Federal News
Senate minibus spending bill addresses ag needs
Feedstuffs | Posted on August 8, 2018On Wednesday, the Senate passed the minibus appropriations bill, which contains several important amendments addressing issues pertinent to agriculture. Besides funding for agriculture, the minibus also offers interior, financial and transportation funding. It also prohibits the closure of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Farm Service Agency (FSA) county offices and provides funding to hire additional FSA loan officers.On the research front, it provides $2.726 billion to support agricultural research conducted by the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) and the National Institute of Food & Agriculture. It also provides $405 million for the Agriculture & Food Research Initiative. It specifically provides $1 million in ARS funding for each of the following: the Pulse Crop Health Initiative, chronic wasting disease, sugar beets, alfalfa research and small grain genomics. It maintains funding at $3 million for UAS Precision Agriculture and $8.7 million for the U.S. Wheat & Barley Scab Initiative.Specifically, the bill continues funding for the Agriculture Risk Coverage pilot program to offer an alternate calculation method for crop payments when National Agricultural Statistics Service data are insufficient.Sens. Tammy Baldwin (D., Wis.) and Susan Collins (R., Maine) secured funding and bipartisan support to promote dairy business innovation activities included in the Dairy Business Innovation Act. It was debated on the Senate floor Wednesday to include a $7 million investment for dairy businesses in the fiscal 2019 agriculture appropriations bill. The amendment passed 83-15.
EU imports of US soy were up before agreement
Watt Ag Net | Posted on August 7, 2018EU imports of U.S. soybeans were already on the rise before an announcement in July that the EU would increase its purchase of U.S. soy. According to a report, the increase was due to falling prices in June, after China stopped buying U.S. soybeans as part of a trade rift between the two countries. In addition, EU imports from Brazil and Paraguay fell sharply, and U.S. exports to the EU increased more than 280 percent in the first five weeks of the 2018-19 marketing year, compared with the previous year.
Administration lifts GMO crop ban for U.S. wildlife refuges
Reuters | Posted on August 7, 2018The Trump administration has rescinded an Obama-era ban on the use of pesticides linked to declining bee populations and the cultivation of genetically modified crops in dozens of national wildlife refuges where farming is permitted. Environmentalists, who had sued to bring about the 2-year-old ban, said on Friday that lifting the restriction poses a grave threat to pollinating insects and other sensitive creatures relying on toxic-free habitats afforded by wildlife refuges.“Industrial agriculture has no place on refuges dedicated to wildlife conservation and protection of some of the most vital and vulnerable species,” said Jenny Keating, federal lands policy analyst for the group Defenders of Wildlife.Limited agricultural activity is authorized on some refuges by law, including cooperative agreements in which farmers are permitted to grow certain crops to produce more food or improve habitat for the wildlife there.The rollback, spelled out in a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service memo, ends a policy that had prohibited farmers on refuges from planting biotech crops - such as soybeans and corn - engineered to resist insect pests and weed-controlling herbicides.
The agriculture industry is losing its voice in American politics
Stratfor | Posted on August 7, 2018Over the past few decades, agribusiness contributions to politics have declined substantially. Lobbying spending by agribusiness as a percentage of total lobbying spending has decreased since 2008, even in election years. Contributions have also gotten slightly more partisan, with more and more contributions going to the Republican Party. Moreover, the composition of the vital, influential Farm Bill has shifted significantly since 2000; its main focus has become funding for food assistance programs rather than protections for farmers.
U.S. trade gap widened in June
Wall Street Journal | Posted on August 7, 2018The U.S. trade deficit expanded in June at the fastest rate since November 2016, underpinned by a stronger dollar and buoyant economic growth. The trade deficit in goods and services increased 7.3% in June from the previous month to a seasonally adjusted $46.35 billion, the Commerce Department said Friday. Exports fell 0.7% from May, while imports into the U.S. increased 0.6% on the month. The data confirmed economists’ expectations that a narrowing trade deficit earlier this year was likely to reverse, despite a renewed focus on trade policy from President Trump. Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal had expected an even wider gap of $46.6 billion in June. “We look for the trade deficit to widen modestly ahead as export growth slows on the heels of cooler global momentum while imports remain well-supported by fiscal stimulus and solid domestic demand,” Oxford Economics’ Gregory Daco and Oren Klachkin wrote in a note to clients Friday.
