Ag Policy Blog

Leaders at the National Association of State Directors of Agriculture (NASDA) winter policy meeting in Washington were stunned Monday by news that Iowa farmer Bill Northey, a former USDA Undersecretary for Farm Production and Conservation, has passed away.

Crop insurance has generally focused on larger acreage crops, but USDA officials speaking to the crop insurance industry annual meeting called on the industry to include more farmers with smaller acreages and specialty crops in policies.

While the 2023 crop is highly unlikely to generate an ARC or PLC payment, a University of Nebraska-Lincoln webinar highlights new wrinkles to consider for ARC-PLC decisions involving the 2024 crop.

Six Republican lawmakers are declaring their opposition increasing reference prices, which are tied directly to the Agricultural Risk Coverage (ARC) or Price Loss Coverage (PLC) programs. That could put the House GOP in a bind trying to pass a farm bill on the floor.

A new climate report appears to bolster the case for keeping nearly $20 billion in conservation policies from the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) rather than shifting those dollars to other farm bill priorities as some lawmakers have proposed.

Senate Agriculture Committee Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., sent a letter to committee members on Wednesday, saying she wanted to outline her proposal for strengthening the safety net in the 2024 farm bill. A spokesman for Sen. John Boozman, R-Ark., said Thursday that...

The Government Accountability Office released a report on how USDA handles the details over foreign ownership of farmland. The National Corn Growers Association (NCGA)also expressed its disappointment in a decision over tariffs on imported fertilizer.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday heard a pair of closely watched cases about regulations that dive into a 40-year-old precedent over the way federal courts grant deference to government agencies when Congress is vague on the details of a law.

The GOP chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee and Democratic chairman of the Senate Finance Committee announced a proposed $78 billion deal Tuesday that provides a mix of business tax credits along with an expansion of the child tax credit.

One way for Congress to raise reference prices for the ARC and PLC programs is to figure out a way that USDA could tap the Commodity Credit Corp. fund to raise the prices, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said Thursday.

Western senators are concerned leaders on the Senate Agriculture Committee may leave some key drought-mitigation strategies out of the farm bill. A bipartisan group of 16 senators wrote leaders drafting the farm bill to add more resources in the bill to deal with some of the...

Reports are piling up about governors choosing to opt out of a new nutrition program for low-income public-school children, Summer Electronic Benefit Transfer, or Summer EBT. Governors so far have opted not to offer the program to families with roughly 6.9 million children.

When the Senate returns on Monday and the House on Tuesday, members will have to work quickly to reach agreement before funds run out for several agencies, including USDA, on January 19. The House Freedom Caucus, which represents a large block of House Republicans, also...

USDA continues to take actions suspending debt collections or other actions against producers who have delinquent loans. A provision of the Inflation Reduction Act allows USDA continue to delay debt collections or foreclosures even though nearly all pandemic-era programs have...

Missouri's governor issued a ban on the sale of land to foreign adversaries -- China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia and Venezuela -- within ten miles of all staffed military facilities in the state. The focus, given Missouri's land holdings, is China.

The typical decisions for the 2024 crop year are going to look a little different for ARC and PLC than in the past because the escalator for the effective reference price finally kicks in. While USDA recommends farmers "avoid the rush," they might want to see how their local...

In 2022, foreign investors acquired more than 3.4 million acres of land, and now hold interest in more than 43.4 million acres of agricultural land, which is considered both forests and farm ground. That equates to about 3.4% of all privately held agricultural land in the U.S.

The four dams on the Lower Snake River support about 100 million bushels of wheat exports out of the Pacific Northwest. Grain groups are concerned about moves in the Biden administration that could boos salmon runs, but hurt navigation

Sen. Roger Marshall brought up H.R. 1147, the Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act, which passed the House on Wednesday with a bipartisan 330-99 vote. A unanimous consent nod in the Senate would have immediately sent the bill to President Joe Biden's desk. That didn't happen.

A bill passed the House Wednesday that would allow the sale of fluid whole milk to schools nationwide. The bill would overturn a dietary guideline from 2012 that replaced whole milk in schools with low-fat milk. The dairy industry has pushed to overturn that USDA decision ever...