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Senate appropriators unanimously advanced a more moderate, bipartisan plan for 2026 funding levels at USDA, FDA and rural development agencies than their House counterparts, with boosts to WIC and measures to prevent field office closures. 

The Senate will start moving its fiscal 2026 spending bills, including the Agriculture bill that funds USDA and FDA. The ag bill won’t attempt to move Food for Peace to USDA, as originally proposed in the House. But you can expect report language calling for an evaluation to determine the best home for the program once housed at USAID. 

President Donald Trump is facing a backlash from some of his base over his promises to shield farmworkers from mass deportations. So, Trump and Ag Secretary Brooke Rollins stressed at separate events Tuesday that there will be “no amnesty” for farmworkers.

Producers who suffered losses due to natural disasters in 2023 and 2024 can begin applying for disaster aid payments Thursday under a year-end funding package Congress passed in December. 

House Agriculture Committee Chairman Glenn “GT” Thompson wants to move legislation this fall to address farm and nutrition programs left out of the budget reconciliation bill.

The Trump administration is planning unspecified steps to “claw back” farmland belonging to Chinese-owned agribusiness giants Smithfield Foods and Syngenta, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said. On ag labor, Rollins said there would be no "amnesty" for farmworkers but that the administration would be "strategic in how we are implementing the mass deportations so as not to compromise our food supply."

President Donald Trump and his top economic official are now eying Aug. 1 as the new deadline for when reciprocal tariffs will snap back into place on some U.S. trading partners.

President Donald Trump’s 90-day delay on adopting reciprocal tariffs on a slate of countries is set to end on Wednesday. Absent another delay from the president, or a flurry of eleventh-hour deals, some of the U.S.’ largest trading partners could face additional double-digit tariffs later this week.

President Donald Trump promised again that his administration is working on a way to protect the ag workforce from his deportation program by making farmers responsible for longtime workers.

House Agriculture Committee Republicans aren’t happy with some of the Senate’s changes to their SNAP reconciliation provisions. But they say other parts of the Republicans’ bill outweigh those concerns.