Farm groups go on anti-tariff blitz after Trump offers trade aid
Politico | Posted on August 2, 2018arm groups are going on the offensive with a multimillion-dollar advertising and advocacy campaign against President Donald Trump’s tariffs just days after the administration rolled out a $12 billion bailout for farmers harmed by a mounting trade war. The launch of the campaign also comes as Trump is due Thursday in Iowa and Illinois, where he is likely to reassure farmers growing increasingly anxious over trade retaliation that has targeted soybeans, pork and other major farm commodities.
The casualties of Trump’s trade war
High Country News | Posted on August 2, 2018The story of the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company in Pueblo, Colorado, is a classic tale of American industry. It was founded in the late 19th century, and its mines, forges and quarries grew into a company of 15,000 people and the largest steel mill in the West. Yet even this behemoth, once part of the Rockefeller empire, could not endure. When the Reagan administration toppled barriers to free trade in the 1980s, CF&I bowed to foreign competition. It declared bankruptcy in 1990, almost a century after its founding, only to reboot as a shadow of its former self, the Rocky Mountain Steel Mill. When President Donald Trump levied tariffs this spring on imported steel and aluminum and then picked a trade war with China, he was hoping to throw a lifeline to iconic American companies like Rocky Mountain. His protectionist policies may help that particular mill, but in today’s economy, in which “local” industries are so often inextricably entangled with global supply chains, Trump’s tariffs and the resulting blowback are already hurting a lot of other Westerners. Theoretically, tariffs help U.S. companies by slapping a tax on imported goods so that they are no longer cheaper than domestic ones. Retailers are then more likely to purchase domestic goods, thereby supporting U.S. manufacturers. Yet this false sense of triumph relies on a simplistic worldview, in which shipping containers full of imported products flood American ports and then return empty to their points of origin. That’s not the case. In fact, goods move back and forth across a complex — sometimes illogical — global web of markets. Perhaps those who miss out on the aid can take some comfort in knowing that there are some winners in this scuffle. One of them is none other than Rocky Mountain Steel, which will benefit from the tariffs slapped on foreign competitors. There’s just one catch: The steel mill today is a wholly owned subsidiary of Evraz — a Russian company. One of its top shareholders is Roman Abramovich, a Russian oligarch who has close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin — and allegedly gave him a $35 million yacht. Abramovich is also chummy with Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, and son-in-law, Jared Kushner. “America First,” indeed.
Imperiled wildlife are caught in a political tug-of-war
High Country News | Posted on August 2, 2018As temperatures climb to triple digits and fires rage from California to Colorado, Western lawmakers and the Trump administration are turning up the heat on the Endangered Species Act. On July 12, the conservative Western Congressional Caucus, which was founded to “fight federal overreach” and advocates for extractive industries, introduced a nine bill ESA reform package. And in a separate move, the Trump administration is proposing to change how federal agencies implement the law. A common thread in the bills is a push to give more authority to the Interior Secretary and states. The proposed rule changes dial back federal agencies’ ability to pursue policies that hamper development. Taken together, these actions limit the creation and enforcement of endangered species protections while opening up new avenues of influence for special interests.
Opinion: Trumps $12 billion PR stunt
Daily Yonder | Posted on August 2, 2018Despite strong continued support for President Trump in rural America, farmers fear they will bear the brunt of the retaliatory tariffs from the president’s trade war. Farm country can ill afford it: In February, the U.S. Department of Agriculture predicted 2018 crop profits would hit a 12-year low. Dairy farmers’ prices have fallen 30% in two years, while pork producers have seen a price drop of roughly $20 per head. Overall farm incomes are down nearly 50% from 2013. Long before the trade war began, I and many other farmers feared we were in a farm crisis as bad as that of the 1980s. Now we know it will be even worse. we have a new $12 billion emergency aid package for farmers to ease the sting of the tariffs, clearly designed to keep his rural base firmly behind him. But will it actually solve farmers’ problems? I doubt it. Twelve billion dollars is a lot of money, but spread across all the major agricultural commodities, it will be a drop in the bucket. Details on how the money will be dispersed are still hazy, but I suspect most of it will not find its way into the pockets of struggling farmers.
AFIA applauds passage of bill to improve process for new animal drug approval
AFIA | Posted on August 2, 2018he American Feed Industry Association commends Congress for sending a bill to the president this week for signature - the Animal Drug and Animal Generic Drug User Fee Amendments of 2018 (H.R. 5554). This bipartisan legislation will continue providing the necessary resources to support the Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Veterinary Medicine with completing more expeditious reviews of new animal drugs and improving FDA’s review and approval process for animal food ingredients.