President Donald Trump has relied on USDA's special spending authority to help farmers overcome slumping commodity prices, and Democratic nominee Joe Biden is promising a large boost in conservation spending to help producers cope with hard times.

The Agriculture Department is making changes to eligibility rules for commodity programs that could make it more challenging for some family members involved in farm operations to qualify for government payments.

A $1 trillion coronavirus relief package that Senate Republicans are trying to finalize would authorize compensation to livestock and poultry producers and also aid ethanol plants as well as additional direct payments to farmers, a key senator said Thursday.

The Democratic Party’s draft 2020 platform calls for directing more farm subsidies to small and medium-size farms while making the agriculture sector the first in the first world to eliminate net carbon emissions.

The 2018 farm bill isn’t due to expire until 2023, but there is a growing possibility that Congress could revisit the law as soon as next year either to deal with the slumping farm economy or to address climate change.

House Democrats are proposing a sweeping plan to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions that calls for major increases in land retirement as well as conservation incentives on working lands to keep carbon in the soil.

The tough farm economy, and the dim prospects for its improvement any time soon, has some lawmakers saying that it’s time to re-think U.S. farm policy.

A new program created in the 2018 farm bill aims to help land-grant colleges and universities do more to help American Indian students.

The National Milk Producers Federation and International Dairy Foods Association are jointly asking USDA to rescue the industry from the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic by paying farms to cut production and providing forgivable loans to processors to keep buying milk.

House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson, who has been the House Democrats’ most influential voice on farm policy for nearly two decades, announces that he’s running for re-election to a 16th term in Congress.