Farm income is highest in six years, thanks to Trump’s trade-war bailout
Fueled by $14.5 billion in Trump tariff payments, U.S. net farm income will climb to its highest total since the commodity boom crested in 2013 and a dramatic rebound from the plunge that accompanied its collapse, the USDA estimated. When crop insurance indemnities are added to "direct farm program payments," a category that includes trade war aid, land stewardship payments and traditional crop supports, the government will provide an unusually high 31 percent of farm income this year.
Avoid romaine lettuce from Salinas, FDA tells consumers amid E. coli outbreak
Following an outbreak of foodborne illness that sickened 40 people in 16 states, the FDA urged consumers to "not eat romaine lettuce harvested from Salinas, California." Romaine from other regions is not implicated but if there is any doubt about the origin of lettuce, "throw it away or return it to the place of purchase," said the agency on Friday.
House panel approves farm labor reform, floor vote ‘soon’
The House will vote soon on a bipartisan bill to provide legal status to undocumented farmworkers and to modernize the H-2A agricultural guestworker program — the first agricultural labor reform bill in three decades, said sponsor Rep. Zoe Lofgren.
Cellulosic ethanol continues to flow at first Iowa plant to produce it
Even as larger-scale producers of cellulosic ethanol shutter their plants, a handful of small-volume producers are staying the course. One of them, northwestern Iowa’s Quad County Corn Processors, has been using its distinctive distilling method to make cellulosic ethanol since 2014.
Michigan law calls for cage-free eggs by 2025
Under a law signed on Thursday, Michigan will become the largest egg-producing state to require farmers to switch to cage-free egg production. The Humane Society of the United States said the decision “shows just how rapidly American views on the treatment of farm animals are evolving.”
Shadows of twilight darken the age of cellulosic ethanol
Five years ago, King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands joined Gov. Terry Branstad at a biofuels plant in northwestern Iowa to inaugurate commercial-scale production of cellulosic ethanol. This week, the owner of that facility announced it would no longer produce the so-called “second-generation” renewable fuel at the plant.
Like fall harvest, USDA’s Crop Progress report will continue into December
The USDA traditionally shuts down its weekly Crop Progress report at the end of November because the growing season is over and the fall harvest is all but complete in most states. But this year, the USDA will continue to monitor the harvest, which is weeks later than usual, into December.
Earp ‘isn’t the right person’ to head USDA civil rights office, says House panel leader
A battle brews in rural Wisconsin over factory farms
Trump tariff payments may bring WTO woes, says think tank
After ups and downs, farm groups look for finality on trade
As lawmakers become more vocal in criticizing Trump tariff payments, U.S. farm groups increasingly are quiet on trade issues. The reasons range from weariness to uncertainty over what's to come, whether it's the Sino-U.S. trade war, congressional approval of the USMCA with Canada and Mexico, or implementation of new ag trade rules with Japan, say analysts and farm group officials.
Did USDA pay Alaska to lobby USDA?
The top Democrats overseeing the Forest Service asked the inspector general on Monday to investigate whether USDA grant money to Alaska was used by the timber industry to argue for more logging in the Tongass National Forest. The Forest Service is weighing a state request for a full exemption from a 2001 rule that bars road construction and logging in undeveloped forests.
USDA releases additional $3.6 billion in Trump tariff payments
With the Sino-U.S. trade war unresolved, the Trump administration released $3.625 billion in trade-war payments to farmers and ranchers on Friday to offset losses on 2019 production. Payments will begin this week and Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said they "will give farmers, who have had a tough year due to unfair trade retaliation and natural disasters, much needed funds in time for Thanksgiving.”
As U.S. sugar production plunges, USDA may allow larger imports
Freezing wet weather in the northern Plains has pummeled the sugarbeet crop and cut deeply into domestic sugar production. The USDA said it "fully intends to take appropriate actions to ensure an adequate supply of sugar," language likely to mean it will allow larger than usual imports of foreign-grown sugar.
Q&A: Bettina Elias Siegel, author of ‘Kid Food,’ on advertising, school lunch and food culture
Bettina Elias Siegel’s new book, Kid Food: The Challenge of Feeding Children in a Highly Processed World, is an entertaining primer for anxious parents on the myriad ways that America’s food system is designed to frustrate their best efforts to feed their kids a healthy diet—and what can be done to push back and, hopefully, change that system.<strong>(No paywall)</strong>
Hemp farming may be more pioneer life than Wild West
For all its Gold Rush aura, hemp farming may be more like life on the frontier, where everything must be built from the ground up, said advocates of industrial hemp on Thursday. Hemp can require a lot of manual labor to keep weeds under control, it’s hard to find processors for the crop, and marketing networks are rudimentary.
China removes ban on imports of U.S. poultry
Poultry farmers could register $1 billion a year in sales to China now that Beijing has removed its “unwarranted ban on U.S. poultry and poultry products,” said U.S. trade representative Robert Lighthizer on Thursday. Industry groups see the potential to double that total.
Short on cash, some farmers will sell assets during winter
Low commodity prices and high costs are tightening the credit squeeze on the farm sector, with little expectation of improvement in the near term, according to ag bankers in the Midwest and Plains. Some farmers and ranchers will liquidate assets during the winter to stay afloat, and some highly leveraged operators will be forced out of business, they said.
Urban-rural poverty gap has widened since the Great Recession
For decades, the poverty rate has been higher in rural America than in metropolitan areas, a situation often attributed to an older, lower-paid, and less-educated rural population. A new USDA report says the gap between rural and urban areas widened, to 3.5 percentage points, during the economic recovery that began a decade ago.
Last-ditch fight against CRISPR deregulation in Australia
A government decision to deregulate gene-editing tools such as CRISPR met a last-stop challenge in the Australian Senate, with an organic farmers’ group expressing concerns that it will be “sacrificed for the sake of unregulated GMO tech.”