There are fresh signals that lawmakers remain a long way off from passing a new farm bill. The Senate’s No. 2 Republican, Minority Whip John Thune of South Dakota, told reporters Thursday that Senate Agriculture Committee leaders are “behind the pace of where they want to be. … I don’t think we’re anywhere close to moving a bill yet.”
Finding money for the bill continues to be “really hard,” Thune said.
The senior Republican on the Ag Committee, John Boozman, told Agri-Pulse separately that the Commodity Credit Corporation spending that he and Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., have requested for foreign market promotion could serve as a “bridge” until Congress can pass a farm bill. Funding authority for the Market Access and Foreign Market Development programs expires Sept. 30.
“Hopefully we'll get a farm bill done in the next few months, but it might be well into next year,” said Boozman of Arkansas.
Take note: The commodity title remains a key sticking point for lawmakers. Boozman has said he won’t vote for a farm bill that doesn’t raise reference prices.
Sen. Tina Smith, speaking on this week’s Agri-Pulse Newsmakers, confirms that the commodity title remains a key challenge. “There are some things that they are caught up on, particularly in the commodity title,” the Minnesota Democrat said.
This week’s Newsmakers will be available today at Agri-Pulse.com.
Study: Technology needed to cut food system’s GHGs
Dietary changes can help reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but it will take much more than that for the world’s food system to achieve “net negative” emissions.
That’s the conclusion of a new study that said the “most promising technologies” to enter negative emissions territory include hydrogen-powered fertilizer production, livestock feeds, organic and inorganic soil amendments, agroforestry, and sustainable seafood harvesting practices. The global food system contributes 21% to 37% of the planet’s emissions annually.
“Adopting flexitarian diets cannot achieve full decarbonization of the food system but has the potential to increase the magnitude of net negative emissions when combined with technology scale-up,” say the authors of the paper, led by Benjamin Houlton, dean of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Cornell University, and Maya Almaraz, an associate research scholar at Princeton.
STB unveils new reciprocal switching plan
The Surface Transportation Board is proposing a new rule to allow shippers facing inadequate rail service to use a competitor on their typical provider’s tracks.
STB Chair Martin Oberman says the rule would "provide additional relief to rail customers suffering from poor service” and “inject” more competition in rail networks.
Take note: Shipper groups, like the National Grain and Feed Association and the American Chemistry Council, have previously called for the STB to update reciprocal switching rules to ease service concerns.
The American Association of Railroads says the agency should avoid any rule “upending the fundamental economics and operations of an industry critical to the national economy."
Report: Produce credits preferred over produce boxes
A new report finds that low-income families overwhelmingly prefer getting credits to buy fruits and vegetables rather than receiving the type of produce boxes USDA provided during the pandemic.
The Indianapolis Good Food for All program, a partnership between Partnership for Healthier America and Instacart, tested the feasibility of a produce credit model this year in that city. In the first phase, families received pre-packaged boxes with approximately 50 servings of fresh fruits and vegetables weekly for 10 weeks. During the second phase, families were given $50 in produce purchasing credits per month.
Four out of five of the participants prefer produce credits rather than produce boxes delivered to their doorstep. The same majority say they’ll continue buying fruits and vegetables.
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Instacart and PHA plan to add four additional cities: Denver, Milwaukee, Washington, D.C., and Englewood, New Jersey.
Brazil’s ethanol production on the rise
Brazil is now forecast to produce 8.7 billion gallons of ethanol this year – 5% more than it did last year – and the government is considering an increase to the gasoline blend rate, according to a new report from USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service.
A rise in corn-based ethanol production and a surplus of sugarcane supplies is behind the higher forecast, according to the FAS office in Brasilia. The report notes that Brazil’s decision to increase its tariff on U.S. ethanol imports to 16% remains in place.
The government-mandated blend rate for ethanol in gasoline is still 27%, but FAS says the Ministry of Mines and Energy is considering raising that to 30%.
US pork exports have a strong July
The U.S. exported 219,014 metric tons of pork in July, valued at about $629 million, according to the U.S. Meat Export Federation. That’s a 5% increase in volume and a 1% increase in value over July of last year.
Mexican imports, which “continued on a record pace,” together with increased sales to Taiwan, Canada and elsewhere helped drive the July increase that contributed to strong year-to-date totals, said USMEF. The U.S. exported 1.69 million tons of pork valued at $4.67 billion. That’s a 13% increase in volume and a 10% increase in value.
USDA to compensate dairy operations for milk lost to disasters, dumping
Dairy producers who had to dump milk or otherwise suffered losses due to disasters in 2020, 2021 or 2022 could be eligible for compensation from USDA. The deadline to apply is Oct. 16, according to a rule to be published next week in the Federal Register.
Many producers lost money when a sharp drop in demand at the onset of the COVID pandemic forced them to dump supplies.
He said it. “Patients across America are facing increasing health care facility closures, travel distances, and wait times, driven by a shrinking health care workforce, health care consolidation, and patchwork financing models. This access challenge is uniquely difficult for patients and families living in rural and underserved areas in America.” – House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith, R-Mo., announcing in a letter that the panel is taking input on ways to address those disparities.
Smith says the panel will explore “bold new solutions to incentivize access to care and improve our nation’s health for future generations.
Steve Davies, Noah Wicks, Jacqui Fatka and Noah Wicks contributed to this report.
