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Koch expands nitrogen fertilizer holdings

A Koch Industries subsidiary will pay $3.6 billion to buy the Iowa Fertilizer Company from chemical-maker OCI Global, based in the Netherlands, announced the companies on Monday. Iowa Fertilizer, which began production in 2017 in southeastern Iowa, was the first large-scale nitrogen fertilizer factory built in the United States in 25 years, said OCI.

A bee researcher’s bees kept dying. The culprit was a nearby ethanol plant.

In FERN's latest piece, and the last from our special food issue with Switchyard magazine, reporter Dan Charles takes us through an agricultural mystery that leads, disturbingly, to a regulatory failure that threatens bees and other pollinators still today.

Treasury charts biofuel flight path to claiming SAF credits

The biofuel industry said it is ready for full-throttle production of low-carbon fuel for airplanes, now that the Biden administration has released guidelines for sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), potentially a 36 billion-gallon-a-year market. The guidelines allow tax credits of up to $1.75 a gallon, expected to be a powerful inducement for production of cleaner-burning fuels.

EPA to update water pollution rules for meat plants

Meat and poultry processing plants would reduce their emissions of water pollutants, such as nitrogen and phosphorus, by 100 million pounds annually under proposed wastewater rules, said the Environmental Protection Agency. It would be the first update of effluent limitation guidelines in a generation.

Grasslands surge to No. 1 in Conservation Reserve enrollment

The skyrocketing popularity of the grasslands option is adding a working lands dimension to the Conservation Reserve, created four decades ago to take fragile cropland out of production. Grasslands now account for 35 percent of the land enrolled in the reserve, up from 28 percent in fiscal 2023, according to USDA data.

Year-end farm bill trash talk in the House

It’s the Republicans’ fault there was no farm bill this year, said the usually decorous Rep. David Scott, senior Democrat on the House Agriculture Committee, as the House recessed for the year-end holidays. Says you, Republican staff workers responded on the internet.

COP28 encourages global shift to sustainable agriculture

In their wide-ranging “stocktake” at the UN climate summit, world leaders urged the adoption of sustainable agriculture and resilient food systems on Wednesday without setting goals for the sector that produces one-third of global greenhouse gases. “We have to cross our fingers and hope that governments deliver on promises to put food in new national climate plans,” said Wanjira Mathai of the World Resources Institute.

House votes to make whole milk part of school lunches

The House passed, on an overwhelming 330-99 roll call on Wednesday, a bill that overrides USDA regulations to allow schools to serve whole milk as part of the school lunch program. “Let’s end the war on milk,” said Rep. Virginia Foxx, chair of the House Education and Workforce Committee.

Administration calls for full WIC funding in 2024

Congress should provide an additional $1 billion for the Women, Infants, and Children nutrition program in January when it votes on funding for the USDA and several other federal departments, said Biden administration officials on Wednesday.

House panel: Reset Sino-U.S. economic relations and expect ag retaliation

China is not willing to play by free-market rules, so the United States should adopt a new, tougher strategy that allows higher import tariffs and other measures to prevent reliance on Beijing, said a House select committee on Tuesday. In anticipation of retaliation, the committee said, the government should look for alternative markets for U.S. food and ag exports, and Congress should consider a new round of trade-war assistance for farmers and ranchers.

Funding shortfall could cut WIC enrollment by one fourth

State agencies would have to cut WIC enrollment by 28 percent, or nearly 2 million women and children, by next September if Congress fails to fully fund the program, said the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities on Tuesday. "WIC needs $1 billion" due to higher food costs and rising enrollment, said Sharon Parrott, the think tank's president.

Put more climate change into the farm bill, suggests think tank

The next farm bill, "an unwieldy pile of programs," could be the vehicle to improve the Farm Belt's response to climate change while exercising restraint in commodity subsidies, said an American Enterprise Institute publication on Monday. In essays modeled on Christmas wish lists, seven agricultural economists expressed hopes ranging from more money for agricultural research to splitting the farm bill in two.

Jobs recovery is spotty in rural counties

Only 43 percent of rural counties have the same number of jobs, or more, as they had before the pandemic, said the Daily Yonder, based on an analysis of Labor Department data. Recovery was strongest in counties on the fringes of metropolitan area and weakest in counties the furthest from town.

Crop insurance reform could save billions of dollars — GAO

Congress could achieve significant savings in the crop insurance program by reducing guaranteed payments to insurers and requiring wealthy operators to pay more for taxpayer-subsidized coverage, said the Government Accountability Office on Monday. The reforms could save billions of dollars on a program estimated to cost $101 billion over the next decade.

Allow SNAP purchase of hot foods, say lawmakers

The new farm bill should allow the purchase of hot foods with food stamps, said a letter signed by one-fifth of U.S. senators and representatives. The prohibition on hot food, in place since SNAP was created, "is no longer an accurate reflection of American families' dietary or lifestyle needs," said the lawmakers in a letter to the leaders of the House and Senate Agriculture committees.

India’s long and tortured relationship with beef

In FERN's latest story, published with Switchyard magazine as part of its special food issue, Siddhartha Deb delivers and intimate portrait of how beef has been used in India to define the social order, punish political opponents, and legitimize political power.

Despite the hype, COP28 likely to say little about agriculture and climate

As they seek consensus for action against global warming, negotiators at the UN climate summit may skip over food and agriculture while assembling a final statement on climate adaptation, said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack on Sunday. Instead, food and agriculture's contribution to COP28 would be a non-binding endorsement of sustainable production, unveiled on the opening day of the summit in Dubai.

A cultural history of a controversial fruit

In FERN's latest story, produced in partnership with Switchyard magazine as part of a special food issue, Jori Lewis explores the complicated racial history of the watermelon in America, using her own life as the critical lens.

Presidential election in Mexico could change corn policy, says Vilsack

Mexico might review, and potentially remove, its ban on imports of genetically modified white corn following its presidential election on June 2, said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack on Sunday. "That would be my hope," said Vilsack. The new president, likely to be a woman for the first time, would take office on Oct. 1.

At COP28, 134 nations agree agriculture ‘must urgently … transform’

More than two-thirds of the nations in the world, representing 5.7 billion people and 70 percent of global food production, signed a declaration at the UN climate summit assigning agriculture and food systems a role in combatting global warming. It was the first such linkage of food and climate action and while it was applauded, the praise was salted with "show me" skepticism.