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Shining Light on Farm & Food Policy for 20 Years.
Thursday, April 25, 2024
USDA has announced plans to kill its survey of farmworker wages, a move the United Farm Workers claims is aimed at cutting wages for H-2A workers. In a notice posted Wednesday, USDA says the fall survey conducted by the National Agricultural Statistics Service is no longer needed because of data that is available from other sources.
The first of three presidential debates is over and it was a brawl. President Donald Trump briefly touched on trade policy, accusing Biden of being weak on China. “China ate your lunch, Joe,” Trump charged at one point.
The U.S. and Brazil have not yet reached a deal on U.S. demands to be able to sell the country more ethanol, but the Brazilian government is making clear what it is demanding in return, according to sources in both countries. Brazil wants more access to the lucrative and tightly guarded U.S. sugar market.
House Democrats are moving ahead with a new coronavirus aid bill despite failing to reach a deal with the White House. The new measure is scaled back from the HEROES Act that passed the House in May but would still cost $2.2 trillion, which is well above the amount Republicans say they could support.
The U.S. and the U.K. still have a lot of negotiating ahead of them, but the British will likely agree to a free trade agreement that allows for increased trade in beef, pork and poultry, says Gregg Doud, the U.S. Trade Representative’s top agriculture negotiator.
Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett made clear in her introduction at the White House on Saturday that she maintain her textualist approach to interpreting laws. She said “a judge must apply the law as written. Judges are not policymakers and they must be resolute in setting aside any policy views they might hold.”
Farmers are still struggling to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic. So, nearly 170 farm groups are calling for federal help in getting personal protective equipment and COVID-19 testing resources for farmworkers “as we continue to promote the health and safety of our farm employees and rural communities.”
U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer recently called the World Trade Organization “a mess,” but some of the largest U.S. agricultural groups and companies are speaking out in a new letter to stress the importance of the WTO to American farmers.
South Korea, in a deal struck with the Trump administration last November, agreed to buy at least 132,304 metric tons of U.S. rice annually and the country is getting close to meeting that promise for 2020, according to U.S. government and industry officials.
A former chief economist for USDA, Joe Glauber, warned recently that the billions of dollars in payments to farmers to offset trade wars and COVID-19 impacts would “attract attention” on an international level. And that’s exactly what’s happening.
