An ongoing Census Bureau survey indicates food insecurity is getting worse this year around the country. According to the latest figures for June 28 through July 10, 12.1% of American adults – about 27 million people – were in living in households that said they haven’t had enough food in the last seven days.
That compares to a rate of 11.2%, or 25.2 million adults, experiencing food scarcity in the first two weeks of January.
Mississippi leads the nation with a food scarcity rate of 22.6% in the latest survey, followed by Oklahoma at 19.4%.
Take note: The number of food-insecure people has grown by 3 million people since early March when a pandemic-based increase in SNAP benefits ended. The food scarcity rate then was 10.7%.
By the way: USDA’s Economic Research Service will release its annual household food security report in October – one month later than usual – because of updates to the survey.
Ukraine firms up train route for grain shipment through Moldova
Ukrainian Agriculture Minister Mykola Solskyi met Friday with Moldovan transportation officials to wrap up an agreement allowing Ukrainian grain shipments by rail through Moldova to ports on the Danube River.
Moldova agreed two weeks ago to slash tariffs on Ukrainian grain and sunflower oil, opening up a new route for Ukraine to deliver its ag commodities to Black Sea ports such as Constanta on the coast of Romania. That’s increasingly important after Russia terminated the Black Sea Grain Initiative, a United Nations-brokered deal that had been allowing Ukraine to export through three of its main ports in Odesa.
Senators seek to expand technical assistance
Senate Agriculture Committee member Ben Ray Luján, D-N.M., and Kansas Republican Jerry Moran are proposing to expand the use of farmer-to-farmer networks to help producers adopt new conservation practices.
The senators are co-sponsoring a bill, the Farmer to Farmer Education Act, that would authorize USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service to work with community-based groups to create new peer-to-peer networks or to expand the reach of existing ones. The bill says the networks are intended to “increase long-term adoption of consistent, science-based, site-specific practices designed to achieve conservation objectives on land active in agricultural, forestry, or related uses.”
Why it matters: NRCS struggles to keep up with the demand for conservation technical assistance.
Democrats seeking agriculture worker safety, competition reforms
Democratic members of the House and Senate last week proposed massive reforms centered around agricultural competition and worker safety through two new bills.
The Agricultural Worker Justice Act would, among other things, allow USDA only to issue line speed waivers at meat and poultry plants if it can inspect and prove that the increase would not “adversely impact worker safety,” require companies competing for government contracts to disclose labor and worker safety infractions, and require the Labor Department to create a worker safety inspection program for meat and poultry plants.
The Fairness for Small-Scale Farmers and Ranchers Act would require the Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission to review agriculture business mergers since 2006 and “unwind” them if they determine harm to competition, farmers or ranchers, workers or consumers. The bill would also enact mandatory country-of-origin labeling requirements for beef and pork, ban the use of the tournament system in the poultry market, and prohibit most packers from directly owning or feeding livestock, among other things.
Wisconsin celebrates new international ag export facility
The Port of Milwaukee has a new $40 million ag export facility from which handymax bulk vessels – typically between 150 and 200 meters in length – can deliver commodities to international buyers through the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Seaway.
The facility will have a storage capacity of 45,000 metric tons and is expected to handle primarily distillers’ grains, but can also ship corn, soybeans and other commodities, according to USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service.
Port Director Jackie Carter called the facility an “integral link in the Wisconsin economy” in a statement published by AMS. “In this case, we are connecting Wisconsin farmers, growers, and producers with new international markets,” she said.
Why it’s important: Wisconsin’s nine ethanol plants have been shipping most of their distillers’ grains on trucks to Chicago for export in containers. Now the corn product can be sent via rail or truck to the Port of Milwaukee for bulk shipment. AMS estimates the new construction will eliminate about 1,600 truck trips annually while also offering the potential to serve Iowa and Minnesota ethanol plants.
BASF sales dip 25% in second quarter
After adjusting its earnings downward earlier in the month, German chemicals giant BASF reported sales in the second quarter of $19 billion, nearly 25% below the same period a year ago.
Coming in at $2.43 billion, sales in the agricultural solutions segment were down 9.6% from the second quarter of 2022.
Martin Brudermüller, chairman of the Board of Executive Directors, said the downturn in the ag segment “was mainly due to lower volumes resulting from cautious buying behavior, as crop commodity prices softened” compared with last year’s second quarter. “Higher channel inventories also played a role.”
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Despite significantly lower herbicide sales in North America in the second quarter, BASF Chief Financial Officer Dirk Elvermann called Ag Solutions’ first-half performance “fantastic.” The segment’s sales for the first six months were $6.7 billion, up from $6.5 billion in the first half of 2022.
NEPA revisions stress environmental justice, climate change in federal project reviews
The latest proposed revisions to the National Environmental Policy Act emphasize interagency coordination, environmental justice, climate change, and public involvement in environmental reviews.
Reaction to last week's Council on Environmental Quality’s proposal was mixed, with Republicans on Capitol Hill and business groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce saying it would slow down the permitting process.
“While the proposed rule does include some permit streamlining measures required by the debt ceiling agreement, it also contains provisions that would further delay project approvals for nearly $2 trillion in public investments,” the chamber said.
The Environmental Defense Fund, however, said the proposed rule “includes steps that would accelerate the process for approving clean energy projects and make it easier for communities to have a voice in those approvals.”
They said it: “In many respects, NEPA was a statute ahead of its time and remains relevant and vital today. It codifies the common-sense idea of ‘look before you leap’ to guide agency decision making, particularly in complex and consequential areas, because conducting sound environmental analysis before agencies take actions reduces conflict and waste in the long run by avoiding unnecessary harm and uninformed decisions.” – Council on Environmental Quality proposed rule, July 28.
Philip Brasher, Bill Tomson and Noah Wicks contributed to this report
Questions, comments, tips? Email Associate Editor Steve Davies
