President Joe Biden is due today to release his proposed budget for fiscal 2025, even though lawmakers are only halfway finished with finalizing their appropriations bills for FY24.
Biden on Saturday signed into law a package of six FY24 spending bills, averting a partial government shutdown. Those six bills include funding for USDA, EPA, and the Interior and Transportation departments among others. The remaining six bills must be enacted by the end of next week.
Keep in mind: Biden’s FY24 budget included big increases in climate-related spending and agricultural research funding that had no chance in the GOP-controlled House. The budget also included a proposal to make permanent a lapsed $5-an-acre subsidy program for cover crops.
Also today: Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack headlines the annual convention of the National Farmers Union in Scottsdale, Arizona. According to a USDA advisory, Vilsack will be announcing new funding and actions “to deliver more and better choices for farmers and consumers and enhance transparency and competition.”
For more on this week’s D.C. agenda, read our Washington Week Ahead
USDA: Rural-urban mortality gap widening
Rural residents are increasingly more likely to die of natural causes than people who live in urban areas. That’s the finding of a study by USDA’s Economic Research Service.
The difference in age-adjusted natural-cause mortality rates grew from being 6% higher in rural areas to 20% higher in rural regions between 1999 and 2019, the USDA economists found. The gap is especially pronounced in people ages 25 to 54, which is considered prime working age. In that group, the natural-cause mortality rate was 43% higher in rural areas in 2019, up from a gap of just 6% in 1999.
The study also found that the more rural an area was, the more the mortality rate grew over those 20 years.
Take note: Hispanic males and females had the smallest rural-urban gap in mortality rates. Non-Hispanic whites saw the biggest increase in mortality rates in rural areas in comparison to cities. Across all regions of the country, the biggest increases in prime working-age mortality rates were in rural women.
House Conservatives oppose EATS Act
Ten Republican House members on Friday urged House Agriculture Committee Chair Glenn “GT” Thompson, R-Pa., to keep the Ending Agricultural Trade Suppression (EATS) Act out of the farm bill.
The letter, whose signers include some members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, highlights divisions within the GOP over the EATS Act, which is meant to prevent states from enacting their own laws prohibiting the sale of ag products. Last year, the Supreme Court upheld California’s Prop 12, which bans the sale of meat from sows confined in gestation crates, sparking fears that other states would copy the legislation.
The 10 Republicans called the bill a “veiled attempt by foreign-owned corporations to subvert the will of American voters,” pointing to support for it from the pork giant Smithfield Foods, which is owned by the China-based WH Group.
“Rather than work against the interests of American farmers and abandon long-held principles of federalism, Congress should focus on reducing Chinese influence on American production agriculture,” they wrote. “We recommend you start with the pig industry, given the extraordinary control exerted by Beijing."
The letter’s signers include GOP Reps. Anna Paulina Luna, Byron Donalds and Matt Gaetz of Florida; Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey; Andy Biggs of Arizona; Nancy Mace of South Carolina; Matt Rosendale of Montana; Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia; Tim Burchett of Tennessee; and Bob Good of Virginia.
More than 200 House and Senate Democrats sent a similar letter in August to Thompson and House Ag Ranking Member David Scott.
Saudi farm no longer pumping groundwater in Arizona
A farm owned by a Saudi Arabian dairy company is no longer pumping water in Arizona’s Butler Valley, Gov. Katie Hobbs and the Arizona Land Department announced.
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The company, Fondomonte, was growing alfalfa to feed dairy cows in Saudi Arabia, which banned the growing of alfalfa in 2018 amid a drought.
The state has terminated leases held by the company and has said it won’t renew them. “Fondomonte is no longer irrigating on any of its Butler Valley leases,” Hobbs’ office said in a news release. “Visual inspections also confirmed Fondomonte has begun taking steps to vacate the property.”
The company’s operations had focused attention on Arizona’s practice of leasing state trust lands that are a source of precious groundwater.
USDA proposes update to organic standards for mushrooms, pet food
USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service is unveiling new proposed standards today for organic mushrooms and organic pet food, two products the agency says are subject to "inconsistent certification and enforcement practices” under current rules.
The agency, in a Federal Register Notice, called current organic regulations an “imperfect fit” for both products.
Mushrooms, for instance, are currently evaluated under crop production standards, even though they have different nutrient and sunlight requirements than plants. Some mushroom growers are currently required to use organic inputs under current rules, while others aren’t, the notice says.
Similarly, pet food is currently evaluated under livestock feed standards, which bar the use of slaughter byproducts like liver and poultry meal. Federal and state regulations, however, require set levels of protein in pet foods, which has led conventional pet food makers to use these ingredients to make up around 23% of the composition of their products, according to the notice.
The agency is accepting comments on the proposed rule through May 10.
