Articles Tagged with ''dairy''

It's official. Michigan Sen. Debbie Stabenow is back as chairwoman of the Senate Agriculture Committee after the Senate finally approved an organization resolution Thursday afternoon. Stabenow last chaired the committee from 2011 to 2015.

Tom Vilsack, set to take a historic second stint as agriculture secretary, is pledging to make climate change and racial justice top priorities for the Agriculture Department, assuring senators that he understands the times and challenges have changed since he left the government four years ago.

President-elect Joe Biden is out with a $1.9 trillion stimulus proposal that includes some significant new food assistance provisions, including an extension through the summer of the 15% increase in SNAP benefits provided by the COVID aid package enacted in December.

A surge of nationwide cheese demand driven at least in part by the Trump administration’s Farmers to Families Food Box program sparked wild swings in dairy markets and fueled a new debate over changes in federal milk pricing policy made in the 2018 farm bill.

With a deal in place between the newly independent UK and the European Union, American ag groups are anxious to see the U.S. complete its own free trade agreement with the British as the Biden administration prepares to take the reins in ongoing talks.

The European Commission is showing its bias towards the minority of organic farmers in the trading bloc while cutting funding for the overall ag sector, according to some of the largest agriculture and food organizations in the European Union.

Farmers who were facing a steep drop in government payments in 2021 will instead see a third round of coronavirus relief payments and other producers and ag processors left out of previous aid programs this year will get help this time, under a massive stimulus package and government funding bill.

President-elect Joe Biden has tapped a China expert to be his U.S. Trade Representative, reflecting the most pressing trade issue his administration will face on day one – the ongoing trade war with the Asian economic powerhouse.

After months of complaints from U.S. dairy farmers, the Trump administration took the first step Wednesday in challenging Canada’s implementation of new tariff rate quotas. The two countries will now begin consultations under dispute rules laid out in the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, which could lead to the formation of an official dispute panel.

Like most dairy producers in late 2019, Ryan Klussendorf of Medford, Wis., was optimistic about 2020 dairy prices and he did not sign up for USDA’s Dairy Margin Coverage program. But after seeing the extreme volatility of this year, he’s not taking any chances for 2021 and said other producers shouldn’t either.