USDA
USDA opens local offices for three days to work on existing farm loans
About half of the USDA’s local offices will be open for three days, beginning Thursday, to deal with existing farm loans and provide tax documents to farmers and ranchers. USDA employees will not consider applications for new loans, the new dairy support program, disaster relief, or Trump tariff payments.
House passes USDA-FDA funding bill that GOP says is doomed by shutdown
On Thursday, in a test of partisan resolve, the Democratic-controlled House passed, on a nearly party-line vote of 243-180, a funding bill to reopen the USDA and FDA. With the exception of essential work such as meat inspection, both agencies have been shuttered since late December by the partial government shutdown.
USDA to postpone major reports until shutdown ends
The Agriculture Department is expected to announce today that a set of major crop reports scheduled for release Jan. 11 will be delayed until the government shutdown is over, said chief economist Robert Johansson.
Shutdown likely to delay crucial USDA reports
Barring a breakthrough in negotiations between the White House and Congress, the partial government shutdown will force the USDA to delay next week’s scheduled release of potentially market-moving reports that take a final look at the 2018 crops and provide the first hints of this year’s production.
USDA releases GMO labeling rule
The USDA released rules on Thursday for on-package labeling of bioengineered ingredients. The National Bioengineered Food Disclosure Standard will require most food manufacturers, importers, and some retailers to clearly label bioengineered ingredients.
USDA nominee Vaden wins test vote in Senate
The Senate is expected to vote Tuesday on the nomination of Stephen Vaden, a member of the Trump administration since early 2017, to be USDA general counsel. Senators voted, 49-45, on Monday to limit debate on the nomination in a vote that also gauged support for Vaden.
USDA’s rural broadband plan met with citizen criticism
Slow speeds, bad coverage and expensive service. These are just some of the concerns contained in nearly 300 public comments on Rural Broadband Pilot Program proposed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, a review by the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting found.
Fighting fires, or shifting public lands from federal control?
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke and Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue, in a press briefing Tuesday on California’s raging forest fires, called for more management of federal forest lands to be shifted to local authorities, arguing that this would help prevent fires.
FDA and USDA to jointly oversee cell-based meat
The USDA and FDA will both oversee the production of cell-cultured food products derived from livestock and poultry, FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb and USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue announced Friday, ending a dispute about the future oversight of the nascent industry.
After years of decline, rural population shows modest growth
For the first time in six years, rural America is gaining population rather than losing it, although the increase was a slender 0.1 percent, or 33,000 people, said the annual USDA report Rural America at a Glance.
Six months to sow ideas for voluntary organic checkoff
Rebuffed by the Trump administration, the Organic Trade Association turned to the public on Monday for ideas on how to design a voluntary checkoff program to raise research-and-promotion money for the sector and where to put the money. "The need for more investment in organic is widely agreed upon," said OTA chief executive Laura Batcha.
Trump to send second round of tariff payments to farmers by year end
With no end in sight for the trade war, the Trump administration will begin a second, multibillion-dollar round of payments to soybean, cotton, pork, dairy, sorghum, wheat and corn producers by December, said Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue on Monday. The administration does not plan a 2019 bailout.
USDA and FDA seek to cooperate on regulating cell-culture technology
The Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration began a two-day stakeholder meeting Tuesday to discuss how to regulate livestock and poultry produced with cell-culture technology. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue and FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb emphasized that both agencies have a role in creating a regulatory framework for lab-grown meat, but suggested such a framework will still take months to complete.
USDA says it will deliver on Trump request for 5-percent spending cut
Under orders from President Trump to cut spending by 5 percent, the USDA may try to slash the taxpayer-subsidized crop insurance program, eliminate a green-payment program, or take an ax to its research agencies, if recent proposals are any indication.
Costly fire year greets new head of the Forest Service
Forest Service chief Vicki Christiansen, who took office on Thursday after six months as interim chief, said the USDA agency would spend $2.6 billion on fire suppression “for this historic fire season,” roughly the same as in 2017.
Christiansen moves from interim to permanent Forest Service chief
After six months as the agency’s interim leader, Vicki Christiansen will take the oath of office today as chief of the U.S. Forest Service, one of the USDA’s largest agencies.
Second federal court allows challenge of USDA over organic livestock
Federal judges on the east and west coasts have rebuffed the USDA and are allowing lawsuits to proceed against the Trump administration's dismissal of animal welfare standards for organic farms, a regulation that was in the works for years. The Organic Trade Association (OTA) says that by delaying and then withdrawing the livestock rule, the government "engaged in a pattern of misconduct that can only be corrected by a federal court."
Reorganization is an internal matter, Perdue tells inquiring senators
The USDA will need only a couple of months to pick the new homes for two research agencies that are being moved out of the Washington area, said Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue in a letter. He also told the leader of the Senate Agriculture Committee that "this is an internal operational decision" so there was no requirement to seek public comment before deciding to relocate the Economic Research Service and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture.