USDA
Pay hike of up to 50 percent for fighting wildfires
In a long-expected step, the White House announced hefty increases in pay for wildland firefighters on Tuesday, amounting to an additional $600 million over two years, to confront increasingly destructive fires. The Forest Service has acknowledged difficulty in hiring enough firefighters this year; some state and local agencies offer much higher pay.
Middling support for helping farmers adopt sustainable practices
Americans agree that federal aid to farmers during a disaster is important. They are less likely to support federal assistance to help producers adopt sustainable farming practices, according to the quarterly Gardiner Food and Agricultural Policy Survey.
House votes to create USDA meat investigator
Over the objections of Republicans, the House passed legislation on Thursday to create a USDA special investigator to enforce fair-play rules in the highly concentrated meatpacking industry. It was the most significant livestock marketing reform to advance in Congress this session.
House Republicans oppose USDA meat investigator as poison pill
Colorado infections push HPAI losses above 40 million birds
More than 40 million birds in domestic flocks, mostly chickens and turkeys, have died in the worst outbreak of bird flu since the 2014-15 epidemic, according to USDA data released on Monday. The outbreaks, which have killed 6 percent of the egg-laying hens in the country, were blamed for an Eastertime spike in egg prices.
Jacobs-Young wins Senate approval as USDA chief scientist
Nationwide waivers for infant formula
To increase access to infant formula for low-income families enrolled in WIC, the Agriculture Department offered on Monday nationwide waivers to states to receive and distribute imported formula. The waivers were part of administration responses to formula shortages.
Boom in commodity prices more likely to be transitory than permanent
Electrified by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, commodity prices are sky high, with soybean futures topping $16.80 a bushel and the USDA forecasting the highest-ever farm-gate price for wheat. But high prices for corn, wheat and soybeans are far more likely to revert to their long-term averages than mark the dawn of a new era of permanently higher prices, said five university economists on Tuesday.
Worst U.S. outbreak of bird flu in seven years fades in May
USDA raises food inflation forecast for fourth month in a row
Bird flu outbreaks are driving up egg and poultry meat prices far faster than usual, with eggs expected to cost 20 percent more and poultry 9 percent more this year than their 2021 averages, said the Agriculture Department on Wednesday.
Group funds half a million acres of cover crops in Midwest
The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation announced $2.6 million in grants on Wednesday to help farmers plant cover crops across 500,000 acres in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, and Minnesota.
Biden nominates two for USDA undersecretary posts
President Biden selected two veterans of U.S. agriculture and nutrition policy for sub-cabinet positions at the Agriculture Department. Stacy Dean was nominated to serve as undersecretary for nutrition and Alexis Taylor to be undersecretary for trade, announced the White House. Dean has been the senior official overseeing USDA nutrition programs since Biden took office and Taylor has been Oregon's agriculture director since December 2016.
Meatpackers drafted Trump order on meat plants during Covid-19
Facing pressure from local health officials over conditions in their plants, meatpacking companies "drafted and pitched an executive order to the Trump White House" to keep slaughterhouses open during the first months of the Covid-19 pandemic, said a congressional staff report on Thursday. When President Trump issued an order that adopted the industry position, meatpackers exaggerated its scope.
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.
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.
High commodity prices shift conservation lands to crop fields
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.
Ag groups urge USDA to take over regulation of GE animals
Ten RECs get $4.4 billion in New ERA clean energy funding
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced $4.37 billion in grants and loans to 10 rural electric cooperatives on Thursday for clean energy projects that would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by more than 1.1 million tons a year. With the awards, the USDA has allocated nearly $9 billion of the $9.7 billion available in the Empowering Rural America program.