USDA
Keep trade war payments flowing, say farm-state Democrats
With USDA sending $1 billion a week to farmers, senior Democrats on the House Agriculture Committee argued on Monday for Congress to give USDA an early infusion of cash to keep trade-war payments flowing to farm country. The House is scheduled to vote this week on a short-term government funding bill that may include money for aid to agriculture, the only sector of the U.S. economy to get a trade-war bailout.
Soy stockpile to tumble by one-third by next fall
Three years of bumper crops collided with the Sino-U.S. trade war to create the largest U.S. soybean stockpile ever, a price-depressing 1 billion bushels at the start of this month. But by next Sept. 1, the so-called carry-over will be just two-thirds of its current size, estimated the USDA on Thursday.
USDA, doubling pay limit, offers growers up to $500,000 in disaster aid
Farmers are eligible for up to $500,000 apiece for the hurricanes, wildfires, floods and other disasters they faced in 2018 and this year, including Hurricane Dorian last weekend, said the USDA on Monday, with $3 billion in aid available. As it did in July for Trump tariff payments, the USDA set the maximum disaster payment at double the Congressional limit for farm subsidies.
Heartland would be hit hard by proposal to tighten SNAP eligibility, says report
The Trump administration should withdraw its proposal for tougher eligibility rules for SNAP because of the harmful effects it would have on vulnerable families, said the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation on Thursday. An estimated 1.9 million U.S. households would lose benefits, with four heartland states on the list of nine states facing the largest proportional losses, the group said.
A decade later, food insecurity rate returns to pre-recession level
Some 11.1 percent of U.S. households are food insecure, meaning they did not have enough food at times during 2018 due to a lack of money or other resources, said the USDA on Wednesday. It was the lowest food insecurity rate since 2007, just before the Great Recession drove food stamp enrollment and costs to record highs.
USDA gives growers the chance to switch crop subsidy programs
For the first time since the 2014 farm bill was implemented, the USDA is giving farmers the option of changing enrollment between the insurance-like Agriculture Risk Coverage and the traditionally designed Price Loss Coverage subsidies.
New round of Trump tariff payments is flowing
The USDA began issuing payments to farmers and ranchers on Wednesday in this year’s first round of trade aid to offset the impact of the Sino-U.S. trade war, said Richard Fordyce, head of the Farm Service Agency.
Vacancy at the top of USDA as Perdue gains a full-time deputy for nutrition
After two years with a title that suggested he was a placeholder, Brandon Lipps formally became deputy undersecretary for nutrition at the Agriculture Department on Monday. The Trump administration has not filled the top nutrition post at USDA, so Lipps will continue to run programs such as SNAP and school lunch, as he has since July 2017.
At USDA listening session on heirs property, an emphasis on education and preservation
At a listening session on Wednesday, landowners and advocates spoke to the Department of Agriculture about the importance of reforming how the agency aids heirs property owners. The listening session was convened to collect input on a series of heirs property reforms mandated by the 2018 farm bill.
Subtract China and the soy export market goes flat
Pulled by western states, U.S. cropland values edge upward
‘Quite large’ amounts of corn and soy land were not planted
USDA dismisses finding of agency relocation as unconstitutional
The USDA failed to obtain congressional approval before relocating two research agencies to Kansas City this summer, said an inspector general's report on Monday. "The budgetary provisions...requiring committee approval are unconstitutional," responded USDA's lawyers in rejecting the standard Capitol Hill requirement for agencies to notify Congress and receive permission to reprogram expenditures.
USDA proposes change in rules for greater sage-grouse
The USDA intends by this fall to put in place a revised land management plan for the greater sage-grouse, once a candidate for protection under the Endangered Species Act.
USDA says no link between school meals and SNAP proposal
Farmers to get $7 billion in trade aid this summer, with more on tap
The Trump administration will send more than $7 billion in trade war payments to farmers this summer, a total that could soar to more than $14 billion if the Sino-U.S. dispute persists into the winter, said officials on Thursday. For the second year, agriculture is the only sector of the U.S. economy to receive trade mitigation payments.
Tougher SNAP rules may worsen food insecurity, per USDA analysis
Green light for gene-edited animals? Maybe.
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.