Ag Policy Blog

USDA under the Biden administration has pushed to tighten enforcement of the 103-year-old Packers and Stockyards Act through a series of rules tied to fairness and market competition. The Supreme Court's ruling likely leads to more legal challenges of those rules.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack made announced at the Clean Fuels Alliance America meeting that USDA wants more information to help guide the Treasury Department in drafting the regulations for the for the Section 45Z Clean Fuels Production Credit for SAF.

The Fair and Competitive Livestock and Poultry Markets proposed rule would clarify the interpretation of "unfair" under the P&S Act and spell out in more detail conduct prohibited under the law. USDA stated the rule would help ensure livestock and poultry producers receive...

Agricultural exports are forecast to stay on pace, but Americans are increasing imports of fruits and vegetables. Challenges with U.S. agricultural growers suggest those produce imports will continue to rise.

The budget outlook from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released this week adds some fuel to the fire over the split in Congress when it comes to funding the farm bill.

The grants to farms range from as small as $25,000 to as large as $1.72 million. Most of the grant awardees note the challenge of finding workers and labor shortages they face. While most of the farms are involved in fruit and vegetable production, others also are custom...

Speaking to DTN on Thursday, Kansas Sen. Roger Marshall said Republicans won't sign off on a bill led by Democrats without focusing more heavily on increasing farm programs and expanding crop insurance. Marshall said he expects the GOP will wait until they are in the Senate...

FDA officials are raising more concerns about raw milk. With sales of raw milk allowed in some form in most states, FDA is calling on state and local health officials to distribute more information to the public about health risks of consuming raw milk and monitor dairy herds more...

The U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Commodities, Risk Management and Trade on Tuesday heard from a Mississippi crop farmer, a Minnesota livestock producer and a Florida dairy farmer, as well as a Farm Credit lender. Each spoke about higher costs, higher interest rates and the need...

A new proposed rule announced Monday by USDA would how contract poultry growers are paid as well as demands by processors for growers to make expensive upgrades to their facilities as well. The proposal drew quick criticism from the National Chicken Council.

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.