USDA
USDA removes reports on animal treatment from agency website
Citing privacy laws, the USDA removed animal-welfare inspection reports, enforcement records and other material about treatment of animals from its website, reported The Associated Press. The Humane Society of the United States said USDA has "given cover to people who neglect or harm animals and get cited by USDA inspectors."
What government spends the most on ag research?
The world's largest farm exporter and a leader in agricultural innovation, the United States, has been supplanted by China, by a 2-to-1 margin, in terms of public funding for agricultural research and development. Chinese ascendancy came in part due to a decline in U.S. funding, which "may have negative implication for agricultural productivity" when dealing with new pests and diseases and climate change, say three USDA economists.
Trump’s two-for-one plan to weed out regulations
Federal agencies are under orders from President Donald Trump, who campaigned against bureaucratic red tape and its burden on businesses, to identify at least two existing regulations for elimination every time they issue a new regulation. The USDA had no comment on which rules it might drop.
USDA nominee Sonny Perdue begins Capitol Hill visits
The White House has yet to send the formal nomination documents to the Senate but President Donald Trump's nominee for agriculture secretary, former Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue, is meeting senators this week. The courtesy calls are a combination of get-acquainted sessions and a chance for the nominee to quell any doubts a senator might have. There is no confirmation hearing scheduled yet, says a Senate Agriculture Committee spokeswoman.
Who is running USDA while the Trump team arrives?
The headlines go to the president's appointee for agriculture secretary — this year, President Trump's selection of former Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue. But the Agriculture Department has approximately 400 executive jobs, the great majority of them filled by the appointee. Michael Young, the USDA budget director, is the top officer at USDA for the moment, awaiting Senate confirmation of the new secretary.
USDA will have one voice – Trump’s – when it answers policy questions
From now on, a cadre of Trump transition officials will decide key Agriculture Department actions, from budget and regulations to press releases and statements of policy, says a memo that routes major issues through the headquarters. The man temporarily in charge of USDA, career civil servant Michael Young, said the memo is similar to one issued in the first days of the Obama administration and is intended to assure a consistent message from a far-flung department.
Grassley pushes for Iowan in senior USDA post
Southerners and Westerners don't appreciate the family farming tradition as highly as Midwesterners, said Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, in promoting Bill Northey, his state's agriculture secretary, for a top job at USDA such as deputy secretary or undersecretary. Former Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue is President Donald Trump's choice for agriculture secretary.
A freeze on regulations before Trump team settles in at USDA
Within hours of taking office, the Trump administration put a freeze on federal regulations that could include the fair-play rules on livestock marketing issued last month and animal-welfare rules for organic farms issued last week. The new administration will have its first full workday of control at USDA today, with Sam Clovis, a senior adviser during the presidential campaign, as the top Trump official until the Senate confirms Sonny Perdue as agriculture secretary.
USDA says it will change GE regulation approach, include genome-edited crops
The Agriculture Department will unveil today its proposal to update its regulatory framework of biotechnology. The plan is designed to speed up development of GE plants that do not pose a plant pest or weed risk, and to cover plants created through genome-editing techniques, such as CRISPR, if they pose plant pest or noxious-weed risk. At present, GE plants produced without the use of genetic sequences from plant pests — the traditional method of genetic modification — are not subject to federal biotechnology rules.
Conventional agriculture wants to overturn organic livestock rule
The National Pork Producers Council, representing conventional agriculture, called on Congress and the incoming Trump administration to overturn a new USDA animal-welfare rule for organic farms, a small part of U.S. food production. House Agriculture Committee chairman Michael Conaway said he hoped Trump officials "will immediately withdraw this rule but stand ready with my colleagues on the Hill to roll back the regulation if necessary."
Activists, farm groups try to weave their goals into Perdue’s agenda at USDA
New York businessman Donald Trump, who becomes president today, said he expects his nominee for agriculture secretary, Sonny Perdue, to accomplish great things at USDA. Farm groups, antihunger activists and the food movement have a formula for success for Perdue: Do things our way.
When USDA asks for info, fewer farmers answer
The Agriculture Department faces a vexing problem: Its crop reports can move markets but fewer and fewer farmers are taking part in the surveys that assure the USDA estimates are accurate. "From response rates of 80-85 percent in the early 1990s, rates have fallen below 60 percent in some cases," write USDA chief economist Robert Johansson and Mississippi State University economist Keith Coble.
Inauguration at hand, Trump to announce Perdue for USDA chief
In the end, President-elect Donald Trump selected Sonny Perdue, the first person he interviewed for the job, to be agriculture secretary, filling the last vacancy in his cabinet. Trump was to announce the selection of Perdue, the first Republican elected governor of Georgia since Reconstruction, as early as today, transition officials told multiple news organizations.
Inauguration nears without nominee for agriculture secretary
Like other farm leaders, Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley says he's at a loss to explain why President-elect Donald Trump has waited so long to name his nominee for agriculture secretary. Trump "has met with numerous people," Grassley told reporters, so "you can't say he has ignored" the position although the long wait has inspired grumbling, and now rumors, in farm country.
Vilsack departure puts spotlight on empty chair at USDA
Farmers and other rural voters were instrumental in putting Donald Trump in the White House, but the president-elect, four days away from inauguration, has yet to return the favor at USDA. Democrat Tom Vilsack, the longest-serving agriculture secretary in half a century, underlined the absence of a Trump nominee to head USDA by leaving the job a week before the change of administration.
In an advance for organic checkoff, USDA asks for public comments
After a year and a half of internal review, the USDA will ask for public comment on an industry proposal to create a checkoff program for organic products. It is a significant advance for what would be the first research-and-promotion program to apply to a mode of production rather than a commodity. The Organic Trade Association (OTA), the sponsor of the checkoff, says it would raise more than $30 million a year to help U.S. producers meet the burgeoning demand for organic goods.
USDA is last cabinet department waiting for Trump to name its leader
Backers say President-elect Donald Trump is conducting a thorough search for the next agriculture secretary although the search, the longest since 1933, is creating anxiety in farm country and could mean a late start for the Trump ag agenda. Agriculture is the last department without a Trump nominee now that the president-elect announced his choice for secretary of veterans affairs.
A late start for Trump nominee at USDA may not matter
The agricultural hallmark of the Trump administration, the 2018 farm bill, will be written by Congress for the most part, said Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, so it doesn't matter that Trump will take office without a hand-picked leader at the Agriculture Department. "I don't think it's got much to do ... with getting the Trump program for agriculture moving," Grassley told reporters.
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.