Sonny Perdue

After a pause for additional discussion, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue signed a reorganizational memorandum that puts the U.S. Codex Office under the control of USDA's chief trade officer and eliminates the Grain Inspection and Packers and Stockyards Administration as a stand-alone agency, with its duties absorbed by the much larger Agricultural Marketing Service. Both moves were protested as undue kowtowing to agribusinesses when Perdue announced them during the Labor Day lull.

The Senate could vote as early as this week to confirm Steven Censky as deputy agriculture secretary and Ted McKinney as undersecretary for trade. They are the first Trump nominees for USDA to be cleared for a floor vote by the Senate Agriculture Committee since March 30, when the nomination of Secretary Sonny Perdue was advanced to the floor.

Farm groups applauded when Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue changed USDA's organizational tree to create the post of undersecretary for trade. Now, Perdue is hearing complaints about his decision to give the undersecretary control over the Codex Alimentarius office — Latin for "Food Code" — that speaks for the United States in setting international food safety rules, says Politico.

"Most of that group also lack experience working in agriculture. The 42 appointees include a number who do have farm-policy chops — but none of those tout time on the Trump campaign," said Politico in its Morning Ag newsletter. "Among this crop of appointees are a former cabana boy, a truck driver, an AT&T cellular phone salesman and the owner of a scented-candle company."

Building on a controversial USDA reorganization rolled out in May, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue announced further steps to realign “a number of offices within the U.S. Department of Agriculture in order to improve customer service and maximize efficiency.”

The first overhaul of the tax code in three decades should result in a one-page tax return for most Americans, President Trump said in Missouri, while declaring that tax reform is the foundation of job growth. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said separately that the estate tax, a bugaboo of the farm sector, should be part of the overhaul expected to be a Republican priority in Congress this fall.

Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue plans to visit three New England states today and Friday "to gather input for the 2018 farm bill and increasing rural prosperity," announced USDA. The "back to our roots" tour follows a swing through five Midwestern states at the start of August.

In the years before becoming co-chair of the Trump presidential campaign, Iowa college professor Sam Clovis, nominated to be the USDA's chief scientist, said homosexuality was a choice and that same-sex marriage could lead to legalization of pedophilia, reported CNN's KFile. The White House did not respond to a CNN request for comment and a USDA spokeswoman told the KFile, "The Supreme Court settled the issue in 2015."

The White House nominee for USDA chief scientist, Sam Clovis, described President Obama as an aspiring dictator and climate change as a con job during a broadcast career in Iowa a few years ago, said CNN's KFile. The USDA had no immediate response. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said an earlier CNN report on Clovis' political views was part of a smear campaign against Trump nominees.

With negotiations for the "new NAFTA" to begin next week, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue says he is repeating one message to the White House: First, do no harm to agriculture. U.S. farm exports to Canada and Mexico quadrupled under the 1994 trade agreement, and U.S. farm groups fear that renegotiating the deal will disrupt their duty-free access to the border nations.

When "USDA" and "co-location of offices" appear in the same sentence, it usually means there's a proposal to consolidate USDA's local operations, particularly crop subsidy and land stewardship, into the same building. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue talked about co-location at the Iowa Ag Summit, but he meant a central location for handling permits from the USDA, Interior Department and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, reports Agri-Pulse.

Three days after canceling participation in a farm bill "listening session" called by the the House Agriculture Committee in Texas, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue will launch a Midwestern "Back to Our Roots" tour of five Midwestern states to gather ideas for the 2108 farm bill and rural prosperity. The five-state tour has seven sessions with farmers and one, a visit to a Milwaukee-area farm that donates food to the poor, that deals with hunger in America.