U.S. Customs and Border Protection agricultural specialists seized 19,555 pounds of prohibited meats entering the LA/Long Beach Seaport from China between April 6 and June 6.

The government’s poultry price-fixing case is moving forward quickly following the June 3 indictment of four executives from Pilgrim’s Pride and Claxton Family Farms.

Farm earnings are likely to fall sharply this year despite the $16 billion in COVID-19 assistance payments now being distributed, and farmers’ income is likely to drop again in 2021 without additional government aid, according to a widely followed forecast of the agricultural economy.

As the spread of COVID-19 in April slowed meat processing facilities and important Latin American trading partners lost purchasing power, U.S. beef exports fell below last year's totals and pork exports grew at a slower rate than in the first quarter.

A turbulent couple of months for meatpackers and their employees has placed a fresh focus on the industry’s capacity to process the chicken, pork and beef on American dinner plates.

The Chinese government has confirmed a new detection of the same disease that recently decimated the country’s giant hog herd.

Cattle, dairy and hog producers as well as corn and soybean growers are expected to collect the largest shares of USDA’s $16 billion in coronavirus relief payments, which are designed to compensate for losses in sales or market value between January and April.