Federal News
EU, Mexico to Speed up Trade Talks Amid Trump Fallout
ABC News | Posted on February 4, 2017The European Union will speed up talks with Mexico on a new trade agreement amid signals from U.S. President Donald Trump that he intends to renegotiate major international trade pacts including one with Mexico. EU and Mexico trade chiefs have agreed to hold negotiations on April 3-7 and June 26-29. They will also meet between rounds to push for further progress. EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom and Mexican Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo said in a statement that "we are witnessing the worrying rise of protectionism around the world. Side by side, as like-minded partners, we must now stand up for the idea of global, open cooperation." Trade between the two more than doubled between 2005 and 2015 from 26 billion euros to 53 billion euros ($28 billion-$57 billion), but their current trade pact dates from 2000.
Canada's Dollar Reaches Highest Level Since September
DTN | Posted on February 4, 2017Farm Credit Canada says to watch the loonie in 2017, as it "could easily have the largest impact of all possible trends and drivers on the profitability of Canadian agriculture and agribusiness throughout the year." While prudent advice, signs are pointing to the need to buckle up for what could be a wild ride in 2017. Opinions are varied over the next moves made by the new United States administration and the impacts to follow in the Canadian economy. Bank of Canada governor Stephen Poloz told an Edmonton audience on Tuesday that it is too soon to model how trade agreement changes will affect the country, while suggesting it will remain challenging even after the details are known.
Hawkes wins wetland case on remand from the U.S. Supreme Court
Pacific Legal Blog | Posted on February 2, 2017Hawkes Company is a family-owned business in Minnesota that sought to harvest peat moss, for landscaping, in nearby bogs. The Corps claimed jurisdiction over the property as regulated wetlands, even though a Corps reviewing officer found the Jurisdictional Determination invalid. This put Hawkes in an untenable position: Hawkes could (1) abandon all use of the land at great loss; (2) seek an unnecessary federal permit for a few hundred thousand dollars; or (3), proceed to use the land without federal approval subjecting Hawkes to fines of $37,500 a day and criminal prosecution. When Hawkes challenged the JD in court, the case was dismissed as unripe for review. But the Supreme Court disagreed. According to the Court, a Jurisdictional Determination is a binding legal decision subject to immediate judicial challenge. In yesterday’s decision, the Federal District Court of Minnesota ruled the Corps had gone too far and failed to provide site-specific evidence that the Hawkes property would have a significant effect on a downstream navigable water (90 miles away) as required by law. Therefore the property was not subject to federal regulation under the Clean Water Act, although it would be subject to state regulation.
Canada adds extra funds for key FAO work on food safety
FAO | Posted on January 31, 2017Canada today announced it will contribute an additional $1 million to international bodies that develop the standards for food safety and plant protection. Lawrence MacAulay, Canada's Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, told FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva of the decision while both leaders were in Berlin attending high-level meetings including Sunday's meeting of agriculture ministers from the G20 countries. The new investment will go towards the scientific and technical work of the Codex Alimentarius, which develops the standards for food safety, the International Plant Protection Convention, and the World Organisation for Animal Health for their efforts to promote a safe, fair and science-based trading environment.
No fast track for 2018 Farm Bill
Wisconsin State Farmer | Posted on January 31, 2017Don't expect any quick action on a Farm Bill that's due in 2018. That's the view of federal agricultural policy analysts who were panelists on a “Food Policy and Farm Bill” program at the 2017 Dairy Forum sponsored by the International Dairy Foods Association. Approving a new Farm Bill in 2017 would be “a heavy lift” and even doing so in 2018 could be “a long shot,” according to Krysta Harden, who was chief of staff for Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack during the Barack Obama administration. That players with many different interests and preferences would like to have a role in creating the next Farm Bill was pointed out by panelists Randy Russell of the Russell Group and by Dale Moore, an agriculture and food policy director for the American Farm Bureau Federation. Within the current budget parameters, Russell cited a commitment of $5.3 billion over five years to the peanut industry compared to $775 million over 10 years for the dairy sector. He added that the allocations for both sunflowers and canola are about equal to those for dairy. Harden noted that cotton growers are not happy with their treatment in the current Farm Bill. In addition to the conflicting interests of the agricultural sector commodity groups, there are also strong differences within the Congressional bodies, Moore observed. He noted that 60 votes will probably be needed in the Senate to approve a new Farm Bill. Russell, who was the chief for staff for the Secretary of Agriculture during the Ronald Reagan administration, pointed out that some 30 very conservative members of the House of Representatives are strongly opposed to current levels of spending. He noted that only 34 members of the House represent a district in which at least 50 percent of the population is rural.
