USDA

African-American farmers lost millions of acres of land across the South as a result of an obscure legal provision that is only now being corrected in state legislatures around the country, according to FERN’s latest story by Leah Douglas produced in partnership with The Nation magazine. (No Paywall)

Maine Rep. Chellie Pingree, with firsthand experience as an organic farmer, says the Trump administration’s proposals to cut USDA funding for organic agriculture programs “seem especially foolish and shortsighted” and that the integrity of the USDA “certified organic” seal must be protected.

In less than four months, USDA inspectors rejected 1.9 million pounds of fresh beef from Brazil, a worrisome 11 percent of shipments from that country during that time. Now Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue has suspended all Brazilian beef imports, saying, “My first priority is to protect American consumers.”

By far, Sonny Perdue had the latest starting date for any agriculture secretary in USDA history – 13 weeks after President Trump took office. Perdue lamented at a Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing that history is going to repeat itself with a long wait, likely running into the fall, for the rest of the team of executives that runs USDA.

The USDA's National Organic Program said it revoked the certification of a Turkish company because it exported soybeans certified as "organic" to the United States that had been treated with pesticides. The action came after the Washington Post last month revealed that significant imports of both corn and soybeans had been labeled organic when they were not.

With China and the United States trying to improve trade relations, White House press secretary Sean Spicer announced the publication of the USDA’s final details for beef exports to China, which have been barred since the first U.S. case of mad cow disease, in 2003.

One of the nation's best-selling brands of organic milk puts an oil derived from algae grown in a factory into some of its milk as a nutritional enhancement, says the Washington Post. "Rich in Omega-3 fatty acids, the oil allows Horizon to advertise health benefits and charge a higher price," the paper said.

Democratic lawmakers and farm activists criticized President Trump for his decision to withdraw from the Paris climate treaty, saying it would result in harsher conditions for agriculture in coming years. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue shrugged off climate change as inevitable and said USDA was "committed to digging ever deeper into research to develop better methods of agricultural production in that changing climate."

Some 29 Senate Democrats, including all of the party’s members on the Agriculture Committee, signed a letter to President Trump objecting to his proposals to scale back USDA rural economic development programs.

Just 65 percent of the U.S. corn crop was rated in good or excellent condition in the USDA’s first assessment of the year. That figure came in well below the 72 percent rating at the end of May 2016, when farmers were headed for a record-setting harvest.

The United States is headed for its fifth year in a row of lower-than-normal food inflation, with prices forecast to rise by a marginal 0.5 percent this year.

Sharply higher sales of soybean, cotton, and livestock products are leading a rebound in U.S. farm exports this year, said the USDA. With four months left in the fiscal year, it estimated exports at $137 billion, up nearly 6 percent from 2016 and reversing two years of declining sales.