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Shining Light on Farm & Food Policy for 20 Years.
Wednesday, May 01, 2024
Livestock producers across the West and northern Plains are relying heavily on rangeland insurance policies this year, even as the Agriculture Department considers changes to the program that could limit future indemnities for some farmers and ranchers.
The Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service is offering more than $41 million in funds meant to soften the blow of drought in California, Colorado, Oregon and Arizona.
Grant Lundberg is CEO of Lundberg Family Farms in Richvale, California, which he describes as a vertically integrated consumer packaged goods company. Lundberg talked with Agri-Pulse about how consumer demand and drought are impacting organic rice in California.
The infrastructure spending deal that President Joe Biden struck with a bipartisan group of senators could go a long way toward addressing critical agriculture needs, from improving waterways to making high-speed internet universal and fixing many crumbling bridges and roads.
States in the West and the High Plains are currently facing what Brad Rippey, a USDA meteorologist in the Office of the Chief Economist, calls the “most expansive” drought the U.S. has seen since 2012 and 2013.
Farmland values in parts of the U.S. are on the rise as commodity prices and government payments spur buyers in the Corn Belt while water access fuels the market in California's drought-stricken Central Valley.
Leading farm groups are supporting Field to Market President Rod Snyder to become EPA’s agriculture adviser. Field to Market has played a leading role in developing and promoting sustainability metrics and organizes a popular annual conference.
The Biden administration is assuring lawmakers that it's working to provide short-term emergency relief to the drought-stricken West even as farm groups continue to push for some relaxation of environmental rules that limit access to irrigation water.
Chinese buyers have made another big purchase of U.S. corn for the next harvest as concerns mount over the impact of dry weather on Brazil. The USDA on Monday announced a 1.02 million-metric-ton sale of corn to China for delivery in the 2021-22 marketing year.
High commodity prices are fueling farmers' optimism as planters get rolling this spring, but in some areas the lack of rain this spring is making producers nervous as they plant into the dusty ground.