Coronavirus devastates restaurant workers who live ‘tip to mouth’
As restaurants around the country close or shift to delivery only, "millions of laid-off ... workers, many who made just $2.13 an hour plus tips — the federal minimum wage for tipped workers — are scrambling to pay their bills and feed their families," as Liza Gross reports in FERN's latest story. <strong>(No paywall)</strong>
Nutrition assistance expands as pandemic impact deepens
The USDA has issued waivers to 43 states that make it easier for schools to provide food to low-income children who lost access to free or reduced-price meals due to coronarvirus closures, said a spokesman on Wednesday. An anti-hunger group called for more flexible treatment and speedy handling of the burgeoning number of applications for food stamps. <strong>(No paywall)</strong>
Dairy Farmers of America wins bid for Dean Foods
The milk cooperative Dairy Farmers of America has entered into an agreement to buy most of milk processor Dean Foods’ assets as part of the latter’s bankruptcy proceedings. If approved, the $433 million deal will make DFA both the largest milk supplier and the largest milk processor in the country.
Conservation Reserve rental rates fall by $8 an acre for new land
The USDA will pay an annual rent of $55 an acre on land entering the Conservation Reserve through the recently completed signup, a drop of $8 an acre from the last time landowners idled large tracts of land in the reserve, said a USDA spokeswoman on Wednesday.
Roberts: $9 billion for livestock producers
Out of the $23.5 billion earmarked for agriculture in the latest coronavirus relief package, "I think at least $9 billion will be going to livestock producers," said Senate Agriculture chairman Pat Roberts on Wednesday.<strong>(No paywall)</strong>
Despite coronavirus pandemic, farmers plan to plant a record corn crop
Trump administration weakens fuel economy standards
Crop outlook tainted with uncertainty
Corn and soybean plantings by U.S. farmers are sure to surge this spring, according to USDA and private analysts, but the coronavirus pandemic is creating uncertainty about whether there will be enough buyers for a bumper crops this fall. The economic slowdown is likely to reduce demand for corn ethanol, hitting corn growers in the wallet, but the alternative crop for many farmers, soybeans, faces a glut of its own.
Big money is pouring into ‘carbon farming.’ But can it help mitigate climate change?
As efforts to wean society off fossil fuels have stalled, “natural climate solutions” such as soil carbon sequestration have rapidly gained steam. But, as Gabriel Popkin reports in FERN's latest story, published with Yale Environment 360, "a growing number of scientists worry that mounting societal pressure to do something to counter climate change is pushing money into so-called carbon farming before the science needed to underpin it is mature."<strong>(No paywall)</strong>
Ethanol market is ‘disturbing as hell’ to American farmers. And now there’s Covid-19.
Some 40 percent of the U.S. corn crop is refined into ethanol, but over the last two weeks, Covid-19 has joined a host of other disrupting factors to create what Geoff Cooper, president of the Renewable Fuels Association, calls “not just a perfect storm for ethanol, but a perfect tsunami.” Since the outbreak, ethanol prices have plunged to an all-time low of 88 cents a gallon and manufacturers are warning of more plant closures and reduced run rates.<strong>(No paywall)</strong>
Food waste heads higher, as does food insecurity, in the coronavirus era
Roughly 40 percent of all food produced ends up wasted, and now with coronavirus, it appears that the figure is going up – even while food insecurity is rising. So reports Elizabeth Royte in a FERN story with National Geographic, which digs into the bottlenecks that exist in our food system, especially when a huge portion of it shuts down. <strong> (No paywall) </strong>
EPA says it won’t rescind RFS waivers for now
Because an appeal is pending in federal court, the EPA says it will not act on an appellate court ruling that reduces its authority to exempt small-volume refineries from the ethanol mandate. The agency also said on Friday that it "does not intend to unilaterally revisit or rescind any previously granted small refinery exemptions."
Covid-19 pandemic puts new strain on rural hospitals
More than 100 rural hospitals closed last year, evidence of the financial strain that smaller hospitals face day to day. "Often underfunded, understaffed and under-supplied, they’re now facing the looming impacts of Covid-19," said NBC News. <strong> (No paywall) </strong>
Project aims to feed low-income children in Ohio during school closures
Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue announced the second public-private initiative to provide replacement meals for low-income children who lost access to free or reduced-price meals due to school closures. The new project would feed children "vulnerable to hunger" in Ohio and follows the creation of an effort in Texas to offer shelf-stable meals to students in a limited number of rural schools closed due to the coronavirus pandemic.<strong>(No paywall)</strong>
Pelosi backs higher SNAP benefits for next coronavirus bill
Rebuffed in negotiations on the $2 trillion coronavirus relief bill, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Thursday that she will try again to raise SNAP benefits when Congress writes its next coronavirus bill. The House was scheduled to vote on the $2 trillion bill today. "I anticipate, I am certain, we will have a strong bipartisan vote," said Pelosi. <strong>(No paywall)</strong>
As institutions close, some farmers are left without a market
The spread of the novel coronavirus has shuttered colleges, closed hospitals to visitors, and otherwise radically altered how many institutions operate. For some local farmers who have sold food to those operations’ cafeterias, it will prove difficult to recover from the lost business.<strong>(No paywall)</strong>
FDA eases nutrition labeling rules for restaurants clearing inventory
To facilitate the distribution of food during the coronavirus pandemic, restaurants and food manufacturers will be temporarily allowed to sell packages of food that lack the Nutrition Facts label normally required for retail sale, said the FDA on Thursday. <strong>(No paywall)</strong>
Enrollment drops in Conservation Reserve
The lower rental rates set in the 2018 farm law for the Conservation Reserve may be discouraging enrollment in the program to idle fragile farmland. The USDA said on Thursday that it had accepted for entry 9 of every 10 acres offered in the recently completed "general" signup, for a total of 3.4 million acres — 2 million fewer acres than will leave the reserve this fall.
If farmworkers suffer a coronavirus outbreak, the nation’s food supply is at risk
In the coming weeks and months, tens of thousands of migrant farmworkers will arrive in agricultural centers across the nation, where they will live and work in conditions that are prime for a coronavirus outbreak. Yet despite the fact that these are the men and women Americans depend on to plant, tend, and harvest their food, "these workers and their advocates say that many of the farmers who employ them have provided virtually no information on how they can protect themselves, their co-workers, and their families from the coronavirus — creating the potential for a massive public-health and food-security crisis."<strong>(No paywall)</strong>
As Congress earmarks aid for ag, farm groups say more may be needed
Farmers and ranchers would see $23.5 billion in aid under the coronavirus bill agreed on by the Senate and the Trump administration on Wednesday. The two largest U.S. farm groups welcomed the aid but said more may be needed to survive the looming economic slowdown. <strong>(No paywall)</strong>