Agriculture News
Northeast farmers paid following settlement $50M lawsuit
Observer Reporter | Posted on September 6, 2018Thousands of Northeast dairy farmers – including some from Pennsylvania – are receiving their share of a $50 million settlement, nearly nine years after the farmers filed a class-action lawsuit against a national dairy marketing cooperative.Dairy farmers of America this week paid an average of $4,000 to nearly 9,000 farms to settle a lawsuit that accused the marketing group of trying to drive down milk prices.The 2009 class-action lawsuit charged Dairy Farmers of America; its marketing arm, Dairy Marketing Services; and Dallas-based Dean Foods with working together to monopolize the market for raw milk in the Northeast.Dean Foods agreed to a separate $30 million settlement in 2011.
Trump’s Fight With Canada Over Nafta Faces New Hurdles
Bloomberg | Posted on September 6, 2018President Donald Trump’s effort to force Canada into signing on to a new Nafta on his terms is facing new hurdles thanks to growing opposition at home to his threat to proceed without the U.S.’s northern neighbor. Trump’s frustration spilled into the open over the weekend as he railed against Canada on Twitter -- as well as its many supporters in both political parties. The president has threatened to leave Canada out of a new trade deal already negotiated with Mexico, but without congressional support he lacks leverage to force Ottawa to make concessions.
Swine fever has made its way into China, home to half the world’s pigs.
The Guardian | Posted on September 6, 2018This is not the first time Europe has been struck by ASF. In 1957, it was introduced into Portugal, reportedly after infected airline food was fed as swill to pigs near Lisbon airport. The disease spread to Spain and France and took until the 1990s to eradicate through concerted surveillance and culling. In southern Spain, where ticks acted as an additional reservoir, old-fashioned farm buildings were destroyed and replaced with modern facilities to keep ticks out. “There was a major effort to eradicate it,” says Linda Dixon, a cell biologist who works on ASF at the UK’s Pirbright Institute.This time the spread has been far more rapid despite considerable biosecurity efforts. The current outbreak in central and eastern Europe began in January 2014, when cases were first reported in Lithuania, swiftly followed by outbreaks in Poland in February, and in Latvia and Estonia in June and September that year.
California Vineyards Struggle Amid Farmworker Shortage
Fortune | Posted on September 6, 2018The ongoing battle over immigration could hit wine lovers in the wallet as many California vineyards are struggling to find seasonal workers to assist with harvesting the 2018 crop. Wine makers face a perfect storm of problems regarding the issue: The ongoing battle about U.S. immigration policies and competition from other higher-paying, local industries, such as construction, which are helping the area recover from last year’s wildfires.
Corporate ag reports huge profits while farmers struggle to feed their families
The Hill | Posted on September 6, 2018All the talk around the farm bill is about the differences in proposals for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP — a conversation we need to have. But, there is little talk about why so many families in rural America, including farm families, need food stamps in the first place. We have a bona fide farm crisis on our hands. According to the USDA, farm income has dropped for a fifth straight year, often below costs, and will be the lowest in 12 years. The farmer’s share of the overall food dollar is the lowest since the statistic started 25 years ago.Prices are low: Corn and beans are at $3.15 and $8.27 a bushel respectively, virtually the same price as 1974. In the southern Midwest, we have a serious drought, the amount of quality hay is at catastrophic levels and producers are talking about selling off livestock. Farmers aren’t being paid, while corporate agribusinesses report huge profits. This has a cascading effect on rural America: When family farmers thrive, rural economies thrive — when family farms struggle, rural communities do too. President Trump’s trade fights are sending prices even lower. The USDA says it will give a one-time direct payment to producers that have lost export markets and buy millions of dollars’ worth of excess commodities to donate to feeding programs. But these actions won’t fix the bad policies that have created our depressed rural economies.
From The Dairy Crisis To Rising Interest Rates, An Agricultural Economist Answers
Forbes | Posted on September 6, 2018In face of the recent dairy price crisis, the focus has been on making the U.S. dairy support system more robust, with no real energy on the supply control side. Since dairy is increasingly a global market, it is hard to see a policy solution to this crisis. If low prices continue, that will reduce farmers' incentives to adopt new technologies, and over time demand might finally catch up with supply, but it could be a long hard slog to get there.
