USDA

Rural Americans are on the wrong side of the digital divide, with persistently lower rates of access to broadband service than their metropolitan counterparts. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue discussed the gap during an Axios interview this week, saying, “One of the things we’re really focusing on at USDA for rural development is broadband.”

With the closure of a payment company looming at the end of this month, Senators urged the USDA to explore all options so SNAP recipients can continue to shop at farmers markets. The company, which processes 40 percent of SNAP sales at farmers markets, is ending service on July 31 and a successor company says it will take several weeks to get its equipment in place.

The USDA says monthly SNAP participation has dropped below 40 million people, continuing a long decline in enrollment. The anti-hunger group Food Research and Action Center said enrollment of 39.6 million people in April, the latest month available in USDA data, was the lowest since February 2010.

Scott Hutchins, an executive at DowDuPont, is President Trump’s choice for USDA chief scientist, announced the White House on Monday. The post of chief scientist, which doubles as undersecretary for research, has been vacant since Trump took office.

Bowing to complaints that high-frequency traders are profiting in the 1 or 2 seconds after it releases its market-moving crop reports, the USDA said on Tuesday that it would no longer allow news agencies to look at the reports before they are released. The news agencies transmit their reports at the same instant that USDA makes its data public.

The Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Service in June released its annual International Food Security Assessment (IFSA), an outlook for global food security for the coming decade. The report estimated that global food security would improve over the coming 10 years, with a decline in the number of food-insecure people from 782 million in 2018 to 446 million in 2028.

Based on a more accurate reporting process, the USDA estimated an error rate of 6.3 percent nationwide for SNAP in fiscal 2017, compared with the 3.66 percent rate reported in 2014. The error rate is a measure of how often benefits are either overpaid or underpaid.

A Trump administration plan to reorganize the federal government would include consolidating food stamps, now run by the USDA, and other social safety net programs at the Department of Health and Human Services, said Politico.

Last winter, the USDA gave balky farmers and ranchers five additional months to fill out their Census of Agriculture forms because of a lower than desired response rate. The last chance to participate is arriving for the census that provides the most comprehensive picture of the farm sector, said the USDA on Monday.

Agriculture research traditionally is the fuel for higher farm productivity, which indirectly benefits consumers. Two USDA economists say that in high-income countries, such as the United States, France and Australia, spending on agricultural research and development is seeing its first sustained drop in half a century, with implications for future farm output.

The Food for Peace program, created during the Cold War to alleviate hunger overseas, would see $1.7 billion in funding in the new fiscal year, a Senate Appropriations subcommittee decided on Tuesday, ignoring a White House proposal to mothball the program.

Five senators and two representatives introduced legislation this week that would reauthorize and expand the Outreach to Socially Disadvantaged and Veteran Farmers and Ranchers Program, the only USDA program tailored specifically toward minority and veteran producers.  

Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said Carmen Rottenberg will lead USDA's meat inspection agency, Richard Fordyce will head the Farm Service Agency, and Bruce Summers is the new chief of the Agricultural Marketing Service.

Searing drought in the central and southern Plains will result in the smallest winter wheat crop since 2002 and the second smallest in 47 years, said the USDA in its first estimate of the summer harvest.

Mindy Brashears, a professor of food safety and food microbiology at Texas Tech, is President Trump's choice for agriculture undersecretary, announced the White House. "Food safety is at the core of USDA's mission because it directly affects the health and well-being of millions of Americans every day," said Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue in describing Brashears as an excellent choice.

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.