USDA’s new produce boxes: The USDA awarded contracts worth $9.7 million to buy 1.29 million boxes of fresh produce for donation to food banks from June 1-Sept 30. The Biden administration says it will continue to donate food while looking for a more efficient and less expensive successor to the Trump-era food box program. (FERN’s Ag Insider)
China buys 2 percent of corn: With the purchase of 1.36 million tonnes of U.S. corn announced on Tuesday, China has bought 8.16 million tonnes of “new crop” corn for delivery in the 2021/22 marketing year, or 2 percent of the projected corn crop this year. (USDA)
Unprepared for intense drought: While some farmers in California have adopted water-saving technology amid an intense drought, others are drilling deeper wells to irrigate new orchards. “The upshot is California isn’t ready – again.” (CalMatters)
Fake farm fraud on PPP loans: Online lender Kabbage made 378 small loans totaling $7 million through the government’s Payroll Protection Program to fake small businesses, the overwhelming majority of them categorized as farms, including potato fields in Palm Beach. (ProPublica)
China’s bid to join trade bloc: The economic superpower of Asia has held technical-level talks with Australia, Malaysia and New Zealand to join the Pacific Rim trading bloc that the United States promoted and then abandoned. (Bloomberg)