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Shining Light on Farm & Food Policy for 20 Years.
Thursday, May 02, 2024
U.S. farmers will plant more soybeans than corn this year – for the first time since 1983 – but acreage for both crops will be smaller than in 2017, according to USDA’s Prospective Plantings report.
President Donald Trump today signed off on a plan to punish China for years of stealing intellectual property by imposing about $60 billion worth of tariffs on Chinese goods. The move came despite a growing chorus of warnings from Capitol Hill and farm groups that China will retaliate by taxing or blocking U.S. agricultural goods.
The USDA left its production estimates for this year’s corn and soybean crops unchanged from the February forecasts, while raising its projection for U.S. corn-ethanol output and slashing its outlook for Argentina’s soybean harvest.
By most measures, 2016 was another banner year for organic production. Sales of organic farm goods increased 23 percent to $7.6 billion, double the 2011 total. But most of the organic feed grains come from abroad.
The Trump administration this week finalizes hefty steel and aluminum tariffs that have farm groups bracing from retaliatory trade actions, and the president also is pushing forward to address complaints by refiners about the cost of complying with federal biofuel mandates.
President Donald Trump announced today that the U.S. will be hitting steel and aluminum imports from China and other countries with tariffs, elevating an already high level of concern that China will retaliate and U.S. ag exports will be caught in the crossfire.
The USDA is expecting strong support from farmers, elevators and exporters in an urgent mission to reduce the amount of unwanted material like weed seeds in the U.S. soybean supply.
Brazil, the world juggernaut of agricultural production over the past 20 years, has the land, weather, labor and potential to increase soybean, corn and meat production even more dramatically over the next two decades, according to Brazilian and U.S. analysts.
President Trump takes another stab this week at settling a biofuel policy dispute that has embroiled a key USDA nominee, and his administration will step up its defense of proposals to clamp down on federal nutrition assistance.
U.S. corn and soybean production will be smaller than the previous year based on fractionally lower planted acreage and trend yields, USDA said today in its first projections for major crops for the 2018-2019 crop year.
