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 […]