The Economic Benefits of Local Food Dollars to Workers, Farms and Communities
Choices magazine | Posted on September 6, 2018Overall, the articles summarized here show that local food producers spend proportionately more on labor, other variable expenses (including hand tools, supplies, and farm shop power equipment; other unrecorded expenses; and vehicle registration fees) and utilities than do commodity producers; moreover, as scale of production increases, labor’s share of variable costs also increases. An implication of these findings is that local food production may create jobs as well as stimulate proportionately larger spillover impacts on the local economy than nonlocal production. The results show that profitable local food producers exist across all sales classes and market channels, signaling there are viable business models for a variety of farms and ranches to pursue within this niche. Finally, analysis focusing on the most profitable producers sheds light on what types of business models enable producers to flourish in this market segment and provide guidance for future programming and policies.
The Evolution of the Local Brand, Policy Initiatives and Role of Direct Markets in the Agriculture Portfolio
Choices magazine | Posted on September 6, 2018One trend worth noting for local foods is that growth in some subsectors appears to be maturing, particularly in direct-to-consumer outlets. Despite a 5.5% increase in the number of farms utilizing direct-to-consumer marketing outlets between 2007 and 2012 observed in the Census of Agriculture, there was no change in overall sales as intermediated markets became a more significant channel for those marketing local (Low et al., 2015). Although much of the initial interest in local foods originally revolved around farm-fresh produce, a growing array of local food products that require some level of manufacturing (meats, salsas, baked goods, and fruit-based beverages) is appearing alongside farm products and may represent opportunities for growth since consumers value more convenient or artisanal offerings. The growing visibility, complexity, and programming targeted at local foods motivate this issue’s theme. In this issue, we explore the transformation of local food markets across several dimensions and consider how local food labels and framing, policy, and farm performance may all be influencing local food dynamics. In a subsequent, complementary issue, we will delve more into the consumer issues affecting this sector. “Local food”—much like “value-added agriculture”—is an umbrella term for this sector, so only varying consumer perceptions and a broad USDA definition for local foods exists. In their piece, Holcomb et al. provide a classification system of terms as a resource for this sector of the food economy. Terms and meanings in these markets are both emerging and evolving. They posit that a better taxonomy of local foods will better equip consumers, producers, government entities, NGOs, and land-grant universities to frame, implement, and identify gaps in marketing promotions, programming, and policy needs related to local food systems.
Mapping stress in agriculture lending
Kansas City Fed | Posted on September 6, 2018Repayment rates for farm loans have declined every quarter since the second quarter of 2013, suggesting heightened stress in agricultural lending. If repayment rates continue to decline—and the outlook for the agricultural sector remains downbeat—agricultural banks could become less able to lend to creditworthy farm borrowers. Thus, declining repayment rates could lead to adverse outcomes for agricultural banks, farmers, and the rural economies they serve. Cortney Cowley uses data from the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City’s Ag Credit Survey to model and map areas with the highest probability of stress in agricultural lending. She finds that the largest increase in stress over the past decade occurred in 2016. She also finds that lower crop revenues, lower off-farm income, lower farmland values, lower concentrations of farm earnings, and higher interest rates are associated with higher stress in agricultural lending.
Dairy farmers say denting supply management in NAFTA deal would be 'devastating'
Vancouver Courier | Posted on September 6, 2018Nearly 1,000 kilometres from Washington, where a team of top Canadian negotiators sit in 11th-hour NAFTA discussions, Peter Strebel works under a cloud of concern at the rural Quebec dairy farm his father founded in 1976. The Quebec milk producer is worried that rumblings that Canada may sacrifice part of the sacred cow of supply management as a concession in trade negotiations with the United States would “punish” the dairy industry, open the floodgates to American milk products and prompt thousands of farm closures north of the border. Nearly 1,000 kilometres from Washington, where a team of top Canadian negotiators sit in 11th-hour NAFTA discussions, Peter Strebel works under a cloud of concern at the rural Quebec dairy farm his father founded in 1976.The Quebec milk producer is worried that rumblings that Canada may sacrifice part of the sacred cow of supply management as a concession in trade negotiations with the United States would “punish” the dairy industry, open the floodgates to American milk products and prompt thousands of farm closures north of the border.Canadian dairy operates under a supply management system, in which farmers are protected from competition because the government blocks out foreign production with high tariffs and sets quotas to limit production and prevent market saturation. With traditional market forces removed, the government decides how much farmers are paid for their production, helping to keep farmers' incomes stable.The protectionist policy, a staple of Canadian agriculture for more than 40 years, has come under periodic attack from U.S. President Donald Trump.