Economic recovery depends on ‘the path of the virus’ — Fed official The U.S. recovery from the pandemic will depend in part on success in managing the coronavirus through steps such as therapeutics and a vaccine, the president of the Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank told an agribusiness conference on Monday. Also at the meeting, […]
Consumers will pay higher meat prices through 2020 Grocery store prices for meat are declining after their springtime coronavirus surge, but more slowly than expected, meaning that shoppers will pay noticeably more at the meat counter this year than in 2019, said USDA economists. In the monthly Food Price Outlook, the USDA forecast meat prices […]
Perdue unwilling to use SNAP to fullest during pandemic, says think tank Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue shows more enthusiasm for cutting SNAP enrollment than in making full use of food stamps to alleviate hunger during the pandemic, said the think tank Center for American Progress (CAP) on Thursday. SNAP enrollment has rocketed to 43 million, […]
Very large farms collect one-fifth of USDA’s coronavirus payments The average USDA coronavirus relief payment to farmers is less than $ 16,000 but the biggest operators are getting payments that are 22-times larger, said an environmental group on Tuesday in questioning the fairness of the $ 10 billion program. Meanwhile, lawmakers agreed to give more […]
Ethanol backers prod administration to ‘finish the job’ A week after the EPA denied 54 retroactive waivers from the ethanol mandate, farm and biofuel groups urged the Trump administration on Wednesday to take additional steps to assure ethanol’s role in the U.S. fuel supply. Their checklist included release of the Renewable Fuel Standard for 2021 […]
Federal funding barrier: Billions more for farmers President Trump wants a pre-election slush fund of up to $ 30 billion at USDA that he can spend with no strings attached, said the senior Democrat on the Senate Agriculture Committee on Monday, as agricultural aid blossomed into a potential roadblock for a government funding bill. Republicans […]
Trump’s trade and coronavirus aid to agriculture could hit $ 50 billion With its new offer of $ 14 billion in coronavirus relief, the Trump administration could spend $ 50 billion — quadruple the cost of the auto industry bailout — in less than three years to buffer the impact of trade war and pandemic […]
Trump announces $ 13 billion in additional coronavirus aid to farmers During a re-election rally in rural Wisconsin on Thursday, President Trump announced an additional $ 13 billion in coronavirus relief for U.S. farmers and ranchers, more than doubling assistance to the sector. The money will be available beginning next week, said the president. While […]
In ‘final report card,’ world fails to meet biodiversity goals, says UN In 2010, global leaders set 20 goals for preserving biodiversity worldwide in the decade ahead. Today, none of the targets has been met fully and only six are even partially achieved, said the United Nations in “a final report card” on the effort. […]
Coronavirus requires a ‘massive response,’ Pelosi tells the NFU Six months into the pandemic, America needs a “massive response” to the coronavirus to keep the economy running, said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Tuesday speaking to the National Farmers Union. “You can’t have a skinny deal,” said Pelosi. Rural poverty rate is 3.3 points higher […]
In farm-state victory, EPA denies retro-exemptions from biofuel mandate The EPA rejected more than four dozen requests by small petroleum refiners for retroactive exemptions from the Renewable Fuel Standard, said agency chief Andrew Wheeler on Monday in a decision that potentially expands the sale of corn-based ethanol. Half-a-billion dollars in additional trade-war payments Big farmers […]
Derecho blows away expectations of a record-setting U.S. corn crop The windstorm that blasted across Iowa — “basically a 40 mile-wide tornado,” in the words of Gov. Kim Reynolds — wiped out 9 percent of the crop in the nation’s No. 1 corn state and obliterated the chances for a record-large corn harvest nationwide, said […]
Siding with farmers, Trump tells EPA to deny retroactive biofuel waiver requests With an eye toward shoring up Farm Belt support less than two months before the election, President Trump directed the EPA to deny dozens of oil refiner requests for retroactive waivers from U.S. biofuel laws, Reuters reported on Wednesday. TODAY’S QUICK HITS Glowing […]
Is America’s food supply safe from terrorist attacks? No. The United States spends more than $ 1 billion every year to keep America’s food supply safe, but even without terrorism, food-borne diseases cause about 5,000 deaths and 325,000 hospitalizations each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Former Secretary of Health […]
Administration prepares another multibillion-dollar aid package for agriculture The USDA aims to release a new version of its coronavirus relief program for farmers and ranchers in the next couple of weeks, said Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue on Wednesday, with at least $ 14 billion available. President Trump has suggested the new program will boost coronavirus […]
More growers, less hemp in industry slowed by uncertainty, pandemic The first year of nationwide cultivation of industrial hemp has been a mixture of retrenchment and optimism for growth in the longer term. “The industry isn’t going to go away,” said hemp entrepreneur Morris Beegle on Thursday. “It’s going to become more of a whole-plant […]