Ag Policy Blog

Along with new funding, USDA is creating a pilot program that would designate dairy farms as negative status for the H5N1 virus if they test negative for the virus three weeks in a row using on-farm bulk milk or similar milk samples. Herds that continue testing negative will be...

USDA's Food Safety Inspection System (FSIS) reported on Friday that viral particles were found in tissue samples of one out of 96 cows that were tested. Each of the cows tested were condemned and thus prohibited from entering the food supply.

As many as 1,500 other people were watching on YouTube at one point to see the House Agriculture Committee debate the farm bill. A lot of key votes all fell along the party lines of 29 Republicans and 25 Democrats. At times, Democrats seemed to surrender debate, but...

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack on Monday held a call with reporters to highlight $300 million in trade grant awards to 66 organizations under the Regional Agricultural Promotion Program, or RAPP. In holding the call, the secretary also defended his use of Commodity Credit Corp...

The ranking member of the House Agriculture Committee complained more about the GOP draft of the House farm bill compared to the chairwoman of the Senate Agriculture Committee. Groups also are leveling their criticisms of different provisions in the bill over conservation...

The House Republican farm bill raises reference prices more, allows all producers to obtain new base acres and makes other, bigger improvements to the farm safety net than the Senate framework that has been released. The House will push to markup the bill in committee next...

As the House Agriculture Committee gets ready to mark up its bill, the proposal includes several changes that would boost commodity reference prices and expand loan access through the Farm Service Agency as well.

The July Cattle report would take about $550,000 to fund while it would cost about $7 million to reinstate the county level yield report this year. But a decision to fund them would need to be made soon.

A World Bank report looks at ways to mitigate agriculture's contributions to climate change while a pair of upcoming webinars look at conservation in the farm bill and ways U.S. agriculture can lower greenhouse gas emissions.

Florida is the fourth state now to ban lab-grown meat from being sold in the state. Also, USDA has tested ground beef and found no signs of the H5N1 virus that has plagued the dairy herd. In other news, a potato remains a vegetable.

After months of talks and delays, leaders of the House and Senate Agriculture Committees each laid out separate farm-bill frameworks Wednesday with goals of pushing Congress to pass a new bill this year. The proposals still suffer from the same divisions over nutrition and...

A collection of groups and interests immediately weighed in after the U.S. Treasury Department released its guidance Tuesday for U.S. biofuel producers to receive sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) 40B tax credits. Some groups were encouraged by the guidance while others raised...

The testing of ground beef by USDA agencies comes after the Food and Drug Administration reported findings last week of finding genetic fragments of the H5N1 virus roughly 20% of tests conducted in retail milk samples across 38 states.

The new rule for employing H-2A agricultural guest workers includes several provisions, including allowing workers to talk about labor organzing or choosing not to attend employer-led meetings that are meant to discourage workers from joining unions. There are also new...

A trade mission this week to India largely appeared positive as officials talked about the potential to boost exports after India lowered tariffs on several agricultural products from the U.S. last year. Currently, India only accounts for about 1% of U.S. farm exports.

Articles over the past several days from multiple national news and science outlets challenge how USDA is handling information about H5N1 infections involving now 33 dairy herds in eight states.

Last week, Iowa environmental groups petitioned EPA to step in and protect drinking water in northeast Iowa from agricultural runoff. The same day, a farm LLC in a northeast Iowa county filed a federal lawsuit looking to overturn an USDA wetlands determination and the...

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack told reporters USDA had to fill in a 5.2% increase departmentwide in salaries with a flat budget that came seven months into the year. That was a big driver for NASS having to cut back on three different surveys for cattle, cotton and...

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack spoke Monday to the North American Agricultural Journalists (NAAJ) annual meeting. Vilsack's talk with reporters touched on the farm bill, the relationship with China, highly pathogenic avian influenza and the federal greenhouse gas model.

The chairwoman of the Senate Agriculture Committee said she sees promise in a proposal offered by Republicans on the Senate Agriculture Committee to increase premium subsidies for higher crop insurance protection levels.