The attorneys general of 15 states are waiting to see if the U.S. Supreme Court will take up a pair of cases by Missouri and Indiana against California and Massachusetts over what they see as a violation of interstate commerce by trying to regulate agricultural production in other states. [node:read-more:link]
Agriculture amounts to a small part of NAFTA trade volume but it is a major sticking point for U.S. and Canadian negotiators who are scheduled to resume negotiations on the new NAFTA on Wednesday. The second-largest U.S. farm group said the White House ought to adopt the dairy supply management system that it reportedly is trying to eliminate in Canada and reinstate country-of-origin labeling on beef. Canada is unlikely to yield on supply management, which has broad domestic political support, wrote associate professor Michael von Massow of the University of Guelph. [node:read-more:link]
When the House and Senate farm-bill conference committee meets Wednesday, there are some things they should discuss but probably won’t: the Trump administration’s decisions to place the Agriculture Department’s economic research functions directly under the secretary and to move most of the employees of the Economic Research Service and the National Institute for Food and Agriculture out of Washington. Perdue’s argument is that he plans to move the agencies so that the researchers will be closer to the farmers who benefit from their work. [node:read-more:link]
The Maine wild blueberry industry harvests one of the most beloved fruit crops in New England, but it’s locked in a downward skid in a time when other nutrition-packed foods, from acai to quinoa, dominate the conversation about how to eat. And questions linger about when, and if, the berry will be able to make a comeback. The little blueberries are touted by health food bloggers and natural food stores because of their hefty dose of antioxidants. [node:read-more:link]
Cranberry farmers buried under a glut of the tart fruit are seeking permission for a radical way to dig themselves out: destroying millions of pounds of their crops. [node:read-more:link]
Despite another bin-busting U.S. corn-belt production year, trade tensions and the plunging Brazilian real, grain prices are relatively stalwart. For prices to sustain lower, it appears the near-perfect bear-market storm conditions need to endure — that’s unlikely. Led by wheat, the Bloomberg Grains Spot Index is up almost 2% in 2018 to Aug. 28. Broad agriculture is down almost 5% on the back of a 20% slump in the softs and real. Total returns are lower due to steep contangos but indicating improvement. The wheat one-year future curve leads major commodities moving toward backwardation. [node:read-more:link]
Imagine the farm that raised the chicken that produced the meat that sits in your sandwich: a few workers, thousands of birds, tens of thousands of pounds of white and dark meat, work that starts before dawn and ends after dusk, uncertain revenue, slim profits. There are thousands of these small farms in the United States, and they benefit from millions of dollars of taxpayer support each year. Chicken is America’s favorite protein, after all. Family farms are one of its most prized institutions. And farming is tough business. [node:read-more:link]
“Today’s announcement by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) on its tariff mitigation plan falls far short of addressing the losses dairy producers are experiencing due to trade retaliation resulting from the Trump Administration’s imposition of steel and aluminum tariffs. [node:read-more:link]
The last couple of weeks have seen some news out of Russia that have resulted in dramatic price swings. To catch up, a few Fridays ago rumors begin to circulate that the Russian Agriculture Ministry intended to curb wheat export demand by placing limits on shipments once exporters hit 30 million metric tons of exports. This hit the news not by an official announcement from the Russian government, but from a word-of-mouth exchange with one of the exporters allegedly present during a discussion about this potential policy. [node:read-more:link]
The challenges of rural America and Russian political interference seem on opposite spectrums of connectedness, until one stops to examine how Russia is poised to benefit from the current turbulence in global trade policy. Is the Trump administration truly crafting new trade frameworks, or is the Russian agriculture sector building its future on the bankruptcies of America's breadbasket? The current deck is undeniably stacked against U.S. [node:read-more:link]
