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Farmers and bankers are pressing lawmakers to maintain and even expand access to crop insurance through the next farm bill.

Lawmakers continue to struggle with what to do about commodity programs in a new farm bill, including how to pay for increases in reference prices. One idea is to require farmers to update their base acreage to reflect current plantings.

The idea of updating the base acreage that’s used to determine who gets get commodity payments, and how much, has gotten a fresh boost with the endorsement of the National Corn Growers Association. Members of the group believe the savings from requiring farmers to update their base acres could be used to fund increases in commodity program reference prices, a top priority for many farm groups. But a state-by-state map shows that there could be clear winners and losers in the process.

People in some of the poorest and hungriest nations in the world may be the hardest hit by India’s decision last month to ban exports of long grain, non-basmati rice – a move that’s already pushing global prices higher and forcing import-dependent countries to scramble to find supplies, according to analysts and trade data.

Two strategies to address endangered species reviews of farm inputs at the Environmental Protection Agency are moving forward, but ag and environmental groups want important changes before either policy is finalized.

As Congress prepares to write a new farm bill, animal welfare advocates are preparing to safeguard California’s Proposition 12 and similar laws regulating agricultural practices while also pushing to tighten standards for dog breeders, ban the export of horses for slaughter, and eliminate the last vestiges of animal fighting and dog racing in the United States.

The House and the Senate are different, its members like to say. Perhaps nowhere is that more evident this year than the spending bills that are advancing in both chambers.

Lawmakers have cleared a resolution that would overturn the Biden administration’s listing of the lesser prairie chicken under the Endangered Species Act, but the measure failed to get veto-proof majorities in either the House or Senate.

After decades of work, USDA scientists have established a variety of sorghum to address malnutrition in sub-Saharan Africa.

The nation’s farmers and ranchers kept their opinions about the farm economy mostly unchanged in July, but mild upticks in optimism are included in a report measuring the state of mind in rural America.