President-elect Joe Biden is out with a $1.9 trillion stimulus proposal that includes some significant new food assistance provisions, including an extension through the summer of the 15% increase in SNAP benefits provided by the COVID aid package enacted in December.

The Trump administration is unlikely to make a needed fix to tax regulations for farmer co-operatives, leaving many growers at risk of seeing higher tax bills, according to the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives.

Despite threatening a veto, President Trump signed into law a $1.3 trillion spending bill that addresses several agricultural priorities, including revisions to the Section 199A tax benefit and an exemption from farm-emissions reporting for the livestock industry.

Congressional leaders reached a last-minute agreement to put a rewrite of the new Section 199A tax benefit for farmer co-ops in an omnibus spending bill that lawmakers must pass this week, industry and congressional sources said.

Congress faces a Friday deadline to pass a $1.3 trillion government-wide spending plan and companies that buy commodities from farmers hope it will include a fix to the Section 199A tax deduction that has rattled the industry.

The Trump administration this week finalizes hefty steel and aluminum tariffs that have farm groups bracing from retaliatory trade actions, and the president also is pushing forward to address complaints by refiners about the cost of complying with federal biofuel mandates.