As Washington prepares for a big week in agriculture, with review of the North American trade deal, farm labor legislation and one of USDA’s biggest reports of the year all on tap, the fragile ceasefire between Washington and Tehran was tested this weekend.
As the U.S. and Iran traded strikes in the Middle East, President Donald Trump on Saturday threatened to return to full military force if violations of the countries’ temporary peace deal continue. Iran’s Assembly of Experts, an advisory group, is recommending the Strait of Hormuz, a global fuel and fertilizer shipment chokepoint, be closed again if Israel doesn’t stop operations in Lebanon, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The military blows come as American farm products are increasingly getting pulled into the diplomatic mix. Trump last week said the U.S. would soon start using unfrozen Iranian funds to purchase wheat, corn and soybeans for Iran.
It’s “another reminder that the Trump administration has shown a willingness to insert agriculture into nearly every major trade and geopolitical negotiation,” No Bull Ag analyst Susan Stroud said in a note to clients this weekend.
Meanwhile, markets are “increasingly desensitized to each new Middle East headline as the `ceasefire’ continued to look anything but” this past weekend, Stroud said.
Fuel and fertilizer prices have dropped recently with expectations that the strait will continue to reopen and eventually get back to prewar traffic.
U.S. farmers will get new hints on the state of domestic crop supplies this year as the Agriculture Department on Tuesday releases grain and soybean acreage estimates.
CFAA welcomes new RVOs, looks for more growth in future
EPA’s new mandates for biomass-based diesel under the Renewable Fuel Standard are welcome, but the soybean crush industry also needs a signal from the agency on whether to keep expanding, Clean Fuels Alliance America CEO Donnell Rehagen says.
Speaking on Agri-Pulse Open Mic, Rehagen notes with appreciation EPA’s increase of the RVO for biomass-based diesel from 3.35 billion gallons last year to 5.4 billion in 2026, “a huge jump.” That number grows to 5.7 billion gallons in 2027.
But he also says CFAA has been “politely” tapping on the door of EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin in hopes of getting higher RVOs in the years following. If the market responds favorably to the current RVOs, “I think the conversations with EPA are made a little bit easier to try to ask for … some level of growth in 2028 and beyond,” he says.
“Your soybean crushers, they definitely need to see that signal. The growers want to see that same signal, of course, but the big investment is probably going to have to come in soybean crush, canola processing,” he says. “It's a two-, three-, four- ... year process to go from, ‘we want to build a crush plant’ to ‘here we are, opening the gates.’”
In the nearer term: Rehagen also tells Agri-Pulse it’s critical the Trump administration work fast to finish up final rules for the clean fuel production tax credit, known as 45Z, so farmers can take full advantage of the incentive for greater U.S. production of home-grown biofuels next year.
Specifically, since USDA last week issued rules and a carbon intensity calculator that the ag sector hopes are folded into a final 45Z framework, the Treasury and Energy departments need to finish their work on the tax credit, according to Rehagen.
“We would like to see that sooner rather than later, because it won't be too many months from now that our growers will be making their plans for what they're going to do for the next growing season,” he said.
Listen to Open Mic with Jeff Nalley here.
Senators concerned Mexico's new avocado certification could mask illegal deforestation
Five U.S. senators are raising concerns about a planned Mexican "zero deforestation” certification program, warning that it could allow Mexican avocados grown on deforested land to qualify for export.
In a letter to U.S. trade officials, the senators said they were concerned by environmentalists’ warnings that the certification program could be used to "paper over Mexico's longstanding failure to enforce its environmental laws while allowing products of illegal deforestation to secure export eligibility.”
Mexico's government is developing the framework with the Association of Avocado Exporting Producers and Packers of Mexico, an avocado producer and exporter group.
The senators note that APEAM wants the new system to replace Pro-Forest Agriculture, an independent, satellite-based program run by the nonprofit Guardián Forestal that already certifies packinghouses responsible for more than 90% of Mexican avocado exports.
The lawmakers urge the administration to push Mexico to preserve PFA rather than displace it.
USDA's Inspector General flags tracking gaps in Regional Agricultural Promotion Program
When the Foreign Agricultural Service handed out millions in export-promotion grants through the Regional Agricultural Promotion Program in FY25, it was unable to prove performance measures in the agreements had fully met program requirements, USDA’s Office of Inspector General finds in a recent audit.
OIG’s audit examined seven of the 67 organizations that split $300 million under the promotion program in the last fiscal year, finding that four had performance targets too vague to track real results.
“As a result, FAS has reduced assurance that participants’ proposed activities will achieve RAPP’s goal of increasing export sales,” the report says.
The agency relied on “an informal practice of verbal resolution” to address RAPP agreement issues, rather than a documented process, the audit says.
In response, FAS has agreed to make program procedures clearer and identify performance measures that do not meet program requirements when reviewing annual performance evaluation reports.
In Case You Missed It
We reported Friday on the upcoming ag labor bill, set to be introduced Tuesday. We also had articles on Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman John Boozman’s newfound willingness to discuss how to give states relief from looming SNAP cost-sharing requirements, and USDA’s announcement of a new biofuel feedstock rule.
Final Word
“I am like 95% sure they’re just taking their SNAP money and going into Kansas to buy their soda drinks and then the rest of their SNAP groceries.” — Nebraska grocer Shannon McCord telling Agri-Pulse that his store has lost about 16% of its SNAP sales since restrictions on soda and energy drinks were put in place. McCord owns Ideal Market in Superior, Nebraska, which is located near the Kansas border.
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