Federal News
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to leave post
CNN | Posted on December 20, 2018President Trump announced that embattled Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke will be leaving at the end of the year.
USMCA IP provisions make for uneven playing field for Canadian, U.S. farmers
Canada West Foundation | Posted on December 20, 2018Farmers in North America generally did well in the new United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA). But there is one nasty surprise buried in the agreement that should unite all Canadian farmers—intellectual property rules that prevent circumvention of digital locks on electronics including sophisticated farm equipment like tractors and combines that will apply to Canadian, but not to American, farmers. Currently, in the middle of critical harvest time, a farmer in Emerson, Man., can look across the border to Pembina, N.D., and see a farmer there hack her tractor to fix a problem without consequence. But should the Manitoba farmer try this she would face serious sanction. Or more starkly, the Manitoba farmer could drive their tractor across the border to hack the software without problem or sanction, but should she drive the tractor back into Canada she would be driving into trouble.The problem succinctly is that the modern tractor or combine contains more lines of code than was on any American lunar mission. In the past, when a tractor would break down a farmer would grab a wrench or call any local mechanic. But now when software stops a tractor—God forbid in the middle of harvest with a year’s income on the line—the farmer must wait for an authorized manufacturer’s service technician to drive out, “unlock” the software, diagnose and hopefully fix the problem; a problem that the farmer or local mechanic could have fixed if they could unlock the software. But digital locks now embedded within the tractor’s software mean that accessing this software is against the law for anyone other than a manufacturer-authorized repair person—anyone including the farmer who owns the equipment.
USDA Announces Details of Assistance for Farmers Impacted by Unjustified Retaliation
USDA | Posted on December 20, 2018U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue today announced details of actions the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) will take to assist farmers in response to trade damage from unjustified retaliation by foreign nations. President Donald J. Trump directed Secretary Perdue to craft a short-term relief strategy to protect agricultural producers while the Administration works on free, fair, and reciprocal trade deals to open more markets in the long run to help American farmers compete globally. As announced last month, USDA will authorize up to $12 billion in programs, consistent with our World Trade Organization obligations.
The Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018: Initial Review
Farm Doc Daily | Posted on December 20, 2018For this initial review of the conference product, the discussion will focus on the four key mandatory titles in the farm bill. The CBO cost estimate (score) reinforces the view that the bill is largely status quo. CBO estimates very little net change in spending: an increase of $1.8 billion through 2023, but sustained reductions in assumed outlays from 2024-2028 result in only a $70 million increase over the entire 10-year budget window.
USDA will clamp down on work rules for food-stamp recipients
Politico | Posted on December 20, 2018The Agriculture Department on Thursday proposed a rule to more strictly enforce existing work requirements on more food-stamp recipients by reining in states’ ability to waive time restrictions. The release of the rule comes on the same day President Donald Trump is expected to sign the farm bill into law — and the timing is no accident.The proposal, which was initially expected to be released before the midterm elections, is the administration’s response to concessions House Republicans made on food stamps in the final bill. The bill doesn’t mandate stricter work requirements or tighten eligibility criteria for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.Ultimately, the farm bill dispensed with all of the House GOP’s controversial SNAP proposals, and left out an effort by Senate Agriculture leaders that could have blocked USDA’s regulatory action.USDA’s proposal targets a group of SNAP participants known as able-bodied adults without dependents, or ABAWDs, which includes recipients ages 18 through 49 who are not disabled or caring for children or other dependents. As of 2016, they accounted for a small slice, 3.8 million, of the nearly 40 million Americans who receive SNAP benefits to help them purchase groceries.Under current law, ABAWDs can’t receive food stamps for longer than three months during a three-year period, unless they are working or enrolled in an education and training program for at least 80 hours a month. However, states can waive this time limit when unemployment is high or there aren’t enough jobs available.The proposed rule would tighten the criteria states must meet when applying for waivers from USDA, and it is projected to save an estimated $15 billion over a decade, Brandon Lipps, administrator of USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service, told reporters.An estimated 755,000 of these individuals would lose SNAP benefits over three years if the USDA proposal is implemented. Lipps said the number of areas across the country with waivers would shrink by 75 percent.
Bankers praise farm bill's credit title
DTN | Posted on December 19, 2018The Agricultural Act of 2018 raises FSA loan guarantees to $1.75 million from the current $1.399 million. It also doubles the loan limit for direct farm ownership, or real estate, loans to $600,000 and increases the limit on direct farm operating loans by $100,000 to $400,000. Elfmann said lenders often use a combination of banking products to meet borrowers' needs. With an FSA loan guarantee, the bank or another lender closes the loan and advances the funds to the borrower. In the event the borrower defaults, FSA reimburses the bank. A direct loan is funded by the FSA, which also makes and services the loan.Mark Scanlan, senior vice president of agriculture and rural policy at Independent Community Bankers of America, said the higher limits will help community banks serve more borrowers."There's been a slight decline in the demand for guaranteed farm loans in recent years for a variety of reasons, but one of those reasons is the payment limit. So this will help serve those types of farmers, particularly when we have this continued decline in farm income levels," Scanlan told DTN.Farm incomes have declined since hitting their peak in 2013, and USDA forecasts farm incomes in 2018 will be down 12% from 2017. It's below the average net farm income for the past 17 years.
