Perdue demurs at cabinet sideline of Trump
While the top Democrats in Congress threatened to impeach President Trump for the second time, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said on Thursday that he was not part of any discussions among cabinet members to sideline Trump by declaring him unfit to do his job. “Nor do I expect to have any” part in such talk, said Perdue during a trip to Georgia.
Tariff-rate quotas are more likely to stay than be negotiated away
The Uruguay Round of trade negotiations, concluded in 1994, created tariff-rate quotas for agriculture with the expectation that they would be a stepping stone to freer trade. Instead, most of those TRQs are still in place and new WTO members have added 43 more, says a report by three USDA researchers.
Today’s Quick Hits
Trump climate cuts worse that thought: The Biden transition team says the Trump administration, through budget cuts, staff reductions, and efforts to expand oil drilling and logging, has done more damage to the government’s ability to act on climate change than they initially thought. (Scientific American)
Covid on rise in food system: Cases of Covid-19 continue to grow in the new year, and as of midday Thursday, some 80,000 food system workers had been infected by the coronavirus and at least 352 had died. (FERN)
Impossible Foods drops prices again: For the second time in a year, Impossible Foods, the maker of plant-based protein products, cut its prices by 15 percent for food service distributors, part of a longer campaign to achieve price parity with meat. (Food Dive)
Income nosedive at CHS: The nation’s largest agribusiness cooperative, CHS Inc., said that net income plunged to $ 69.7 million in the first quarter of its fiscal year, ended last Nov. 30, down from $ 177.9 million in the same period a year ago. (CHS)
Urban ag panel needs members: Nominations are due by March 5 for the government’s newly created 12-person advisory committee on urban agriculture that will support USDA efforts to encourage local food production in urban areas. (USDA)