The Democrats taking over House committees and subcommittees will push back hard against the Trump administration’s environmental policies and put a major focus on climate change, but ag groups will need to find allies on trade and other key issues.

In the regulatory picture for 2019, the top issue for aggies is probably the “waters of the United States” proposal, but there are many other items on the agenda for agriculture in the coming year.

Lawmakers face a packed agenda when the new Congress begins on Thursday, starting with finding a resolution to the government shutdown that hit USDA, the Interior Department and other departments and agencies in December.

Ag, biofuels, and food policy groups say trade, immigration reform, farm bill implementation, food safety, and climate change will be the major issues discussed this year.

USDA’s failure to implement the Obama Administration’s Farmer Fair Practices Rules has been upheld by a federal appeals court.

The new farm bill expected to head to President Donald Trump’s desk within days is making history with the breadth of support inside and outside Congress. The reason is plain to see in its 540 pages.

Along with providing food to struggling low-income families, USDA’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program has increasingly focused on developing new ways to help SNAP beneficiaries graduate from SNAP by finding stable jobs.

Of the 452 child-worker fatalities reported between 2003 and 2016, more than half (237) occurred in agriculture, the Government Accountability Office said in a report.

Two former nearly all-white Nebraska towns appear to have integrated a surge of Spanish-speaking immigrants, mostly meatpacking plant workers, more smoothly than other communities in similar circumstances, according to a report from the Center for American Progress.