USDA
USDA earmarks $2 million to improve Lake Erie water quality
Farmers in Ohio can get up to $2 million in cost-share money to reduce run-off into Lake Erie, said USDA, acting only weeks after algae blooms in the lake disrupted the water supply for Toledo.
On the horizon, a period of stable farmland prices?
Farmland values soared during the agricultural boom that began in 2006, fueled by high commodity prices and low interest rates that made it easier to buy land.
A honey of a regulation
The government set a 30-day comment period "on how a federal standard of identity for honey would be in the interest of consumers, the honey industry and U.S. agriculture."
USDA proposes broader survey of organic production
USDA, in a resubmission to the Federal Register, proposed to expand the scope of its Organic Production Survey and to make responses to its questions mandatory.
Cost of raising a child – $37 a day for 18 years
A middle-income family will spend an average $37 a day to raise a child from birth to age 18, according to government figures on food, housing, health care, child care, education and other expenses.
Did farmers plant fewer corn and soy acres than thought?
Analysts are chewing over the arcane Crop Acreage Data page posted by USDA in hopes of a clearer picture of this fall's corn and soybean harvests.
Hispanics move from farm labor to farm owner
In a story that puts a face on the Census of Agriculture statistic about the increase in Hispanic farmers, the New York Times says, "They have classic American bootstrap stories of grit, determination and a little bit of luck.
Main Street begins to feel the pinch of lower farm income
Farmers and ranchers are tightening their purse strings and spending less in town, say farm bankers across the Farm Belt. With farm income down due to sharply lower commodity prices, cutbacks are expected to continue into the fall at a minimum.
USDA says STAX will be offered for 2015 cotton crop
The new subsidy STAX will be available to upland cotton growers beginning with the 2015 crop, said USDA's Risk Management Agency in a bulletin to insurers and its field offices.
Rice is likeliest crop to trigger U.S. subsidy this year
Commodity prices are down sharply this year for major crops yet wheat and soybeans may not trigger subsidies under the new farm law, says economist Carl Zulauf of Ohio State University in a blog.
More bushels in the bin, fewer bucks in the bank
Despite record-setting corn and soybean crops and an upturn in wheat production, the crops are worth 10 percent less than 2013's output due to sharply lower farm-gate prices. Corn, wheat and soybeans are the three most widely planted crops in the nation - covering 360,000 square miles this year - and will have a combined value of $107 billion at the farm gate, based on USDA estimates of season-average prices, compared to...
Fewer cattle will mean fewer seats on check-off board
The board that oversees the beef check-off program would lose three seats under a reapportionment proposed by USDA in the Federal Register.
High ratings ahead of USDA’s first estimate of fall harvest
Traders expect USDA to forecast record crops today - 14.25 billion bushels of corn and 3.82 billion bushels of soybeans - in its first estimate of the fall harvest only a few weeks away.
Retired military brass to work against school lunch waiver
Mission: Readiness, composed of retired military officers, plans to lobby lawmakers against a school lunch waiver when Congress re-convenes after Labor Day, says Politico.
The U.S. crop picture: Record fall harvests, huge surpluses
U.S. farmers are headed for record-breaking harvests this fall, so large that corn and soybean surpluses will be the largest in years, analysts say in surveys ahead of the Aug 12 crop report.
Brazil looks for larger ag sales to Russia
The Russian ban on food and ag products from Western nations including the United States is likely to mean more business for Brazil, says Reuters.
USDA moving deliberatively on undersecretary for trade
USDA is giving a thorough examination of how to reorganize its international trade functions, including creation of a new senior-level position, undersecretary for trade and foreign agricultural affairs, said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack during a teleconference.
Environmental review backs approval of 2,4-D crops, says USDA
USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service says its final environmental impact statement (EIS) for corn and soybeans genetically modified by Dow AgroSciences to tolerate herbicides including 2,4-D "affirms [our] preferred alternative to fully deregulate these new GE crops."