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Agriculture News

Federal Reserve Ag Credit Surveys- 2019 First Quarter Farm Economy Conditions

Farm Policy News | Posted on May 16, 2019

 

David Oppedahl, a Senior Business Economist at the Chicago Fed, explained in The AgLetter that, “District agricultural land values were the same in the first quarter of 2019 as in the first quarter of 2018, although they did move up 1 percent from the fourth quarter of 2018. Indiana and Iowa saw year-over-year decreases in farmland values, while Illinois and Wisconsin saw no changes.”


Facing Floods, Towns Call for New Controls on the Great Rivers

Wall Street Journal | Posted on May 16, 2019

Alton, Ill., a tourist town on the edge of the Mississippi River, has been fighting floods about every eight months for the last six years. This week’s crest, which ranked No. 7 among the city’s 10 worst floods, forced the closure of the city’s riverboat casino, left its riverfront park underwater and closed portions of its downtown. Mayor Brant Walker said the 100-year floods that communities like his are seeing every two years underscore the need for an approach that tackles the problem across the entire river system.


Jury returns $2 billion verdict against Monsanto for couple with cancer -- the biggest so far

CNN | Posted on May 16, 2019

A jury handed an unparalleled $2.055 billion verdict in favor of a couple in California who say their cancer was caused by long-term exposure to Monsanto's popular weed killer Roundup, according to the plaintiffs' attorneys.The verdict in Oakland includes more than $55 million in compensatory damages to the couple and $2 billion in punitive damages, a statement said.The verdict "is as clear of a statement as you can get that they need to change what they're doing," one of the plaintiffs' attorneys, Brent Wisner, told reporters Monday.


Farmers Losing Grip on American Food Dollar

Growing Produce | Posted on May 16, 2019

According to a report recently released by the USDA’s Economic Research Service (ERS), U.S. farmers and ranchers earn just 14.6 cents for every dollar American consumers spend on food. This value marks a 17% drop since 2011 and marks the smallest portion of the American food dollar that farmers have received since the USDA began reporting this data in 1993. The remaining 85.4 cents cover off-farm costs, including processing, wholesaling, distribution, marketing, and retailing.


US planning to support farmers amid China trade spat: Agriculture secretary

Straits Times | Posted on May 16, 2019

US Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said on Friday (May 10) that US President Donald Trump had asked him to create a plan to help American farmers cope with the heavy impact on agriculture of the trade war with China. A new aid program would be the second round of assistance for farmers, after the US Department of Agriculture’s US$12 billion plan last year to compensate for lower prices for farm goods and lost sales stemming from trade disputes with China and other nations.


North Dakota site out to create farm of the future

Bismarck Tribune | Posted on May 16, 2019

Carroll says project will involve unspecified millions in capital investment, and thousands of people involved, including participation from federal, state, local and private contributions. Carroll said the initiative has five strategic parts:“Ecosystem”: The project will build a community of interest, through networking events, identifying collaboration opportunities as well as gaps in the process.Innovation platform: This initiative will create or engage with a “business accelerator” company to match start-up companies with venture capital.Makerspace: This is a a kind of laboratory -- a building and some land used for hands-on creativity. Individuals, organizations, universities, corporations, or even high school students, to “prototype different applications and look for different opportunities to do autonomous activities.”Education: The Grand Farm will study the education needed for the industry and play a part in delivering it. Young people and potential workers, perhaps displaced out of disrupted industries could “upscale” skills through working a “code school,” developed by Grand Farm, to teach specialized software development.


