Missed some agricultural news this week? Here are seven stories to catch you up.- Farm Progress A new form of African swine fever is circulating in China and it’s been linked to illicit vaccines. More than 1,000 sows have been infected on farms owned by New Hope Liuhe, China’s fourth-largest pork producer. These strains don’t […]
Voluntary mitigation is agriculture’s preference on climate change The incoming chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee said she will pursue “voluntary, producer-led” solutions, such as carbon markets, for agriculture’s contribution to fighting climate change, with the USDA providing expert advice to producers. Sen. Debbie Stabenow also said the USDA could need additional funding to pay […]
Ag role in climate mitigation: Net-zero emissions Before signing an executive order on fighting climate change, President Biden said on Wednesday that mitigation efforts would include net-zero emissions of greenhouse gases by the agricultural sector, now responsible for 10 percent of U.S. emissions. “We see farmers making American agriculture first in the world to achieve […]
Farmers are worried about climate change but skeptical of carbon markets Farmers in the largest corn-growing state are increasingly concerned about the potential impact of climate change on their operations but also dubious of carbon markets that would pay them to sequester carbon in the soil, according to the annual Iowa Farm and Rural Life […]
Vilsack confirmation is slowed by Senate fight over rules The Senate scheduled confirmation hearings for half a dozen of President Biden’s cabinet nominees this week but Tom Vilsack, seeking to become agriculture secretary for the second time, was not among them. The Agriculture Committee cannot consider his nomination until Senate Republicans and Democrats agree on […]
Non-family farms take larger share of U.S. land and production America may still be a land of family farms — 96 percent of the 2 million farms in the country are owned by families, according to a new USDA report on farm types. Yet there are more and more non-family farms and they account for […]
With new Covid plan, Biden calls for OSHA to update workplace safety protections The nation’s top workplace safety enforcer, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, will explore issuing enforceable workplace safety standards to protect workers from the spread of Covid-19 as part of President Joe Biden’s new pandemic strategy. Labor advocates and congressional Democrats have […]
Biden proposes legal status, path to citizenship for undocumented farmworkers The estimated 1.25 million undocumented farmworkers in the United States would immediately gain legal status under the immigration reform bill unveiled by President Joe Biden on Wednesday, his first day in office. If passed, the bill would make the farmworkers eligible for green cards and, […]
Agriculture must be part of climate change negotiations, says Farm Bureau Although blamed for 10 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, agriculture has a “great track record” through land stewardship and biofuels in mitigating climate change, says Zippy Duvall, president of the American Farm Bureau Federation, in looking ahead to the Biden administration. “We must […]
Big poultry processor to pay $ 75 million to resolve antitrust lawsuit Three months after a plea agreement with the government that included a $ 110.5 million fine, Pilgrim’s Pride, the second-largest U.S. poultry processor, said on Monday it would pay $ 75 million to settle a class-action lawsuit by its customers. Farm labor reform […]
Over FDA objections, Trump administration says USDA can regulate GE livestock The Trump administration, in a move sought by the hog industry, pushed through an interdepartmental memorandum before leaving office that allows the USDA to regulate food-bearing GE livestock. FDA commissioner Stephen Hahn publicly objected on Tuesday and said his agency “has no intention of […]
Highest corn and soybean prices since commodity boom, says USDA U.S. farmers, who harvested some of their largest corn and soybean crops ever last fall, will reap the highest season-average prices for the crops since the heady days of the commodity boom that ended in worldwide surpluses seven years ago, said the government on Tuesday. […]
After refusing to overturn election, five House ag panelists oppose impeachment Although they defied President Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, five Republicans on the House Agriculture Committee voted on Wednesday against impeaching Trump for inciting the deadly mob attack on the Capitol last week. They said that impeachment was divisive and hasty, […]
iden chooses Virginia ag commissioner for deputy secretary at USDA A day before his inauguration, President-elect Biden selected Jewel Bronaugh, the Virginia state agriculture commissioner, as his nominee for deputy agriculture secretary, the No. 2 post at USDA. Bronaugh would be the first Black deputy secretary at USDA. After two years of work, USDA publishes […]
Farm sector rebounding but may need more aid, says Duvall The farm economy, battered since 2018 by a trade war and a pandemic, is rallying, though it is too early to declare a return to prosperity, said the president of the largest U.S. farm organization on Thursday, reserving judgment on whether more stopgap federal aid […]
(AG Insider) Workers in food distribution, production, and logistics who are employed by temporary staffing agencies and other subcontractors should be prioritized for early access to the Covid-19 vaccine alongside other food system workers, argues a new report focused on the Chicago labor force. States are generally planning to allocate the vaccine to agricultural, grocery, […]