Federal

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has reached agreement with Brazil's Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Food Supply to allow access for U.S. beef and beef products to the Brazilian market for the first time since 2003. Brazil's action reflects the United States' negligible risk classification for bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) by the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) and aligns Brazil's regulations to the OIE's scientific international animal health guidelines. [node:read-more:link]

All signs point to the largest-ever corn crop in history this fall and the third year in a row of plunging farm incomes. But with prices potentially tumbling to $3 by harvest, corn growers with high levels of revenue-based crop insurance could buffer some of the price damage. [node:read-more:link]

Scientists at NASA say two key climate change indicators — global surface temperatures and Arctic sea ice extent have bnroken numerous records through the first half of 2016. Each of the first six months of 2016 set a record as the warmest respective month globally in the modern temperature record, which dates to 1880, according to scientists at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York. The six-month period from January to June was also the planet’s warmest half-year on record, with an average temperature 1.3°C (2.4°F) warmer than the late nineteenth century. [node:read-more:link]

No matter who wins this November’s presidential election, one of the first items facing a new Secretary of Agriculture will be developing a 2018 Farm Bill, a process sure to begin early in 2017. [node:read-more:link]

President Barack Obama on Friday signed into law a bill that requires a mandatory labeling system of genetically modified organisms (GMO) for all 50 states. The law pre-empts Vermont bill and requires the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to determine which food products and ingredients should be labeled as GMO. Those products will be labeled by text, symbols or a bar code that can be scanned with smartphones. The USDA will have two years to develop the rules and regulations for the nationwide labeling program. [node:read-more:link]

EPA's Environmental Appeals Board ha s upheld the cancellation of flubendiamide, a Bayer CropScience insecticide sold under the trade name Belt, but will allow existing stocks to be sold by retailers. [node:read-more:link]

Antoine Meriot, a French economist released a study that pinpoints the estimated $1.7 billion in annual benefits flowing to India's sugar producers.   At the heart of India's subsidy system are government-mandated prices for sugarcane. These prices, which are paid to farmers by the sugar mills that process the cane, are much higher than elsewhere. For example, India's farmers received $42 per metric ton of cane in 2014, compared to the $31 seen by U.S. farmers. [node:read-more:link]

Animal agriculture groups are voicing many concerns over USDA’s proposed rule to expand the National Organic Program to include animal-handling practices. Not only is the rule outside the statutory scope of the NOP, they say, but it is not based on science, has doubtful benefit and comes with a high cost to producers. One key concern to poultry and pork producers is the risk to animal and public health. [node:read-more:link]

Russia has banned the cultivation and breeding of genetically engineered crops, which may have long-term consequences for biotechnology in global agriculture. [node:read-more:link]

The presence of Chinese farmers on Russian land in the Far East has stirred frenzied fear of a stealthy Chinese takeover.  Local officials grumbling that they cannot keep up with Chinese work habits, tend to see China and its vast pool of industrious labor as the best hope of developing improverished regions that often feel neglected by Moscow.  [node:read-more:link]