Federal

The European Union  will speed up talks with Mexico on a new trade agreement amid signals from U.S. President Donald Trump that he intends to renegotiate major international trade pacts including one with Mexico.  EU and Mexico trade chiefs have agreed to hold negotiations on April 3-7 and June 26-29. They will also meet between rounds to push for further progress.  EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom and Mexican Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo said in a statement that "we are witnessing the worrying rise of protectionism around the world. [node:read-more:link]

Farm Credit Canada says to watch the loonie in 2017, as it "could easily have the largest impact of all possible trends and drivers on the profitability of Canadian agriculture and agribusiness throughout the year." While prudent advice, signs are pointing to the need to buckle up for what could be a wild ride in 2017. Opinions are varied over the next moves made by the new United States administration and the impacts to follow in the Canadian economy. [node:read-more:link]

Hawkes Company is a family-owned business in Minnesota that sought to harvest peat moss, for landscaping, in nearby bogs. The Corps claimed jurisdiction over the property as regulated wetlands, even though a Corps reviewing officer found the Jurisdictional Determination invalid. This put Hawkes in an untenable position: Hawkes could (1) abandon all use of the land at great loss; (2) seek an unnecessary federal permit for a few hundred thousand dollars; or (3), proceed to use the land without federal approval subjecting Hawkes to fines of $37,500 a day and criminal prosecution. [node:read-more:link]

Canada today announced it will contribute an additional $1 million to international bodies that develop the standards for food safety and plant protection. Lawrence MacAulay, Canada's Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, told FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva of the decision while both leaders were in Berlin attending high-level meetings including Sunday's meeting of agriculture ministers from the G20 countries. [node:read-more:link]

Don't expect any quick action on a Farm Bill that's due in 2018. That's the view of federal agricultural policy analysts who were panelists on a “Food Policy and Farm Bill” program at the 2017 Dairy Forum sponsored by the International Dairy Foods Association. Approving a new Farm Bill in 2017 would be “a heavy lift” and even doing so in 2018 could be “a long shot,” according to Krysta Harden, who was chief of staff for Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack during the Barack Obama administration. [node:read-more:link]

A coalition of 17 American dairy organizations, farmers and milk processors have written governors in 25 states asking them to press Canada into halting a new dairy pricing strategy set to go into effect on Feb 1. The groups point to Canadian provincial policies for ingredient class milk prices that the groups state are displacing U.S. exports to Canada. Essentially, Canadian provinces created a new class of milk ingredients that was done largely as a strategy to reduce similar milk products from the U.S. [node:read-more:link]

An attorney representing Hispanic ranchers told a federal judge that the U.S. Forest Service violated the law when deciding to limit grazing on historic land grants despite recognition decades ago by the government that the descendants of Spanish colonists have a unique relationship with the land that is integral to their heritage and traditional values. [node:read-more:link]

Rural America has backed Republicans for decades, but it gave unusually strong support to Donald Trump’s 2016 candidacy, with Iowa scoring the biggest D-to-R shift of any state in the union. It’s interesting, then, that one of the segments of the business community with the biggest concern about Trump’s policies is agribusiness. This sector enjoys traditional Republican priorities like lax environmental regulation and eliminating the estate tax, but could suffer enormously from trade wars that Trump might initiate. [node:read-more:link]

Farm subsidy programs have little impact on food consumption, food security, or nutrition in the United States, despite occasional claims to the contrary. The modern era of federal farm commodity subsidies began with the New Deal more than 80 years ago. Farm subsidies and related land retirements, market regulations, and trade policies have an array of small and offsetting impacts on farm commodity prices. When filtered through the supply chain, their impacts on retail prices and food consumption are surely tiny. [node:read-more:link]

What started as a gritty protest by a former Badlands National Park Service employee who wanted to give President Trump a piece of his mind snowballed overnight Tuesday and early Wednesday into a Twitter movement in support of climate change science. [node:read-more:link]