Pennsylvania Senate passes a series of bills aimed at bolstering farm economy

Penn Live | Posted on May 16, 2019

In a year where state officials are paying increased attention to a depressed farm economy, the Pennsylvania Senate gave unanimous approval Tuesday to a set of bills they hope can help. Different planks of the package will:Make clear that farmers who have sold off development rights for their properties are permitted to use a portion of their preserved farms for “agri-tainment” activities like mazes, hayrides, petting zoos and the like.Establishes a blue-ribbon panel to take a year-long look at factors hurting and future opportunities for the Pennsylvania dairy industry, with recommendations for further state policy initiatives to follow.Create a new personal income tax credit to farmers who sell or lease their land to new farmers, offering an additional incentive for retiring farmers to keep their farms in agricultural production instead of selling for real estate development.Permit farm families who rent out barns for wedding receptions or other events to not have to comply with safety code requirements that typically apply to public accommodations.Permits milk haulers to get exemptions from weather-related commercial vehicle travel bans. This bill is a recognition of the limited time farmers have to get their raw milk to dairy plants for processing. (A similar bill to this one also passed in the state House.)
 

 


Ag Credit Conditions Deteriorate Steadily

Kansas City Federal Reserve | Posted on May 16, 2019

A majority of bankers across the District continued to report decreases in farm income during the first quarter. Despite a slight improvement in livestock prices toward the end of the period, the pace of decline in farm income quickened slightly from a year ago and from the prior quarter (Chart 1). A similar pace of decline also was expected in coming months. However, significant increases in hog prices in the final weeks of the quarter and into April improved revenues for some operations in the livestock sector.


Iowa egg farm sues over damage from bird flu disinfection

WOWT | Posted on May 16, 2019

An Iowa egg farm that killed millions of chickens because of a 2015 bird flu outbreak is suing companies hired by the federal government to disinfect barns. Sunrise Farms says the chlorine dioxide gas and heat treatments used to kill the virus destroyed barn equipment, electrical wiring, production equipment and water lines. The company also says the structural integrity of its barns was diminished.The farm near the northwest Iowa town of Harris housed more than 4 million egg-laying hens.The farm confirmed on April 19, 2015, that its birds had the deadly strain of H5N2 bird flu. The USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service division hired several companies to euthanize birds and disinfect barns to prevent the spread of the virus.Sunrise is suing the contractors who applied the gas and heat treatments. Those companies have in turn sued subcontractors.


House Ag Appropriations Questions Perdue on ERS Move

Herald Review | Posted on May 14, 2019

Sanford Bishop and Sonny Perdue go way back. So far back that Bishop, now a 14-term, Democratic congressman from south Georgia, remembers when Perdue, now the Secretary of Agriculture under President Donald J. Trump, was a Democrat.Their friendship was tested April 9 when Perdue appeared before the House Appropriations ag subcommittee to defend the president’s 2020 budget request for the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). Bishop, as chairman of the subcommittee, oversees every taxpayer nickel USDA receives.During his question time, Bishop roasted the secretary’s plan to move two USDA agencies, the Economic Research Service and the National Institute for Food and Agriculture, out of Washington, D.C. No one, he said, favors the move except Perdue.Not only that, Bishop went on, Perdue was moving ahead with his plan despite the subcommittee not receiving a cost-benefit analysis on it that the secretary had promised. In fact, he continued, Perdue’s rush to shuffle ERS and NIFA out of town just “seems to be a solution in search of a problem.”When asked to comment on those facts — especially that no one with any working knowledge of his plan endorsed it — Perdue went full farm folksy: “Mr. Chairman,” he said, “I’m just amazed that all those people you mentioned could all be wrong.” He then grinned weakly. Bishop is just the latest public official to question Perdue on his ERS/NIFA plan. All — like Perdue himself — have seen no evidence to support it because, in fact, there is no evidence to support it. Moreover, Perdue can’t explain it in any terms other than nonsense like “getting ERS closer to its customers.” On May 7, however, Politico, a Washington-based news service, reported that the plan was the Trump Administration “retaliating” against the ERS “for publishing reports that shed negative light on White House policies…” Specifically, ERS “has run afoul of… Perdue… with its finding on how farmers have been financially harmed by President Donald Trump’s trade feuds, the Republican tax code rewrite and other sensitive issues…”


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