imports

Domestic production of olive oil, based mostly in California, is six times larger than it was 20 years ago but it amounts to less than 2 percent of the U.S.'s steadily growing consumption, forecast to be more than 400,000 metric tons this year, say USDA analysts. Drought in Europe, the major producer, drove import prices to record highs but they are projected to decline in the year ahead as production recovers.

The 45Z tax credit, intended to encourage the development of sustainable aviation fuel and other low-carbon fuels, would be available until 2034 and limited to domestic feedstocks under companion bills filed in the House and Senate on Tuesday. Farm groups said the legislation would allow time for domestic production to rise while discouraging a flood of imported oil, grease, and tallow.

There is a "reasonable indication" that domestic fertilizer manufacturers are being hurt by the alleged dumping of imported fertilizer in the United States, the U.S. International Trade Commission declared in a unanimous vote. As a result of the ITC vote, the Commerce Department will continue its investigation of imports of urea ammonium nitrate  (UAN) from Russia and from Trinidad and Tobago.

Food regulators from Mexico and the United States issued a statement of intent on Monday to expand a six-year-old partnership on food safety to cover all of the human food regulated by the FDA. Mexico is a leader in food trade with the United States; about one-third of all the food imported …

China's plan to move to a 10 percent blend of ethanol into its gasoline supply will be a boon for U.S. ethanol exports, said ADM chief executive Juan Luciano. Agrimoney says that Luciano told investors that China could need imports of 8 million tons a year by 2020 to satisfy the E10 target because of the nation's longer-term fuel strategy.

Argentina has requested negotiations with the United States on a "suspension" agreement that would avoid imposition of stiff U.S. anti-dumping duties on its biodiesel exports, said the Commerce Department. The negotiations were announced at the same time the department ordered anti-dumping duties of up to 70 percent on the fuel.

Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue listed Canada's controls over dairy and poultry imports during a Fox Business interview in saying "some of the things left out of NAFTA" give Canada an unfair advantage in ag trade. At the White House, President Trump said, "It's possible we won't be able to make a deal" and the United States would seek a bilateral pact with Canada or Mexico.

Congress would double the USDA’s annual funding to oversee the booming organic agriculture sector and would provide an additional $5 million to prevent fraudulent organic imports under a bill filed by six U.S. representatives. An industry trade group said the bill would help the National Organic Program (NOP) keep pace with ever-increasing production and rapidly rising consumer demand for organics.

Consumer demand for organic food is booming, with sales topping $43 billion a year, creating the opportunity for importers to claim, fraudulently, that their goods deserve the premium attached to organics, according to a report by the office of the USDA's inspector general (OIG). "Without controls in place at U.S. ports of entry to verify the authenticity of organic import certificates, non-organic products may be imported as organic if unscrupulous parties are willing to use fraudulent organic import certificates," says the OIG.

In the three-way race for leadership in the world wheat market, Russia will be No. 1 in the current marketing year, says USDA's Grain: World Markets and Trade report. It's the first time Russia would take the top spot; the United States was No. 1 in 2016/17 and the EU led in 2015/16.

"Faltering trust between trading partners on both sides of the border" may be slowing U.S. farm export to Mexico as the nations prepare to renegotiate NAFTA , says Farm Futures. It says that U.S. exports of corn, soybeans and chicken meat to Mexico declined during the first four months of this year, a period when the new Trump administration floated the idea of a border tax and when U.S.-Mexico relations soured.

The Trump administration has a target for beginning the renegotiation of NAFTA — mid-August — but there is no deadline for wrapping up discussions, assuming that talks are fruitful, said U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer. "We're going to get a good agreement, one that is transformative," Lighthizer told the Senate Finance Committee.

American citrus growers are angry over the Trump administration’s decision to lift an import ban on lemons from northwestern Argentina. “We were completely blindsided,” said Joel Nelsen, president of the California Citrus Mutual.

A Commerce Department agency has authorized up to 20 permits for deep-water aquaculture in the Gulf of Mexico that eventually could double the finfish output of the gulf. Fish farming in the ocean would help satisfy the growing world appetite for seafood, but it also is a formidable challenge, writes Virginia Gewin. The story, produced in partnership with FERN, was published in Ensia.