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Shining Light on Farm & Food Policy for 20 Years.
Tuesday, May 07, 2024
Despite President Donald Trump’s ongoing battle with lawmakers over funding a border wall, preliminary efforts are underway both at the White House and in the House to craft immigration legislation that could address the labor shortage in agriculture.
With President Donald Trump having dropped the threat for now of expanded tariffs, U.S. and Chinese negotiators continue work on details of an agreement that he and Chinese President Xi Jinping could potentially seal later this month in Florida.
Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue provided the implementation dates for the 2018 farm bill, saying the first payments to dairy producers could be delivered in July, and he told lawmakers that the White House is working on a comprehensive immigration reform proposal with the help of a USDA adviser.
Advocates for dairy farmers pressed USDA officials at a farm bill listening session to move quickly to get payments to financially strapped producers, while other groups urged the department to put a priority on removing barriers to cover crops and scheduling signups for major conservation programs.
Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue heads to Capitol Hill this week to face lawmakers eager to hear about progress on the Trump administration’s trade disputes and implementation of the farm bill.
Assured of President Donald Trump's support, the Senate and then the House passed a fiscal 2019 spending agreement Thursday to avert another government shutdown and fund USDA, Interior, FDA and other departments and agencies important to agriculture through Sept. 30.
Congressional negotiators are struggling to close a deal that could increase border security funding while funding USDA, FDA and other agencies important to agriculture for the rest of fiscal 2019 and provide disaster aid for farmers hit by the 2018 hurricanes.
Despite the 35-day shutdown that all but halted work on the new farm bill, USDA is close to finishing work on a timeline for implementing its revisions to programs.
The government is reopening for at least three weeks and the Agriculture Department plans to jump-start work on implementation the 2018 farm bill, a task that was interrupted just as it was beginning in December.
President Donald Trump agreed Friday to end the five-week-old partial shutdown of USDA and other major departments and agencies, essentially bowing to demands from Democrats that the government reopen while negotiations on border security continue.
