National Farmers Union

The newly concluded Trans-Pacific Partnership will remove sales barriers from nations that buy $63 billion worth of U.S. farm exports, said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. Almost as soon as accord was announced in Atlanta, completing five years of negotiations, U.S. farm groups focused on its benefits - or lack of them - for Americans.

Opponents will get one clear chance during House debate to torpedo a Republican-backed bill that would pre-empt state laws that require special labels on food made with genetically modified organisms, the Rules Committee decided on a party-line vote.

Ahead of the House vote on repeal of mandatory country-of-origin labels (COOL) on beef, pork and chicken sold in grocery stores, 283 labor, small-farm, environmental and religious groups published a joint letter asking lawmakers to keep the labeling law in force. "Consumers want more information about their food, not less," said the Consumer Federation of America. R-CALF USA, a cattle-ranchers group, said repeal would "reward the powerful meatpacker lobby" and be a capitulation to threats by Canada and Mexico of retaliatory tariffs.

Two major trade groups, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers, told lawmakers that repeal is the only option available in a losing battle over the so-called country of origin labeling (COOL) law. The World Trade Organization has ruled three times against COOL, which requires labels on packages of beef, chicken and pork saying where the animals were born, raised and slaughtered.

Seven national groups announced support for doubling the beef checkoff to $2 a head. The process would begin with passage by Congress of a bill allowing the $2 checkoff and would be followed within a year by a referendum among beef producers and importers whether to increase the checkoff, which as been $1 a head since 1986. Proponents say the $2 checkoff would offset the effects of inflation and the shrinkage in U.S. cattle numbers.

The nation's second-largest farm group, the National Farmers Union, adopted a policy statement that opposes the STAX program for cotton. STAX, a combination of a floor price and revenue insurance, was created in the 2014 farm law to resolve a World Trade Organization ruling against U.S. cotton subsidies. "While this program is subsidized at 80 percent, this is a shallow-loss program that, according to many economists, is unaffordable," says NFU.

The Obama administration announced eight steps to boost exports by rural businesses, including "reverse trade missions" that bring foreign business officials into the United States as well as an effort to double the number of rural businesses that take part in traditional trade missions overseas. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said the announcement was the result of workshops held over the past year in rural America.

As part of the $1 trillion government funding bill awaiting a vote in Congress, lawmakers would direct USDA to suggest changes by May 1 in the law that requires packages of beef, pork and chicken to list where the meat was born, raised and slaughtered. The language appears in an explanatory statement that accompanies the bill. Such statements do not carry the force of law but are powerful advice to federal officials.

Kansas Sen Pat Roberts easily won his fourth term in the Senate, beating independent Greg Orman by 9 points. Roberts says he expects to be Agriculture Committee chairman when Republicans take control of the Senate in January. He would be the first person to chair the both the House and Senate Agriculture committees.