Federal

China is eager to modernize the operations of its 260 million mostly small-scale farmers, with Iowa held up not only as a model but an ideal: In the words of one Chinese official, Iowa is “the place where the dream for modern farming began.” Iowa, meanwhile, craves ever more access to the Chinese market and its growing middle class.Kimberley stood there Saturday morning thanks to a famous visitor to his own Iowa farm in February 2012: Chinese President Xi Jinping surveyed the vast fields, towering grain bins and enormous tractors and saw inspiration for the future of rural China. [node:read-more:link]

The Heritage Report recommends that the safety net provided by the Farm Bill’s Commodity Title be eliminated for crop and dairy farmers although analysis of a more modest proposal offered during the 2008 Farm Bill debate concluded that most farms and ranches would not be able to survive the resulting erosion in farm income. The Heritage Report’s recommendation comes at a time when national net farm income has fallen 50 percent over the past four years and, regionally, farmers have endured difficult conditions for an even longer period. [node:read-more:link]

Ontario is putting up C$5.3 million to help Conestoga Meat Packers boost productivity and expand its pork processing capacity by 86 percent, while creating 170 new jobs at the company’s Breslau plant, the provincial government announced today in a news release. Conestoga Meat Packers is Ontario's second-largest pork processor and is a wholly owned subsidiary of Progressive Pork Producers Co-operative Inc., a co-operative of 157 southwestern Ontario hog producers.  [node:read-more:link]

A law requiring foreign investors to report transactions of farmland to the U.S. Department of Agriculture has been on the books for almost 40 years.  But as the amount of foreign-controlled farmland doubled in millions of acres between 2004 and 2014, the USDA has lapsed in enforcing the law, a review of USDA documents has found. [node:read-more:link]

The pickers range in age from 21 to 65, and all of them are Mexican. As in the rest of the country, growers in heavily agricultural northern Michigan rely overwhelmingly on migrant laborers to work the fields and orchards. According to the farm owners, the workers either came from Mexico on temporary H2A visas or they have paperwork showing they are in the U.S. [node:read-more:link]

A notice from the Environmental Protection Agency has the biofuels community up in arms as they face the prospect of a potential hit to renewable fuel blending levels.  the EPA released a Notice of Data Availability (NODA) giving public notice and inviting comment on “potential options for reductions in the 2018 biomass-based diesel, advanced biofuel, and total renewable fuel volumes, and/or the 2019 biomass-based diesel volume under the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) program.” A 15-day comment period will be triggered when the NODA is published in the Federal Register.  In July, the EPA ann [node:read-more:link]

Hurricane Maria wiped out about 80 percent of the crop value in Puerto Rico — making it one of the costliest storms to hit the island’s agriculture industry. Entire plantations, dairy barns and industrial chicken coops are gone. Hurricane Maria made landfall here Wednesday as a Category 4 storm. Its force and fury stripped every tree of not just the leaves, but also the bark, leaving a rich agricultural region looking like the result of a postapocalyptic drought. Rows and rows of fields were denuded. [node:read-more:link]

The Environmental Protection Agency is aiming to allow farmers to spray the controversial weedkiller dicamba next year, but with additional rules for its use, an official with the agency said. [node:read-more:link]

Graham-Cassidy will increase the number of uninsured people. Those people will continue to rely on hospitals, which will, in turn, rely on DSH funds to cover the costs of the medical care. [node:read-more:link]

Bureaucrats in 42 states, often aided by outside consultants, have weakened the integrity of efforts to find errors in the way food stamp recipients are found eligible, and in whether those eligible are receiving the right level of benefits, a Senate panel heard. So far, two states — Virginia and Wisconsin — have paid a combined $14.1 million to settle allegations they violated the False Claims Act in administering their Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Programs, and several others are under investigation, according to a U.S. [node:read-more:link]