Items Tagged with 'nASS'

Robert Califf is one step closer to a second tenure as head of the Food and Drug Administration after the Senate voted 49-45 Monday evening to advance his nomination.

Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer has reiterated his goal of getting the Build Back Better bill through the chamber before the end of the year.

Democrats face some strong headwinds as they try to win back rural voters, and one of those challenges remains former President Trump himself.

Fewer acres of California farmland are dedicated to growing stone fruit compared to 10 years ago when growers of freestone peaches and nectarines voted to end the California Tree Fruit Agreement. But apricots, nectarines, peaches, plums, prunes (which USDA distinguishes from plums in its data) and sweet cherries continue to perform well.

California agricultural employers are continuing to adapt to the increasing minimum wage and the rollout of new overtime pay requirements, sometimes by moving away from manual labor to mechanized solutions. The rest of the country is watching closely to see whether these farm labor trends expand.

A federal judge orders USDA to continue collecting farmworker wage data, agreeing with farm labor groups that challenged the suspension of the survey that is used to set minimum wage requirements for H-2A workers.

Specialty crop farms spent more than three times more money on labor costs than other types of operations, according to data from USDA’s 2018 Agricultural Resources Management Survey.

USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service 2020 California Almond Subjective Forecast estimates California almond orchards will produce 3.0 billion pounds of nuts this year, up 17.6% from last year’s 2.55 billion-pound crop.

Ag Secretary Sonny Perdue is defending the work of USDA statisticians in their work to estimate the size of 2019 crops.