The Senate is looking to finish work on a package of spending bills funding USDA and other agencies important to agriculture, but it increasingly appears that Congress won’t reach a final agreement on fiscal 2020 until after the first of the year.

House Democratic leaders are aiming to push through a stopgap spending bill this week after threatening a fight with the White House, and potentially with some of their own rural members, over a plan that could jeopardize farmers’ trade aid payments.

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.

President Donald Trump and his top trade negotiator head to the Group of 20 summit in hopes of re-starting negotiations with China before the trade war escalates further while simultaneously making progress in talks with the Japanese on reducing their barriers to U.S. farm exports.