It’s been two weeks since the House had a speaker, but that could well end today. Jim Jordan flipped a series of GOP holdouts on Monday, including Armed Services Chairman Mike Rogers of Alabama, and was building momentum throughout the day.
Jordan ultimately must get at least 217 votes, assuming all 212 Democrats vote against him.
A Jordan victory would be an historic win for hardline conservatives in the House, although he clearly seems to have provided some assurances that have won over moderate farm-district colleagues. In an interview with conservative talk show host Erick Erickson on Monday, House Freedom Caucus member Chip Roy, R-Texas, said Jordan is “a real conservative that the grassroots will trust and believe in.”
But Roy also suggested Jordan is going to have to make some compromises. “If we're successful, it would be an enormous, enormous victory. But we will all have to have a little grace to figure out how to give Jim some rope to lead.”
USDA awards $52.6 million in fertilizer grants
Efforts to turn chicken manure into fertilizer were awarded more than $7 million in Rural Development grants as part of a package of $52.6 million in grants announced Monday by USDA.
Bionutrients Ag, a joint venture of Hello Nature and MPS Egg Farms, is getting $5.5 million to offset the costs of equipping a facility in Wabash, Indiana, “to process chicken manure and other waste from egg production facilities into fertilizer,” USDA said in a summary of the grants.
Another $2 million is going to EnviroKure, located in Pennsylvania and Ohio, which USDA said has developed a way to quickly upcycle chicken manure into biofertilizers and biostimulants.
Including Monday’s announcement, USDA said that since the fertilizer program was announced about a year and a half ago, 33 projects have received more than $121 million. Funding available under the Fertilizer Production Expansion Program was increased to $900 million in June.
More from the secretary: In an interview with Agri-Pulse’s Jeff Nalley, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said the department is reviewing about 60 applications and would be making decisions on those soon.
Vilsack said companies have been “more than matching” the grants. “You’re looking at literally billions of dollars eventually, when this is all said and done, of investment by the private sector,” he said.
USDA: More requests to insure double-cropped acres
The Agriculture Department says it received over 4,100 new requests for crop insurance coverage after relaxing rules to allow producers in more than 1,500 counties to insure double-cropped acres.
Nearly 1 million crop acres were insured in states that saw double-cropping rule changes, which is up 43% from the average between 2014 and 2022, USDA said in a press release.
The agency said Illinois, Ohio and Michigan — three states that saw double cropping rule changes — also saw increases in winter wheat plantings. Winter wheat plantings in Illinois, it said, jumped nearly 40%, while increasing 30% in Ohio and 21.5% in Michigan.
Take note: The rule changes were a key part of the White House’s bid to bolster wheat production in response to the war in Ukraine, though the National Association of Wheat Growers previously estimated that the amount of wheat able to be grown under the new rules would fall below what would be needed to offset losses resulting from the conflict.
Supreme Court lets pro-PETA ruling from appeals court stand
A federal appeals court ruling that found video recording as part of newsgathering is protected speech will stand after the Supreme Court rejected a petition brought by the North Carolina Farm Bureau and the state’s attorney general.
The bureau and the state sought review of the decision, which held for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals in the group’s challenge to the state’s “ag gag” law. The 2-1 ruling partially enjoined enforcement of the law.
The decision “upheld that undercover investigative work is protected by the First Amendment and supports much-needed accountability across the agriculture industry in North Carolina,” PETA said when the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals issued its decision in February.
The NCFB and attorney general had argued that the high court should take on the case because it presents a conflict among the federal circuit courts of appeals “over whether unauthorized recording on nonpublic property is constitutionally protected speech.”
In addition to North Carolina, the 4th Circuit’s jurisdiction includes South Carolina, Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia.
Weather slows planting by some Brazilian soybean farmers
Brazil’s farmers are making progress planting this year’s crop, but it’s going a little slower than expected because of higher-than-normal temperatures and sporadic rainfall in some regions, according to the consulting firm AgRural.
Some farmers in the key growing state of Mato Grosso may have to replant, the firm said.
It’s easy to be “in the know” about what’s happening in Washington, D.C. Sign up for a FREE month of Agri-Pulse news! Simply click here.
Still, Brazil’s 2023 crop is now 17% planted. That’s up from 10% a week ago, but also down from 24% complete at this time a year ago.
Haiti-Dominican Republic border spat takes toll on ag trade and farmers
The Haitian people are already suffering under widespread gang violence, but a border argument with the Dominican Republic is adding to misery. Commerce between the two countries that allowed Dominican deliveries of pasta, soybean oil, cereal, wheat flour, poultry, pork and eggs to Haiti remains closed, according to a report from USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service.
At the core of the fight is a canal that Haiti is building along a border river that Dominican leaders say is stealing water from the country’s farmers.
“After 19 days of border closure, it is evident that the commercial shutdown has had a significant impact on both countries,” according to the report out of the FAS office in Santo Domingo. “Haiti holds the position of being the second-largest export destination for Dominican products, and it relies heavily on the DR for a variety of essential commodities, including food.”
Take note: Many of the ag commodities sent across the border originated in the U.S. and are often processed in the Dominican Republic before being shipped to Haiti. The U.S. exported $126 million worth of wheat to the DR in 2022, much of which is milled and then shipped across the border to Haitian bakeries.
He said it. “We were creative in using it before. One wonders why we can't be creative in using it now.” – Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, suggesting the use of USDA’s Commodity Credit Corporation account to meet needs that can’t be funded through the next farm bill.
Vilsack, who made the comment in an interview with Agri-Pulse’s Jeff Nalley, laid out a plan to House and Senate appropriators last month to provide $2.5 billion in CCC funding for food aid and market promotion.
Questions, comments, tips? Email bill@agri-pulse.com
