package, the Georgia Republican stepped down from the Senate agriculture subcommittee that oversees the futures markets.
With Covid-19 in Alaska, a home-grown food movement underway
Alaska imports more than 90 percent of its food, but with Covid-19 interrupting supply chains, especially to remote regions, people in the state are reacting by starting gardens and advocating for more locally grown food, reports Miranda Weiss in FERN's latest story. <strong>(No paywall)</strong>
Midwestern hog plants ease back into operation; ‘We’ve turned the corner,’ says Perdue
Three packing plants that account for 12 percent of U.S. hog slaughter are slowly resuming production this week after coronavirus shutdowns, potentially loosening a bottleneck among meat processors that is tightening supplies and raising prices at the grocery store. "I think we've turned the corner" on meat shortages, said Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue. <strong>(No paywall)</strong>
Multibillion-dollar corn and soy payments possible due to coronavirus
Low market prices on this year's corn and soybean crops due to the coronavirus could trigger up to $7.2 billion in USDA subsidies to corn and soybean growers, said five university economists on Wednesday. "In estimating the damage that U.S. crop agriculture has suffered, it is important to take into account the payments made by existing farm safety net programs," they said. <strong>(No paywall)</strong>
With industrial meat hobbled, small producers are seeing a surge in sales. Can it last?
With industrial meat operations struggling to stay open, consumers are turning in droves to smaller producers to keep them in beef, pork, chicken and lamb, as Stephen R. Miller reports in FERN's latest story, published with HuffPost. Miller's story takes a close look at one operation, SkyPilot Farm in Longmont, Colorado, which is run by Chloe Johnson and her husband Craig Scariot. Since the outbreak, sales at SkyPilot have increased about 400 percent and the customer base has tripled.<strong>(No paywall)</strong>
Shoppers could see less meat at higher prices due to coronavirus
Beef and pork supplies at U.S. supermarkets could shrink by nearly 30 percent and prices may rise by a stunning 20 percent by Memorial Day, the result of coronavirus slowdowns and shutdowns at packing plants, said agricultural lender CoBank on Tuesday. "Shortages and stock outs in the meat case couldn't come at a worse time. Food inflation and a weak U.S. economy is a combination that will leave many consumers in greater financial strain."<strong>(No paywall)</strong>
Coronavirus pummels farmer confidence for second month
A majority of large farmers and ranchers expect worse financial performance on their farms this year than in 2019, nearly twice as many as before the coronavirus became pandemic and mitigation efforts sparked an economic slowdown, said a Purdue University poll released on Tuesday. Purdue's Ag Economy barometer, a monthly gauge of farmer confidence, fell sharply for the second month in a row, to its lowest reading since October 2016.<strong>(No paywall)</strong>
Five times as many ‘Meals to You,’ says USDA
The "Meals to You" program, launched in March in Texas to deliver meals to rural low-income children whose schools were closed due to the coronavirus, soon will be delivering 5 million meals a week, five times the original goal, said the USDA. The program now operates in 12 states and 23 more plus Puerto Rico want to join.<strong>(No paywall)</strong>
As craft beer struggles amid pandemic, so do barley farmers and malthouses
With much of the country under stay-at-home orders, the craft beer sector has seen a steep decline in sales. The consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic could be existential not only for this newly robust market and its thousands of employees but also for the malthouses and barley farmers whose ingredients are the building blocks of beer. <strong>(No paywall)</strong>
Coronavirus may bring lowest season-average corn price in 14 years
This year's corn crop could sell for the lowest price in years — probably around $3.10 a bushel — depending on how quickly demand for ethanol rebounds and whether or not farmers plant less corn land than they planned to in March, said an economist at Kansas State University. <strong>(No paywall)</strong>
USDA food boxes for charity called ‘inefficient’
The "farmers to families food box," a $3 billion part of the Trump administration's coronavirus relief package, may not be an efficient use of taxpayer dollars although it is aimed at two vexing issues during the pandemic – crops with no buyers and food banks overwhelmed by demand, said a panel of analysts on Monday.
More locust swarms to besiege East African harvest
The harvest in Kenya is likely to coincide with the arrival of a new generation of desert locusts to attack the crops, said the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. Locusts also are swarming in Ethiopia and Somalia, said the FAO.
Biden calls meatpacking plant conditions ‘inhumane and downright immoral’