The chaos among House Republicans isn’t the only hurdle facing a new farm bill. Senate Republican Whip John Thune, R-S.D., says the Senate Ag Committee remains divided over key issues, including what to do about the major commodity programs.
Thune pins the blame on Senate Ag Committee Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich. “At some point, she's going to have to commit to working with Republicans on dealing with the crop insurance program, the ARC program, the PLC program, the safety net provisions in the commodity title, which is where most of our members want the attention focused,” Thune says on this week’s edition of Agri-Pulse Newsmakers. ARC is the Agriculture Risk Coverage program; PLC is Price Loss Coverage.
Defenders of Stabenow say it’s unfair to blame her for slowing the farm bill when Republicans haven’t figured out how to cover the potentially high cost of increasing PLC reference prices. Stabenow has flatly ruled out moving funding from conservation programs to the commodity title.
Newsmakers will be available today at Agri-Pulse.com.
16 House Rs: Keep EATS Act out of farm bill
Sixteen House Republicans are asking the House Ag Committee to leave the Ending Agricultural Trade Suppression (EATS) Act out of the farm bill. They say the measure, which is intended to preempt California’s Proposition 12 and other state-imposed mandates on ag practices, is “at odds with our foundational Republican principles of states’ rights, national sovereignty, and fair competition.”
In a letter to Ag Chairman Glenn Thompson and ranking member David Scott, the Republicans say the EATS Act is “an attempt by the federal government to substitute its judgment for that of states.”
Why it could matter: House Republican leaders will need every GOP vote they can get should they decide to move a partisan farm bill.
The China card: The Republicans also claim that adding the EATS Act to the farm bill would allow the China-based WH Group, which owns pork giant Smithfield Foods, “to bypass state-level laws and rapidly acquire even more American land and pork industry assets with no restraints at all.”
Smithfield, which supports the EATS Act, said in a recent statement to Agri-Pulse that it’s concerned about changing state standards for sow housing. The company said the “goal posts have moved” since Smithfield shifted to group housing, “and they are moving differently in different states.”
House Ag member’s seat at risk after judges accept new map
An Alabama Republican on House Ag is being forced to run for reelection in a district that is very different from the one he has been representing. A three-judge panel has adopted a new voting map for the state that moves Rep. Barry Moore’s district from 31% Black to nearly 49%.
Moore won his race last year with 69% of the vote; Democrat Phyllis Harvey-Hall got 29%. Moore said recently he’s praying for guidance on whether to seek reelection.
The state was sued after its legislature failed, in the wake of the 2020 Census, to create a second district in the state that was either majority Black or close to it. The Supreme Court ruled this year that Alabama’s map violated the Voting Rights Act.
Why it matters: Control of the House is very much up for grabs heading into 2024. The House now has 221 Republicans and 212 Democrats.
House Ag Democrat: Land ownership is national security issue
A House Ag Democrat and CIA veteran who’s running for the Michigan Senate seat from which Debbie Stabenow is retiring is raising concerns about foreign purchases of U.S. farmland. Rep. Elissa Slotkin says in an Agri-Pulse Meet the Lawmaker interview that foreign land ownership should be a national security issue.
Slotkin says there needs to be a very strict process that would “weed out buyers that have a connection to an adversarial country from buying agricultural land.” Those countries of concern are China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran.
Food deserts in rural areas need new distribution options
The advent of food delivery services is helping close the food desert gap in cities. But many rural areas lack reliable broadband and have limited access to major delivery services such as Amazon, Instacart and Uber Eats.
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A new report from CoBank’s Knowledge Exchange says rural counties account for 87% of the U.S. counties with the highest food insecurity rates and that there are potential market opportunities for retailers to offer direct delivery or direct-to-consumer e-commerce platforms.
“A sizable portion of the country falls within the realm of a food desert, and with 10% of the U.S. population experiencing some degree of food insecurity, the market is there,” says Billy Roberts, senior food and beverage economist for CoBank.
“Innovation in the areas of driverless and drone delivery could ultimately provide food and beverage companies even more opportunities to establish direct relationships with underserved rural consumers.”
US ethanol exports in August drop to lowest of the year
August was the lowest month so far this year for U.S. ethanol exports, but the data shows trade is generally strong, registering the eighth consecutive month that shipments were above 100 million gallons, according to the Renewable Fuels Association.
The U.S. exported 102.3 million gallons of ethanol in August, a 10% drop from the July total. U.S. ethanol exports to the European Union fell by 24% to just 5.4 million gallons in August, according to RFA. And shipments to the UK dropped 19% to 13.5 million gallons.
Mexico drives US corn trade in latest weekly USDA data
For a country where the government says it wants to phase out all imports of GM corn, Mexico is buying a lot from the U.S. for this marketing year and the next. USDA reported total corn export sales of about 1.8 million metric tons during the week of Sept. 22-28. Nearly all of that – roughly 1.1 million tons – was sold to Mexican buyers for delivery in the 2023-24 marketing year.
Mexican customers also contracted to buy 611,400 tons of corn for delivery in the 2024-25 marketing year. Farmers won’t even begin planting that corn until next year.
He said it. “I think right now that could be … a very real possibility that we have to do some sort of an extension.” – Senate Republican Whip John Thune, R-S.D., on the potential for an extension of the 2018 farm bill in 2024, speaking on Agri-Pulse Newsmakers.
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