Report: Crop insurance premiums could skyrocket as climate change intensifies
Taxpayers shelled out nearly $40 billion in crop insurance premiums in the Mississippi River region between 2001 and 2020, and that number is expected to increase sharply as climate change intensifies, according to an analysis of Department of Agriculture data by the Environmental Working Group that was released Wednesday.
Grocery prices up 10.8 percent even as overall inflation rate declines
Although the U.S. inflation rate slowed to 8.3 percent for the year ending in April, food continues to cost more and more, said the Labor Department on Wednesday. Grocery prices shot up 10.8 percent in the past year, driven by higher prices for such foods as bacon, up 17.7 percent, chicken, up 16.4 percent, and eggs, up 22.6 percent.
Biden encourages larger U.S. crops to feed world, blunt inflation
President Biden will announce three steps to encourage American farmers “to boost production, lower food prices, and feed the world” during a visit to a family farm in northern Illinois on Wednesday afternoon, said the White House. Action by the USDA would be a response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and to high inflation at home.
Reports: As digital grocery market expands, questions of access, fairness, and affordability loom
The rapid rise of food delivery and online grocery shopping, particularly among SNAP recipients, is both transforming the food system and raising new questions about how to measure and improve access to food and food security, according to two new reports from the Brookings Institution.
As historic drought worsens, Californians increase water use
So far, 2022 is California’s driest year on record — but that hasn’t stopped residents from watering their lawns. According to the state’s Department of Water Resources, Californians used almost 19 percent more water last March than they did in March two years ago, despite the state’s deepening drought and increasingly strapped reservoirs. Residents also used more water last March than they have in any March since 2015. <strong>(No paywall)</strong>
Flood of applications for climate-smart funding
More than 350 groups proposed climate-smart pilot projects to help farmers develop a market for sustainably produced commodities, said the Agriculture Department on Tuesday. The large-scale projects, with budgets of up to $100 million, would draw on $1 billion in targeted USDA funding.
Study: Public had fewer fears than leaders did of meat shortages
In April 2020, when outbreaks of Covid-19 among slaughterhouse workers slowed U.S. meat production, the chairman of Tyson Foods said in full-page advertisements, "The supply chain is breaking." Two days later, President Trump signed an executive order to keep processing plants open during the pandemic. In retrospect, the meat supply chain was strained, but not broken, and production recovered quickly, said a team of economists in the journal Meat Science.
Scant rainfall imperils wheat in southwestern Kansas
Kansas grows one out of every six bushels of wheat harvested in the United States and often leads the nation in wheat production. But in several counties in the southwestern corner of the state, where the drought is at its worst, "very little wheat will make it to harvest," said the farmer-funded organization Kansas Wheat on Monday, pointing to arid conditions and "vicious" winter winds.
GMO wheat approved for consumption in Australia and New Zealand
Food regulators approved a genetically modified wheat variety for human consumption in Australia and New Zealand, a victory in the rocky campaign to apply biotechnology to grains directly consumed as part of the diet. No GMO wheat is approved for sale in the United States.
After record high, a marginal decline in global food prices
Sharply lower prices for palm, sunflower and soybean oils helped pull down the Food Price Index marginally from its record high that followed Russia's invasion of Ukraine, said the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. Grain prices also fell during April while meat, dairy and sugar prices rose.
‘Nobel Prize of Agriculture’ awarded to NASA climate scientist
NASA climatologist Cynthia Rosenzweig, one of the first scientists to document the impact of climate change on food production, is this year’s winner of the $250,000 World Food Prize, said the Food Prize foundation on Thursday. “Dr. Rosenzweig has brought powerful computational tools into practical application in agriculture and food systems,” said foundation president Barbara Stinson during an announcement ceremony at the State Department.
Report: Iowa’s hyper-consolidated hog industry drives income inequality
The increasing dominance of large factory farms in Iowa means hog farmers earn $2 less per pound of pork than they did 40 years ago, when the state had many more smaller farms, according to a new report by the nonprofit advocacy group Food & Water Watch.
USDA announces $50 million in apparel industry relief
Apparel manufacturers are eligible for $50 million in pandemic relief funding that will indirectly help cotton and wool producers, said the Agriculture Department on Thursday. The USDA said the new Cotton and Wool Apparel program would mitigate the downturn in sales of dress apparel during the pandemic.
Biden pledges to ‘combat hunger and improve nutrition for every American’
In a White House video, President Biden said on Wednesday that the administration would “lay out our plan to combat hunger and improve nutrition for every American” at the hunger, nutrition, and health conference set for September. More than 10 percent of Americans were food insecure and hunger rates spiked during the early months of the pandemic.
Global tally of acute food insecurity rises 26 percent
Around 193 million people in 53 countries and territories experienced acute food insecurity at crisis or worse levels in 2021, an increase of 40 million from the previous year. “The situation is expected to worsen in 2022,” said a report by the Global Network Against Food Crises on Wednesday.
Vegetable oil prices could remain high into 2023
The Russian invasion of Ukraine focused world attention on wheat prices and disruptions of supplies to poor countries that rely on imported grain. Now analysts at the IFPRI think tank say there is “another important emerging food security issue: the war’s impact on vegetable oils.”
High commodity prices shift conservation lands to crop fields
White House to hold conference on ending hunger in America
With more than 38 million Americans food insecure, President Biden announced on Wednesday the White House will hold a conference on hunger and nutrition in September. It will be the first hunger conference since 1969 and would launch a national plan on ending hunger in the United States, said the White House.
Many farmers expect cost increases will last into 2023
A significant number of America's biggest farmers expect this year's sharp increases in the price of fertilizer, pesticides and machinery parts to continue in 2023, said Purdue University on Tuesday. Three of every four producers polled for the monthly Ag Economy Barometer said they expected farm input costs to rise by at least 20 percent this year, while more than one-third said they expected 2023 crop input prices to be at least 10 percent higher.
White paper urges ag data modernization
The Agriculture Department should be a leader in facilitating data collection, utilization, sharing and research, said the AGree farm policy initiative and the Data Foundation on Tuesday. "The time has come for USDA and the policy community to consider how to accomplish the joint objective of protecting critical data while also allowing its use to answer critical questions," said the organizations in a white paper that encouraged interagency sharing of information.