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Shining Light on Farm & Food Policy for 20 Years.
Wednesday, May 01, 2024
Expanding wireless internet access in rural areas will continue to fuel the truly game-changing advances being made by precision agriculture. These include new ways to grow crops using less water, seed, pesticides and fertilizer. Made possible by a faster mobile internet, precision agriculture will continue to support new innovations like driverless tractors, robots and drones that are already increasingly handling farming tasks.
Decades of free and open trade have caused considerable harm to America’s family farmers and ranchers and rural communities. The trade deficit has ballooned to record levels, and U.S. manufacturers are struggling to compete with cheaper imports, forcing them to shutter factories that employ thousands of rural Americans. Even though agricultural exports remain high, farmers’ incomes are on the decline.
By 2050 we’ll need to produce and provide food and water for nearly 10 billion people, many of whom will live in some of the world’s poorest, most water short, albeit fastest growing, regions.
The nation’s land-grant universities face a threat from the United States Department of Agriculture’s decision to move its research arm and its economics bureau away from D.C.
Global food security is an enormous challenge not only because it refers to our responsibility to feed a rapidly growing population, but because we must also do so sustainably in ever-changing conditions.
Let’s just say it: I have always been a nerd. For non-nerds, this may not sizzle; but for those who understand the value of good farming for a better environment, this is going to be huge. This month, a bipartisan group of Senators worked together with the USDA to make a common sense fix on regulations for farmers, which will ultimately be a victory for clean water, cover crops (and nerds).
Last week, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) responded to calls from our community to reconsider its role in regulating gene editing technology in animal agriculture. Despite the Trump administration’s recent directive to streamline costly and overly burdensome regulations that inhibit innovation and investment, FDA maintains it is unwilling to cede any regulatory control of this important technology.
For farmers and ranchers living under the uncertainty of the 2015 Waters of the United States rule, this year could bring relief to an ongoing state of regulatory confusion. Currently, the Environmental Protection Agency and Army Corps of Engineers are reviewing over 600,000 public comments on a revised definition of WOTUS that aims to replace the detrimental 2015 rule.
Much attention has been focused of late on the implications for Latin America of the US-China trade war, including in the agricultural sector, where Brazil has seemingly benefitted from growing demand for its abundant soy. Recent tariffs have pushed China to intensify trading with Latin America, contributing to the expectation that Brazil will become the leading soybean exporter for 2019-20, a distinction previously held by the US.
For more than a century, advances in science and technology have made the U.S. food supply the safest, most abundant and most affordable in the world. Our farmers have led the way in applying new developments in sanitation, robotics, GPS and scientific livestock breeding.
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