Looking for a presidential candidate? Try Senate Ag
According to Capitol Hill lore, the surest way to get a senator's attention is to shout, "Mr. President!" And the best spot to shout it this year would be a meeting of the Senate Agriculture Committee, where three of its 20 members, Democrats Michael Bennet, Kirsten Gillibrand and Amy Klobuchar, are running for president.
Secret sites are on USDA’s short list for new homes of relocated agencies
The finalists in Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue's plan to move two research agencies out of Washington include "multiple" undisclosed sites in Indiana, a symbol of complaints of hidden motives and scanty material to support the move. Separately, the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities, a perennial USDA research partner, said it feared relocation would damage the effectiveness of the grant-making National Institute for Food and Agriculture (NIFA).
Sanders calls for ag trust-busters, large government role in farming
Fundamental change in U.S. agricultural and rural policy is "an absolute necessity," said Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders on Sunday in calling for Teddy "Roosevelt-style trust-busting laws to stop monopolization of markets and break up massive agribusinesses." In a position paper, Sanders, pursuing the Democratic nomination for president, endorsed supply management — federal control over farm production — higher minimum prices for major commodities such as grain and milk and a return to a government-owned grain reserve "to alleviate the need for government subsidies and ensure we have a food supply in case of extreme weather events."
Trump threatens half a trillion dollars in China tariffs
Three days ahead of the arrival of a Chinese trade delegation, President Trump said he would impose 25 percent tariffs on $525 billion of Chinese products as leverage for a resolution of the Sino-U.S. trade war that led to retaliatory duties on U.S. exports including soybeans. "The Trade Deal with China continues, but too slowly, as they attempt to renegotiate. No!" said Trump on social media.
CAP report highlights inequities for black farmers
Since the end of Reconstruction, following the Civil War, many black farmers have felt the twin pressures of hardship and neglect, reinforced by systematic discrimination from government agencies and financial institutions. The Center for American Progress, a left-leaning policy institute, issued a recent report advocating for policy changes to correct those inequities, many of which it says remain today. <strong>(No paywall)</strong>
The high cost of the government’s failure to invest in agriculture R&D
U.S. farmers and ranchers face a host of problems that could be solved or greatly curtailed by scientific innovation. But the federal government has largely abandoned its role as a leading funder of agricultural research and development, writes Alan Leshner, CEO emeritus of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, in The Hill.
Eating tomorrow: A conversation with Timothy Wise
Timothy A. Wise spent four years researching the industrialization of agriculture and the influence of agribusiness on policy creation around the world. Everywhere he traveled, he saw how governments and philanthropies have committed to a vision of hunger eradication that heralds industrial, large-scale agriculture. His new book, Eating Tomorrow: Agribusiness, Family Farmers, and the Battle for the Future of Food, details how this vision has largely failed to bring countries closer to food security even as it has imperiled our water, soil, and farming communities.<strong>(No paywall)</strong>
New study confirms man-made climate change drives weather patterns
Researchers analyzed centuries of tree-ring data and found that human-generated greenhouse gases were driving drought conditions around the world as early as 1900, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature. The study, described by National Geographic as the “first of its kind,” substantially confirms what climate models have shown.
Fighting food waste by chopping restaurant prices
A restaurant in Toronto is avoiding food waste by chopping menu prices on Sunday night until all the food it wants to sell is gone, much to the delight of its diners, reports Jonathan Bloom in FERN’s latest story, produced in partnership with NPR’s The Salt.<strong>(No paywall)</strong>
Dicamba revisited: Will corn be the next herbicide debacle?
Dicamba-tolerant corn seeds aren’t available yet. But if the seeds reach the market, and tens of millions more acres are sprayed with dicamba, there’s good reason to expect a repeat of the soybean disaster, in which the highly volatile weedkiller drifted off-target and damaged 5 million acres of conventional soybeans and an untold number of other crops.<strong>(No paywall)</strong>
How climate change is altering the food America grows
From invasive pests and drought to longer growing seasons and floods, climate change is reshuffling our system of agriculture, reports The New York Times in a piece that summarizes how these new realities are affecting 11 crops.
Is moving day near for two USDA agencies?
Like a genial bulldozer, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue relentlessly is pushing two scientific agencies out of Washington, with an announcement expected in mid-May of a new home in the heartland. Some mid-level USDA officials believe Kansas City, already the home of the department's commodity procurement office, is the favored site.
Beto O’Rourke releases climate plan, includes ag measures
Former congressman and Democratic presidential candidate Beto O'Rourke unveiled a $5-trillion climate plan Tuesday that calls for reaching net zero carbon emissions by 2050, and includes a number of agricultural initiatives to reduce and mitigate greenhouse-gas emissions on farms and deal with extreme weather events.
Harvesting American forests for the EU’s ‘green’ electricity plants
Wood-processing plants around the South are turning trees into pellets and then exporting them to be burned in electricity plants in the EU. It's part of the EU's initiative to generate "green" electricity, but scientists question whether burning trees is really carbon neutral, according to FERN's latest story with The Weather Channel.<strong>(No paywall)</strong>
Ranchers suit claims packers conspired to deflate beef prices
Last week, several Midwestern feedlot owners along with the Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund (R-CALF) filed a class-action lawsuit alleging that dominant meatpackers conspired to depress cattle prices starting in 2015. The case argues that JBS, Tyson, Cargill, and National Beef strategically cut back on open market cattle bids, closed plants, and imported costly foreign cattle in order to force farmers to accept lower prices and manipulate spot market cattle values.<strong>(No paywall)</strong>
States struggle to regulate pesticide use in legal-cannabis industry
In the absence of federal guidance on the use of pesticides, the nine states that have legalized cannabis for commercial use are building a patchwork of regulatory polices in an effort to ensure that the end product is safe for consumers, reports the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.
Grocery price inflation is becoming less volatile
The United States is headed for the fifth year in a row of lower-than-average increases in grocery prices, part of a longer trend of smaller and less volatile changes in food inflation, said two USDA economists.
Wet fields mean corn planting will run late
A larger-than-usual portion of the U.S. corn crop will be planted so late that yields could be depressed, said two University of Illinois economists on Thursday. “A reasonable estimate is that late corn planting in 2019 will be at least 5 to 10 percent above average.”
World grain stockpile forecast to be smallest in five years
Record-high demand for grain during the 2019/20 marketing year will draw down world grain reserves to their lowest level in five years, said the International Grains Council on Thursday. It would be the third straight year of declines in global carryover stocks.
Looking for a ‘huge vote’ in Senate to limit national-security tariffs
Senate Finance chairman Chuck Grassley is working with like-minded senators on crafting a bipartisan bill to limit the president’s power to impose import tariffs in the name of national security. “We’ve got to get a huge vote on it because it could be vetoed by the president,” said Grassley on Wednesday.