The House is scheduled to vote again this morning on Jim Jordan as House speaker after he was unable to turn enough votes to force a second vote Tuesday evening. “We are going to keep working,” Jordan told reporters after that second vote was put off until today.
Jordan got only 200 votes in the initial ballot Tuesday, 17 short of what he needed.
House Ag Chairman Glenn “GT” Thompson, R-Pa., has been optimistic about moving a farm bill after talking to Jordan ahead of Tuesday’s balloting. “But we are at ground zero again,” Thompson told reporters after Tuesday’s vote. “I have no idea where we go to from here.”
Take note: Three House Ag Republicans voted for someone other than Jordan: Don Bacon of Nebraska, Doug LaMalfa of California, and Lori Chavez-DeRemer or Oregon. All three lent their support to former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy; LaMalfa told reporters that his vote was essentially in protest of McCarthy’s ouster Oct. 3, and he’ll vote for Jordan next time.
Keep in mind: The GOP holdouts who appear to be pretty strong noes on Jordan include the chairwoman of the House Appropriations Committee, Kay Granger of Texas, as well as several Appropriations subcommittee chairs. It’s no small matter for a committee chair to vote against the party’s nominee for speaker.
Syngenta unit ordered to sell Ark. land
Northrup King Seed Co., a subsidiary of Syngenta, has been ordered to divest its ownership of 160 acres of land under a new Arkansas law prohibiting businesses “controlled” by China and certain other countries from holding land in the state.
The company is also facing a $280,000 fine - 25% of the reported fair market value of the land - for failing to report foreign ownership on time, according to the letter it received from Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin.
Syngenta is owned by a Chinese state-owned business, the China National Chemical Co.
Vilsack seen ‘committed’ to ag labor assistance
The National Council of Agricultural Employers hosted an educational webinar Tuesday focusing on USDA’s new Farm Labor Stabilization and Protection Pilot Program. The FLSP will award up to $65 million in grants to help agricultural employers implement robust labor standards on farms and ranches while facilitating lawful migration pathways through the H-2A temporary worker program.
Michael Marsh, president and CEO of NCAE, was impressed with what Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack said on the webinar. “He is really committed to the success of this grant program and its potential for mitigating irregular migration into the United States,” Marsh said.
There’s a lot of interest in the program, Marsh said. “I think with the out-of-control costs associated with the [H-2A] program, members are looking for any means they can to comply with the program and then hopefully make a dollar at the end of the day,” Marsh said.
Analysis: US beef exports in prolonged decline
A smaller calf crop this year means higher beef prices, fewer exports and more imports, and that’s going to likely be the trend over the next few years, according to an analysis by University of Kentucky economist Kenny Burdine.
The U.S. exported about 12.5% of the beef it produced in 2022 and imports equal to about 12% of what production was, says Burdine in the analysis published by Southern Ag Today. But that ratio is changing. U.S. beef exports dropped by about 14% over the first eight months of this year, while beef production dropped by 4% in the first half of the year.
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.
“Given that this calf crop is smaller than last year’s calf crop, beef production is likely to decrease in 2024. And given expectations for lower beef cow inventory next year, I would expect beef production to be lower again in 2025,” Burdine says.
Russian wheat forecast cut amid harsh weather
The Moscow-based consulting firm SovEcon has cut its forecast for Russian wheat production by 200,000 metric tons due to “deteriorating crop prospects in the Urals and Siberia regions.” The firm’s new prediction is for 91.4 million tons, substantially above USDA’s expectations for 85 million tons.
“Despite a slight reduction in the Russian wheat crop estimate, wheat supply will remain high, continuing to exert pressure on global prices,” the firm says in the latest edition of the Sizov report. “At the same time, the main issue for Russian exports currently is not total supply volume, but infrastructural bottlenecks and governmental intervention.”
Mill officials who misled investigators about deadly explosion convicted
A 2017 explosion that killed five workers and seriously injured others at a corn mill in Cambria, Wisconsin, has resulted in the convictions of former and current officials of Didion Milling on workplace safety, environmental, fraud and obstruction of justice charges.
The company’s vice president of operations, Derrick Clark, “was convicted of conspiring to falsify documents, making false Clean Air Act compliance certifications as Didion’s ‘responsible official’ and obstructing the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s investigation … by making false and misleading statements during a deposition,” the Justice Department says.
The company previously pleaded guilty to falsifying the cleaning logs and baghouse logs at the mill and agreed to pay a criminal fine of $1 million and $10.25 million in restitutions to the victims.
He said it. “I think at this late stage of the game, it's impossible to get anything much more than
a one-year extension or a two-year extension of the existing farm bill. And I don't think anybody's going to stand in the way of that happening.” – Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, on the near-term prospects for a new farm bill.