Dairy Groups Raise Complaints
DTN | Posted on January 31, 2017A coalition of 17 American dairy organizations, farmers and milk processors have written governors in 25 states asking them to press Canada into halting a new dairy pricing strategy set to go into effect on Feb 1. The groups point to Canadian provincial policies for ingredient class milk prices that the groups state are displacing U.S. exports to Canada. Essentially, Canadian provinces created a new class of milk ingredients that was done largely as a strategy to reduce similar milk products from the U.S. The policy "is conservatively estimated at $150 million worth of ultra-filtered milk exports being lost by companies in Wisconsin and New York, which are highly reliant on their trade with Canada," Beginning Feb. 1, Canada will expand the different dairy products under the provincial rules and take the program national. Canadian dairy groups argue the new national ingredient strategy was needed to ensure the country's supply management system responds to changes in the market. The U.S. dairy groups argue Canada's new policy will "disrupt skim powder milk markets around the world by using the new program to dump excess milk powder on global markets." In writing 25 governors, the U.S. dairy groups and companies asked officials to "consider all tools at their disposal to ensure Canada understands the seriousness of the issue."
Federal judge considers ranchers' discrimination case
Las Cruces Sun News | Posted on January 31, 2017An attorney representing Hispanic ranchers told a federal judge that the U.S. Forest Service violated the law when deciding to limit grazing on historic land grants despite recognition decades ago by the government that the descendants of Spanish colonists have a unique relationship with the land that is integral to their heritage and traditional values. Simeon Herskovitz argued that the agency failed to consider the social, economic and cultural effects that would result from limiting grazing in a region where poverty is high and the fragile existence of the rural communities there depends on access to surrounding lands. He accused forest managers of making "naked assumptions" without collecting or reviewing any data to support their position. Herskovitz laid out his arguments during a daylong hearing before U.S. District Judge James Browning in case that has been stewing for years. Browning expects to issue a ruling next month.
Trump’s trade agenda is on a collision course with his rural voters’ economic interests
Vox | Posted on January 31, 2017Rural America has backed Republicans for decades, but it gave unusually strong support to Donald Trump’s 2016 candidacy, with Iowa scoring the biggest D-to-R shift of any state in the union. It’s interesting, then, that one of the segments of the business community with the biggest concern about Trump’s policies is agribusiness. This sector enjoys traditional Republican priorities like lax environmental regulation and eliminating the estate tax, but could suffer enormously from trade wars that Trump might initiate. One clear sign of that is a letter sent this week from a wide range of farm sector stakeholders, ranging from the North American Meat Institute to the American Soybean Association to the US Dry Bean Council urging Trump not to blow up NAFTA. Beyond the specifics of NAFTA, the objective economic interests of rural America are systematically opposed to those of Trump’s beloved Rust Belt manufacturing workers. The farm sector is a large net exporter that depends heavily on foreign trade to sustain income and employment. It will inevitably bear the brunt of any retaliatory measures imposed by foreign countries on the United States. The result is that Trump’s policy agenda is on a collision course with one of the bulwarks of his political support.
Poverty, Hunger, and US Agricultural Policy: Do Farm Programs Affect the Nutrition of Poor Americans?
American Enterprise Institute | Posted on January 30, 2017Farm subsidy programs have little impact on food consumption, food security, or nutrition in the United States, despite occasional claims to the contrary. The modern era of federal farm commodity subsidies began with the New Deal more than 80 years ago. Farm subsidies and related land retirements, market regulations, and trade policies have an array of small and offsetting impacts on farm commodity prices. When filtered through the supply chain, their impacts on retail prices and food consumption are surely tiny. We conclude that farm programs do not affect food prices in a direction that protects the poor, and the people whose incomes are most improved by farm policies are not the same people who are at risk of poverty and hunger.
Rogue Twitter accounts spring up to fight Donald Trump on climate change
The Washington Post | Posted on January 27, 2017What started as a gritty protest by a former Badlands National Park Service employee who wanted to give President Trump a piece of his mind snowballed overnight Tuesday and early Wednesday into a Twitter movement in support of climate change science. An anonymous group of people who claim to be National Park Service employees created an account using the agency’s official arrowhead logo as an avatar and unleashed on the Trump administration for muzzling federal workers, particularly those at the Environmental Protection Agency who have been barred from speaking to the press and public through social media.