The ARC farm program failed as a widespread safety net for agriculture in 2017
Ag Policy | Posted on December 18, 2018A couple of weeks ago, a reader from Iowa wrote us, “I stopped into the Farm Service Agency office today…to see if there would be any farm subsidies this year, (as I hadn’t received any yet). They said there would be none for my county and most other counties [in Iowa]. “So, your predictions about ARC [Agricultural Risk Coverage] have come true, a bit more dramatically than I expected.”He then asked, “I wonder what it’s like in other states?”That piqued our interest, so we decided to look up the numbers and share with all of our readers what we found. First, let’s start with Iowa. Farmers in 12 of Iowa’s 99 counties (12 percent) received county ARC payments for corn. With soybeans, the picture is much the same, 11 out of the 99 counties (11 percent). As for wheat, no Iowa counties were listed for ARC payments.Our next step was to look at the other two I’s of the triple I corn belt states, Illinois and Indiana.In Illinois, the picture was not much brighter. For corn, 18 counties (18 percent) received ARC payments, while 19 (19 percent) received soybean payments. In addition, farmers in 37 (36 percent) of the state’s counties received ARC payments for wheat.Moving one state east, the picture for corn remained much the same; 17 Indiana counties (19 percent) received ARC payments. With soybeans, the picture is quite different. Farmers in 35 counties (38 percent of the state’s counties) received ARC payments and a whopping 72 counties (78 percent) qualified for wheat ARC payments.The state with the highest percentage of counties receiving ARC payments for corn was Maine (93.8) followed by South Dakota (67 percent), North Dakota (57 percent), and Kansas (52.4 percent). For soybeans the ranking begins with Ohio (65 percent) followed by South Dakota (59 percent), North Dakota (57 percent), and Michigan (52 percent). Turning to wheat, Idaho (86.4 percent) leads the list of states with the highest percentage of counties receiving ARC payments, with North Dakota (85 percent), South Dakota (80 percent) and South Carolina (80 percent) following close behind.
Groups push for ag to be included in any U.S./EU trade deal
Meating Place (free registration required) | Posted on December 18, 2018An ad hoc coalition of more than 50 food and agriculture organizations is insisting that any trade deal between the United States and the European Union include agriculture and that it address the EU’s restrictive tariff and non-tariff barriers to U.S. farm products. In a letter sent to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, 53 organizations, led by the National Pork Producers Council, urged the Trump administration “to continue stressing to [the EU] that only a truly comprehensive agreement will be acceptable to the Administration and, ultimately, to the U.S. Congress.”The EU has expressed reluctance to include agriculture – as it did during earlier negotiations on the U.S.-EU Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership – knowing it would require lifting import barriers that protect EU farmers and removing regulatory measures that are seen as scientifically unjustified or overly restrictive.The United States had a trade deficit in food and agricultural goods of nearly $11 billion last year. That deficit was $1.8 billion in 2000.
Stabenow: Farm Bill would benefit Detroit's urban agriculture
The Detroit News | Posted on December 18, 2018Democratic U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow on Monday championed reforms to encourage urban agriculture in the 2018 Farm Bill. Stabenow, a ranking member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, urged President Donald Trump to sign the bipartisan legislation that would widen a safety net for farmers, encourage conservation efforts and protect food assistance programs.Both chambers of Congress passed the bill by wide margins last week."I see through the lens of Michigan, and Michigan really is on every page," Stabenow said during a press conference at Eastern Market. "I'm proud we were able to get this done in the midst of all of what has been happening in Congress...This is something that will be a wonderful Christmas present for many, many, many people."Of particular importance for places such as Detroit, the bill would create the Office of Urban Agriculture in the U.S. Department of Agriculture to support urban farming and job creation.
U.S. ethanol producers seek pricing reform as markets plunge, ADM sells
Reuters | Posted on December 18, 2018U.S. ethanol producers stung by collapsing prices are seeking changes to the way benchmark values for the biofuel are established, arguing the current system used by exchanges is vulnerable to manipulation, according to sources. The push comes as the key farm belt industry struggles with weak demand growth, a loss of export markets due to the U.S. trade war with China, and aggressive selling by global commodities giant Archer Daniels Midland Co that have pushed ethanol prices to 13-year lows.Top U.S. ethanol producer POET LLC has asked the CME Group to change its pricing method for a key swap contract used by the industry to hedge, and the rival ICE exchange is contemplating offering an alternative to CME’s product after discussions with biofuels companies, according to three sources familiar with the moves who asked not to be named because they are not authorized to speak publicly.