Articles by Philip Brasher

In what is setting up to be an historic week, the House is poised to ratify the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement after a bitter debate over the impeachment of President Donald Trump, and lawmakers also are rushing to pass legislation to fund the government for fiscal 2020.

The Democratic-controlled House approved a bill Wednesday to expand the H-2A visa program to year-round farmworkers and provide growers relief from wage hikes, but the broad GOP opposition underscored the challenge of getting Congress to address the agricultural labor squeeze.

Agricultural policy has seldom received as much attention as it has in this presidential campaign as Democrats vie for ways to cut into President Donald Trump’s rural base and win Iowa’s first-in-the-nation’s caucuses amid heightened anxiety about the farm economy.

Brushing aside an outcry from anti-hunger advocates and congressional Democrats, the Trump administration on Wednesday finalized regulations that will make it harder for states to exempt able-bodied adults from work requirements in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

The Trump administration’s trade assistance payments have become so critical to farm profits that some growers could take a hit to their income if the program is discontinued in 2020 because of a trade deal with China.

The Organic Trade Association and its allies in Congress are pushing to finalize an Obama-era rule that would help dairy producers to transition animals into organic production only once.

Lawmakers return from the Thanksgiving break with a long to-do list important to agriculture that includes keeping the government funded and potentially debating the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, all of which is competing for attention with the House impeachment battle.

Net farm income is projected to rise more than 10% this year, but nearly one-third of producer earnings will come from a combination of crop insurance benefits and direct government payments, including the Trump administration's trade assistance.

Senior political leaders at USDA, which has been accused of downplaying the climate issue, say helping farmers address climate change is a priority for the department, asserting that sustainably increasing food production to feed a growing global population is a matter of “world security.”